Bayside Church and Brewster, who frequently leads worship at the church when not on tour, have considerable influence on the Christian scene. “Lincoln was very much involved in our decision to replace our existing d&b system with the NEXO system,” states Lee Fields, Senior Audio Director for all audio systems and audio staff across the campuses. “It was really a joint effort; Lincoln trusts me, but at the same time, he is an incredible audio engineer in his own right. After all, he has mixed most of his own records.” The NEXO system was purchased through Special Event Services (SES), Sacramento.
Fields said that the core reason for changing line array systems was that the church seating had altered drastically. “The d&b system was a point and shoot system that mainly covered the floor (about 900 seats), with large delay boxes covering the remaining 1,000ish seats in the bleacher sections. The new seating arrangement is still 900 on the floor with another 1,400 in new stadium-style seats; that’s 500 new seating locations. Under the previous system, over half of the seating area would have been in coverage by delay speakers—not ideal for the worship experience we are trying to create. The NEXO line array has allowed us to cover the room much better from a single source, and, in every seat, the sound is amazing and surprisingly similar to the next.”
“Lincoln and I both have been to hundreds of churches and have seen a variety of PA systems: PAs that rival stadium touring rigs, PAs way too small for big rooms, PAs that are way too big for small rooms, PAs that sound great and are just right for a church, and PAs that cost way too much money for a church to be spending money on. We have found a product that far exceeds our needs sonically and that is also a perfect representation of being a good steward when it comes to our church’s money. This is the biggest win for us on a personal level, knowing that we didn’t have to spend zillions of dollars on a system. We are astonished by the performance of the GEO S12 rig. It feels great knowing our church can go about the duty of assisting people with the money we saved by choosing the product we did, and we didn’t sacrifice anything, rather, we gained everything.”
Fields has been a touring engineer for close to ten years and says he’s seen virtually all of the available line arrays. “I kept running into the GEO S12 at medium-size festivals, at conferences, and other events. Every time I got my hands on them, I loved them! A huge bonus is how supportive the team at Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems has been. Jake Cody, the House of Worship Manager, has been an invaluable resource to me, Lincoln, and to our church. The heart of the company, and Jake, is to help churches in anyway they can. The same can be said for Greg Slape from SES. They believe that an elite brand like NEXO can provide churches what they require in a line array, at an affordable price point. The quality of the service from Yamaha and SES is unmatched in this industry, and I don’t think anyone would disagree.”
“We chose the NEXO Geo S12 because it was the best sounding box we tried,” adds Brewster. “It also happened to be the least expensive, and in my opinion, is the best value in line-array systems today.”
Bayside Church has three other locations, all using NEXO systems with NXAMPs and Yamaha LS9 Digital Consoles. In total, there are over ten Yamaha digital consoles across all Bayside Church venues. On his Christmas tour, Lincoln Brewster took along a pair of the new Yamaha CL5 Digital Consoles as well as a NEXO GEO S12 system which, according to Fields, had the big advantage that rehearsals could be accomplished at their own church with the same PA used for the tour.
For more information on Bayside Church, visit www.baysideonline.com.