Redemption Church, Gilbert, AZ
When Redemption Church recently committed to an expansion and retrofit of their multipurpose conference and worship center, they wanted an audio, video and lighting system that would provide a truly meaningful experience for their members.
The new audio system, according to lead pastor Tim Maughan, would need to “do both music reproduction really well and the spoken word with absolute clarity.” But the center’s basic design introduced some challenges. It measured about 180 feet wide and 60 feet deep, with an irregular shaped caused by a large extension.
Fortunately, church member Jim Jorgensen, who had a close relationship with Maughan, happened to be an experienced audio engineer. Along with his experience working with several leading audio providers, Jorgensen helped with the installation of Martin Audio W8LM line arrays within the church’s chapel. “Jim was the first person I called,” Maughan noted.
To meet the sound reinforcement needs of the new worship center, Jorgensen recommended Martin’s MLA Compact system, citing potential advantages in both coverage and control.
The last hurdle was price, but Maughan became convinced that “the investment in MLA Compact was worth it,” justified not only by the sound quality but by the fact that “we had to replace the sound equipment in every church building we’ve ever been a part of at least two or three times. It’s more than worth bumping up the budget to get the system that we needed and would last for a long time.”
After a year-long fundraising effort, Redemption purchased the MLA Compact system from On Stage Audio, a certified MLA installation partner. The L-C-R audio setup consists of 12 MLA Compact enclosures, with four boxes in each of the three hangs, along with two MLX subwoofers mounted under the platform stage at the outer corners.
The system, completed by Martin Audio Merlin Controllers for loudspeaker and network management, also includes a Yamaha M7CL 48 channel mixer and a custom Whirlwind 64 channel splitter. Technical director Tim Smith and rigger Mike “Milk” Arnold did the in-house installation.
The multi-purpose center holds up to 1,000 members at each of the three services held on Sunday. Designed by debartolo architects for optimum sound, the space has walls with four inches of acoustic material covered by one-inch slats of cedar for the first eight feet.
As Jorgensen noted, “the room sounds drastically different above 10 feet in the air. The control and phase coherence of the MLA Compact system and predictability of the software enables them to make it sound great where the people are and decrease the energy where people aren’t.”
Much of the wall space is devoted to video, with two 16-foot sections on the sides and a 28-by-16-foot (WxH) screen behind the stage. Because the rest of the white walls are used as projection surfaces, the speakers had to be hung out of sight, high up in the ceiling, mounted on flying frames attached to an angle iron hanging from trussing.
Martin Audio Display prediction software was used to determine the optimum curvature of the arrays. ”The system location actually grew out of a ‘wrestling match’ with video, because everyone wanted the same space,” said Maughan, “so the challenge was finding the right location for the speakers. We’ve been fans of Martin Audio with the W8LMs and the F2s we use for a mobile outdoor system because they deliver exactly what we expect. This was a test of asking the MLA Compact system to do something for us, so putting it up in the ceiling and changing the points where it hits the audience and dialing that in worked perfectly. The sound is exactly where we need it to be, which wouldn’t happen with another cabinet.
“I have huge expectations for audio,” Maughan said. “Not just to reinforce sound, but to really make it musical. In most churches that I’ve been, none of the audio they’re running does that. It’s just sound reinforcement and often sounds really harsh without much quality. The MLA system has outperformed my expectations, which is rare.
“We have bands with electric instruments, amplifiers, and live drums that run the gamut from bluegrass to rock music. I was concerned that the subs would overpower everything with that ‘wall of speaker’ type of bass sound, but we put just two MLX under the stage platform and they’re the best sounding subs I’ve ever heard in my life.”
Maughan spoke of how audio, video and lighting is a very subjective area in any church, especially Redemption, which is moving towards a more contemporary style of worship. Pleasing every member of the congregation, from the youngest to the oldest, can be a delicate balance.
