PUYALLUP, Wash. – Experience Church recently overhauled their main sanctuary with a total McCauley solution built on the IN.LINE installation line array technology. Senior Pastor Dennis Cummins and Media Music Pastor Dave Richards researched their decision extensively, visiting worship technology conferences and participating in several demos from a range of manufacturers before making the decision to work with McCauley Sound.
The pastors knew the old system wasn’t getting their message across and needed a serious upgrade. At the same time, they were hoping to be able to save some budget by doing the much of the installation labor on their own.
Working closely with both local installation guru Tim Nole of Audio 21 and McCauley Sound's in-house support staff, Experience Church went forward with a total system overhaul built around four IN.LINE N120s, four IN.LINE N60s, eight IN.LINE N90s in two hangs. Additionally 4 NS1’s were suspended to fill in low frequencies to the balcony while two M88 subwoofers covered the main floor.
Cummins was enthusiastic about the new technology. “It’s all about the experience! We strive to provide our congregation the word of God in a way that isn’t boring, but interesting. Not only that, but it’s about feeling the message, not just going through the motions of attending church every Sunday.” he goes on, “Our FOH guy used to take a lot of heat, but it wasn’t his fault, it was the old speaker system.”
Cummins continues with a story of a member of the congregation who is legally deaf. “Before, she would come to church and not hear a thing that I preached. Afterwards, she would get the cd and listen to it at home. The first Sunday after we did the installation, she came right up to me and gave me the biggest hug. She thanked me because she finally heard every single thing I said. That’s what it’s all about!”
Since the installation’s completion in December, the response from the congregation has gone from “complaints to complements, overnight!” says Richards. “We don’t have people moving chairs around to try and hit the sweet sound spot during sermons, and that’s a nice change.”
Cummins and Richards had support finding exactly what they needed at the right price point from Tim Nole at Audio 21. “When we began looking for a system in November,” said Cummins. “We started off looking at a lot of other speaker manufacturers, because I know of other churches that have had them installed. But when it came down to the demo, they just weren’t as impressive as McCauley Sound. Tim made it very easy for us to choose McCauley because the price was precisely where we needed it to be. Our budget was limited but we didn’t want our system to sound that way. Audio 21 did a great job in getting the pricing right for us with the equipment we needed.”
“Working with Experience Church was fun,” recalls Jason Farris, vice president of McCauley Sound; “It was one of the few cases where we were able to interface with an end-user and installer both right in our backyard… literally down the street." Farris worked closely with Cummins and Nole to make sure the church’s system requirements were met while maintaining the best price point possible. “Even though Experience Church is in McCauley's zip code, we still provide the same world-class system design support as we would for a partner located halfway around the globe." Nole continues, "All of the guys at the factory, even Tom McCauley, got a real kick out of being able to pop in and see the installation as it was happening; to see all the ‘little things’ fall into place in real-time.”
Richards is passionate about involving the people who come to the church, and before the choice to go with IN.LINE, he was actually apprehensive whether a new system would do any better job reaching the congregation than the existing one. Richards explained “We’re in the people business and I knew the old system wasn’t getting the word across to everyone, but I didn’t realize how much room for improvement we really had." Richards is clearly excited about getting to work in the newly revitalized space, "When we did turn on the system, I was blown away, impressed beyond belief. You would have never guessed that I was the one who was skeptical about needing a new system. Now we ROCK for Jesus,” he exclaimed, including the “rock hand” gesture.
Daniel Casado, SDG chief, offers some insights into the design process from McCauley's point of view. “Experience Church supplied our installer Audio 21 with the blue prints, but the documents weren’t accurate to ‘as built’ specifications,” explains Casado. “Since I was driving by everyday anyway, Tim and I stopped by to measure part of the building with a laser range finder and fill in the blanks from the dated blueprints.”
Ryan Finley of the System Design Group recalls the process of getting the proper specs to do the EASE model of the room. “Once we had accurate room measurements, I was able to get the renderings done and back over to Tim at Audio 21 so he could present the church with how the McCauley line would work best for the facility.” Finley produced the EASE drawings and wrote up a synopsis of the project so the guys at Experience Church would be able to really understand how "dialed" the system would be. “I like providing that kind of information as it helps those involved to really grasp what’s going to happen in their room.”
“The support and information provided from McCauley Sound’s staff was fantastic,” exclaims Cummins. “At Experience Church.tv, we’re focused on consistency, and we received that and more from the McCauley staff. Jason, his team and the guys at Audio 21 really helped us not only find the right loudspeaker system for our space, but also made sure that everything supporting it was up to par, like introducing us to the Lab.gruppen amplifiers. I feel like we really got the best.”
Continuing to say that most churches have a reputation for sub-par systems, “we didn’t want that for our community. Now I feel as though we are providing the best services possible to our congregation. When people go to a concert, they pay to get the best live sound they can get; we wanted our free audience to receive the same thing. I’m confident in saying now that’s exactly what we’re providing.”
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