USE CASE STUDY: MICHAEL HODGE, LAKEWOOD CHURCH, HOUSTON TEXAS
Michael Hodge is the Worship Guitarist and a key figure in the audio and worship ministry at Lakewood Church in Houston, Texas— one of the largest and most influential churches in the world. Known for his deep musical roots and a heart for ministry, Michael brings decades of experience as a musician, producer, and worship leader, having worked on numerous projects with well-known worship artists including Israel Houghton, Integrity Music, and others in the contemporary Christian and gospel space. Today, Michael can be seen playing on the broadcast services and loves to mentor young musicians. He’ s a smart, talented, techie guy and loves to chat about the latest gear, software, production and technology integration.
Lakewood’ s production ecosystem includes 29 Universal Audio interfaces with more on the way, including 1 Apollo x4 on stage, 2 Apollo Twin X units in audio editing suites, 4 Apollo x16D interfaces and 2 Apollo 16s for tuning in broadcast, 4 Apollo x16Ds and two live racks at front-of-house, 4 Apollo x16Ds and two live racks in monitor world, 2 Apollo x8p units in an SKB case as a portable rig, 2 Apollo x16s as backup units, 1 Gen 1 Apollo in broadcast, and 1 Apollo x currently used for Pastor Joel Osteen’ s SiriusXM radio show.
According to Michael, every room on campus, from editing suites to live production zones, has at least one Apollo. Many have four or more.“ We’ ve got four 16Ds in the monitor room off the main stage, four in front-of-house, four in the broadcast suite,” Hodge explains.“ And that’ s just the beginning. I counted 12 16Ds across those rooms alone. These Apollos aren’ t simply used for monitoring. They handle an impressive range of processing duties.”
“ Tony Menendez is our Manager of Broadcast Audio. He’ s in charge of the broadcast mix and vocal tuning using UA Apollos”. Here’ s what Tony has to say:“ Some of these units are used for Auto-Tune,” Tony notes.“ But the real beauty is in how we process everything— from vocal
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