As it happens, the congregation has not only accepted the upgrade, it’s united them as well. “Sound is always very challenging,” Maughan concluded. “If it’s too loud or too harsh, we get a lot of comments. We have hundreds of older people in the congregation, and this is the first time we’ve done a technical upgrade where we haven’t heard one complaint about the audio. It has worked for everyone across the board and helped them experience the service in a much more meaningful and profound way.”
River Oaks Community Church, Goshen, IN
The 600-seat River Oaks Community Church in Goshen, IN holds contemporary worship services, and on any given Sunday, draws 1,200 or more members of its congregation. With a rotating pool of 25 musicians, a standard worship service consists of five to 10 members on stage.
The church recently retired its aged analog console and upgraded to a new Yamaha CL5 digital audio console along with Rio 3224-D and 1608-D input/output boxes. Mid-America Sound, based in Greenfield, IN, provided the gear.
“We had an analog console for about 10 years that outlived its welcome,” said Tim Blaum, program director at the church, who installed the CL. “We realized we needed to have additional control and mixing space.”
Blaum noted that, on occasion, the church had to rent a Yamaha M7CL for outdoor gigs or other special services when they needed a little extra control.
“We have a volunteer team that is comfortable in the analog environment using a full bank of physical faders because it’s what we’ve been used to, but we knew it was time to upgrade to digital. Several industry professionals recommended we investigate the new Yamaha CL Series since it has several added benefits. After weighing our options, we heeded their advice and decided to go with the CL5 because of its power and features.”
Prior to the new CL’s arrival, the church’s volunteers, who had some experience with Yamaha’s M7CL console, viewed online tutorial videos to learn about the CL5.
“Yamaha digital consoles have always been strong and reliable, and with the CL’s price point, the console will give us room to grow and expand our worship ministry,” Blaum said. “Talented musicians with years of training and skill lead our ministry, and our production team is eager to help them sound the best they can with our new desk,” he added. The church is currently using the Dante network locally due to its pre-existing snake structure.
Blaum noted that while the FOH position on an elevated mezzanine makes mixing difficult, the CL5’s iPad App helps minimize that problem. “Our engineers stay on ground level during rehearsals and worship to make sure our mix is perfect,” he noted.
“The labeling on the CL was a major enhancement, but we really love just about every feature it has since we came directly from the analog world,” Blaum added. “The console sounds great, and since its installation, we’ve had numerous compliments about our mix greatly improving. No doubt, this is an exciting step forward for us.”
Unity Church of the Hills, Austin, TX
For the Unity Church of The Hills in Austin, TX, a new sound system was way overdue. The church congregation has grown over the years to now require three services on Sunday with different musical styles and audio mixes required in each.
“We had a flying junkyard — a traditional array of a bunch of boxes,” said Jeff Sarich, sound engineer for the church. “Add to this, our worship sanctuary has a lot of floor-to-ceiling glass windows, so there was a limit to our volume levels due to the reverberation.”
When it came time to make a decision on which mixers to acquire, Sarich and his team were already leaning toward a pair of Allen & Heath consoles based on their research in audio-related publications, online blogs and forums.
Working with Ace Audio of Hutto, TX, the team opted for an iLive T112 with an IDR 64 at FOH, where it controls a new Turbosound TCS 1061 line array powered by Ashly NE 2400 amplifiers and a series of Shure ULX-D wireless microphones.
Doug Windle, Ace Audio’s design manager, credited A&H desks for providing “tremendous resources for the front of house operator,” including ways to deal with the reverberation caused by the large glass windows at Unity Church of The Hills. “All channels of the iLive have rich sounding compressors with gates and parametric EQ’s with high pass filters on every channel,” he noted.
Sarich and his team were favorably impressed not just with the sheer power of iLive T112 — “it has a ton of headroom” — but its simplicity as well. “The digital interface layout makes it very easy to learn,” he said. “The EQ section comes up on a nice bright eight inch screen, and there is also a VGA port to plug in a bigger screen for instruction.”
For the broadcast/recording hub near the worship sanctuary, Unity Church is using an Allen & Heath GLD 80 with an AR 84 expander, with a feed from the iLive T112 via the Allen & Heath Dante audio networking unit. Coming soon: live streaming on the web, along with their current CD production and DVDs of special events.
“Dante allows us to know we’re getting our audio levels and mix just right,” said Sarich. Along with reliability — “we’ve never had a failure,” Sarich credited the feel of the A&H controls. “You can feel in the faders a smoothness that is important for recording our services,” he said. “There is no ‘hot spot’ a third of the way up the slider like some consoles I’ve used.”
Crossroads Church, Corona, CA
Crossroads Church, a congregation located in Corona, CA, can trace its roots back to an inaugural church service for 10 congregants on wooden planks and boxes on Oct. 25, 1892. Imagine what those early parishioners would think if they saw the church today.
Now known for highly energized and impassioned contemporary services that can draw nearly 8,000 worshipers to its weekend services, the church recently upgraded its sound reinforcement system with the addition of 24 PowerLight 3 Series PL380 amplifiers and two Q-Sys I/O Frames — all controlled by a Q-Sys Core 500i Integrated Core.
“Our contemporary services are always passionate and loud,” said technical director Joe Sidoti. “We have rock bands, four or five singers, lots of keyboards, drums and electric guitars. We have musical productions, complete with aerial acts and acrobats. We like to get creative, because we believe that church should be fun.
“When people comment on the volume, we always tell people that it is going to be loud in heaven, so we are helping to prepare them,” Sidoti added.
Along with the church’s need for “a system with more power and headroom,” Sidoti was looking for “a processor that was powerful enough to meet those needs and fit within our budget.” He chose the Q-Sys Core 500i for those reasons, and also for “its power and its ability to grow with us. We added 24 PL380 amplifiers, and now I can go DataPort right to every amp. I can monitor heat and Ohms load by pairing the PL380’s — it still gives me the monitoring of the system status.”
Having spent several weeks getting acquainted with software downloaded from various audio manufacturer websites, Sidoti appreciated the relative ease of use for the Q-Sys Designer software. He viewed the Q-Sys videos at qsctraining.com and found the QSC system easy to configure and design.
“We have services on Sunday and then again on Wednesday, so we only had two days in between to have any downtime,” Sidoti noted. “I designed the entire system on my laptop using Q-Sys Designer before I even had the gear. When we received the QSC amps, I was up and running in a matter of minutes and was able to start tuning the system.”
Sidoti went live with the new system on Nov. 17 and was up and running by Nov. 20, shortly before Crossroads began rehearsals on Nov. 25 for the Christmas show, pictured here.
“One thing that is priceless is that I was able to program UCIs (User-Controlled Interfaces) right on my iPad — I was able to design meters and mute buttons and anything you can think of right on my device,” Sidoti said. “Now I can open up the Q-Sys app on my IPad and control the whole system right from there. I did not have to go with a very expensive way of wirelessly controlling the amps because QSC provides all the UCI’s. I am in love with it. It is cool technology. And it’s a free app!”
Calvary Church of Naperville, IL
NAPERVILLE, IL — Calvary Church of Naperville (CCN), located in the western suburbs of Chicago, recently wrapped up a five-month sanctuary renovation that increased seating from 2,500 to 3,000 without moving any walls. As part of the project, the church also underwent a full AVL system retrofit, which was designed and integrated by CCI Solutions of Olympia, WA.
Duke DeJong, CCI Solutions’ church relations director, confirms that the audio system was a top priority for the church, noting that it needed to be “more than a home run — it had to be a home run with fireworks,” he said. “They were very specific in saying that the audio needed to be intelligible, powerful and flexible — spectacular in every sense.”
CCI senior systems consultant Mark Pearson and his team turned to three leading loudspeaker manufacturers requesting that each help design two potential system choices for CCN’s sanctuary. With a total of six designs to choose from, L-Acoustics’ KARAi system ultimately won the bid.
“Tim Loar, our worship pastor, and I visited L-Acoustics in Oxnard and listened to KARAi and KIVA side by side,” said CCN technical director Dave Sheneman. “The demo was particularly impressive, considering that we were listing to the systems in a parking lot — not in a room with walls to reinforce the lower frequencies. Suffice it to say that we were sold on KARAi within just a few minutes.”
The newly remodeled sanctuary now features an L-C-R loudspeaker design with nine KARAi enclosures for each of the three arrays — 27 KARAi boxes in all. Low-frequency arrays of four SB18i are flown adjacent to the left and right KARAi arrays, and four double-18 SB28 subs are positioned under the stage.
Eight LA8 amplified controllers power and process the main FOH system. Additionally, front-fills for the sanctuary are made up of a combination of four coaxial 8XTi and four smaller 5XT enclosures, collectively driven by a pair of LA4s.
“With worship services often featuring a nine-voice praise team, 80-member choir and large praise band with three electric guitars, an acoustic guitar, bass, two keyboards, organ and drums all on stage at the same time, the need for clarity and impact was paramount,” noted DeJong. “The L-Acoustics system we installed is extremely transparent and super-powerful. The church got its ‘fireworks’ and is enjoying the new sound immensely.”
Sheneman cites the improved coverage over the church’s prior system as his personal favorite enhancement. “The challenge that the KARAi, SB and XT boxes solved for us was how to cover a wide, rectangular room with clear and even sound,” he said. “The lack of an obvious transition between arrays, the full low-frequency coverage we get from the subs, and the fill help we get from the XT boxes all work together to create a very pleasing, full and loud, but not harsh, sound throughout the entire room. Randal Ross, our senior pastor, told us that he couldn’t be happier. He says this system is one of the best investments our church has ever made.”
For the first service in CCN’s remodeled sanctuary, Nicole Serrano, a finalist from NBC’s The Voice, performed special music, while two weeks later Grammy Award-nominee Sarah Kelly shared some songs during the church’s official dedication service.
Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church, Austin, TX
Ken Dickensheets, an Austin, TX-based audio consultant, has specified systems that include Bose RoomMatch loudspeakers and PowerMatch amplifiers for several recent church installations, from his home base in Austin, TX to elsewhere in the Lone Star state.
At Austin’s Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church, Dickensheets encountered a small 250-seat sanctuary, but one with an extremely high ceiling for the size of the room — more than 30 feet tall. This, plus the marble and plaster finishes, resulted in a reverberation time of more than five seconds, quite long for a room of that size.
Dickensheets brought in and tested several steerable-array loudspeaker systems. His final choice: a single RoomMatch RM7040 array module, powered by one Bose PowerMatch PM8500N amplifier.
“The difference in the intelligibility of the sound between the Bose RoomMatch loudspeaker and every other speaker was like night and day,” he said. “That one speaker was able to give them the kind of sound they’d been in search of for 10 years.”
Mark Stevens, president of San Antonio Sound & Light, the AV integrator on the project, credited the RoomMatch loudspeaker for the high-frequency articulation needed to address speech intelligibility in that kind of acoustically complex environment.
“The RoomMatch module has six high-frequency drivers mounted on a waveguide that is just perfectly suited for problems like these,” Stevens noted, adding that that the RoomMatch loudspeaker was flexible enough to be positioned almost 30 feet above the church’s altar, where it is aimed downward at a precise 45° angle. “We needed the height and the angle just right to optimize the box for the space, and the RoomMatch module was able to be installed exactly as we needed it to,” he added.
Along with the audio transformation at Transfiguration Greek Orthodox Church, Dickensheets has specified Bose gear for other recent projects including installations at the First Christian Church, a 900-seat church in Midland, TX, and 600-seat Hope Presbyterian Church in Austin.
At First Christian Church in Midland, the main array consists of a RoomMatch RMS215 subwoofer with RM5510, RM5520 and RM7020 loudspeakers. Additional RM5520 modules are positioned as foldback for the choir and for delay coverage for the balcony, and two PowerMatch PM8500N amplifiers power the complete system. Austin-based Ace Audio Communications handled the installation.
At Hope Presbyterian Church in Austin, Dickensheets specified a system including an RM215 subwoofer and RM9010, RM9060 and RM12040 array modules powered by two PM8500N amplifiers. Ace Audio Communications installed the system there as well.
International Full Gospel Fellowship, Seattle, WA
Erwin Suparno, audio engineer at the International Full Gospel Fellowship (IFGF) in Seattle worked with Ric Webb, principal at TR Professional and Jeff Taylor, North American sales manager of VUE Audiotechnik on an audio system upgrade that centered on a VUE al-4 subcompact line array with companion VUE V4 Systems Engines supplying all amplification and loudspeaker processing.
“This was our first experience with VUE, but I’d been hearing great things about the line,” said TR Professional’s Webb. “Several church members were involved in the VUE al-8 installation at IFGF’s sister church in Jakarta last spring. They were really impressed with the al-8’s performance and were anxious to do something similar in Seattle.
“This is a smaller church with capacity for about 350,” Webb continued. “But their program material is very dynamic—incorporating guitar, bass, drums, several synthesizers and vocals. They really needed something relatively compact that could deliver plenty of sound and exceptional dynamic range.”
Webb noted that he had been aware of VUE’s work with beryllium and understood its potential for high frequency performance, but added that he was “absolutely unprepared for how great the al-4 sounded. Right out of the box, and with zero EQ, it was amazingly smooth and clear.”
IFGF’s Suparno was equally impressed. “The amount of headroom available from the al-4 is amazing. It’s absolutely crystal clear, well beyond where other compact systems I’ve used simply give up. We are really impressed.”
While program material dictated the sonic requirements for IFGF’s new system, the church’s tall walls and abundant reflective surfaces presented a whole new set of challenges.
“For its size, the room has a relatively high ceiling (26 feet), and there’s an open wing on one side with its own supplemental sound system,” Webb explained. “Keeping sound from spilling all over the place was critical, so we did an EASE model and determined that a central array of eight boxes would be the best way to get the coverage and performance we needed.
“We assembled the array exactly as recommended by the EASE model,” Webb continued. “On the very first try, the VUE line array hit all the desired listening areas exactly as predicted. I’ve never had a line array go up so easily,” he added. “I can’t believe how good the pattern control is on the al-4.”
Rounding out the rest of IFGF’s system are a pair of VUE is-18a powered subwoofers and a new Behringer X32 digital console at FOH.
Fellowship Missionary Church, Fort Wayne, IN
Fellowship Missionary Church’s multi-purpose sanctuary gets used as a gymnasium and community meeting space as well as a place of worship for the Evangelical church’s nearly 2,500 members, and technical director Kirk McKinley acknowledged that its audio system was long overdue for an upgrade.
McKinley turned to Andrew Van Veld, owner and system designer at Indianapolis-based Circle City Audio, for a new audio system that would be flexible enough to handle the demands of the room. Van Veld provided a new system centering on Adamson System’s Metrix line arrays.
The L-R setup includes 10 Metrix enclosures per side — two Metrix Subs at the top, six Metrix and two Metrix W enclosures at the bottom. Two T21 subwoofers are beneath the stage for additional low-end reinforcement.
“The room looks a lot like a gymnasium with a stage set back into the far wall,” said Van Veld. “Fortunately, it is not your average gym, acoustically — the space has been treated well. When the room is filled with seats and people it sounds pretty good.”
With acoustics removed from the equation, the goal was to create a system that would better support contemporary worship services as well as the occasional concert or special event hosted in the space.
Because CC Audio offers live event services in addition to design and installation, Van Veld was very familiar with the Adamson Metrix line arrays —a staple in the company’s inventory. He was confident that the compact line arrays would provide the features the evolving sanctuary required.
“We brought in our Metrix system and did a four-hour demonstration for the church leaders,” Van Veld said. “We played every variety of music available and they checked it out for vocal intelligibility as well. They had listened to other line arrays, but the Metrix demo sealed the deal. They were very, very impressed with the system.”
“As soon as I heard it I knew we had found our system,” McKinley said. “The first thing I noticed was the punch in the mid-range, so the vocals are extremely clear. One of my biggest surprises was how clear the pastor sounded on a system that was very musical. The church members are absolutely delighted.”
Because FOH is located in the balcony in the rear of the room, CC Audio also supplied an Adamson Spektrix Wave for use as a monitor at FOH. Three Lab.gruppen PLM series amplifiers power the system.
Rhema Bible Church, Johannesburg, South Africa
Rhema Bible Church, located in the Randburg district in Northwest Johannesburg, installed an integrated audio infrastructure and broadcast/production facility with various Harman components, including JBL speakers, Crown amplifiers and Soundcraft consoles.
With a seating capacity of 7,500, the Rhema Bible Church needed an upgrade to its sound reinforcement system for its large 180° bowl-shaped auditorium. Senior pastor Ray McCauley turned to audio consultants SoundGP and Harman distributor Wild & Marr (Pty) Ltd. for an assist.
The top priority for the new audio system was for spoken word intelligibility. Beyond that, it needed to overcome considerable audience noise levels for concert performances and support the needs of international musicians and artists traveling without additional sound reinforcement gear.
“The previous system was unable to cope with the new high-energy content being generated in many forms — from live music to AV,” noted pastor Alan Plant, who heads logistics for Sunday services. “Due to its age, the speech coverage was uneven and not up to the level of consistency required to ensure a pleasant listening environment.”
Wild & Marr chose JBL’s VTX line array system powered by Crown’s I-Tech 12000 HD power amplifiers, with JBL HiQnet Performance Manager software for control. The system includes four arrays of six JBL VTX V25 loudspeakers and two JBL VerTec VT4886 subcompact enclosures per array acting as down fills. In addition, there are three JBL VTX S28 subwoofers per side in a cardioid array. Eight JBL STX815M loudspeakers were also chosen as delays for those seated in the audience area farthest from the stage.
Gustav Teitge, Wild & Marr systems engineer, credited the system for its resonance with the church’s fast growing, youth-focused audience.
“This market consumes media in a different way with expectations of seamless integration of varying media streams from acoustic rock to low-end electronica bass tracks to multimedia streaming,” Teitge said.
By using a MADI routing solution, the church now has expanded routing flexibility, allowing for system expansion to accommodate future growth. This is a first-of-its-kind solution in such an environment, enabling the sound operators to mix 96 channels from the Soundcraft Vi6 stage box mic pre-amplifiers. Sixty-four of these channels are made available to the monitor Soundcraft Vi1 or the Soundcraft Vi1 in the broadcast/production facility as well as the permanent recording PC, which also doubles as a virtual sound check playback device.
The Soundcraft Aviom expansion card also provides routing flexibility, to any console bus feed. The digital signal backbone is also designed with ample tie lines for signal interconnection between the various consoles while passing AES/EBU signal to the main PA via the MADI router. An analog signal routing system provides redundancy from the main PA ensuring reliable signal transport to the Crown I-Tech HD amplifiers.
Teitge also credited the JBL VTX setup. “The new technology incorporated into the D2 driver, as well as other innovations, like decreased component gaps and structural changes, make seamless audio interconnectivity when moving around the auditorium a priority — thus lending itself to extremely smooth and accurate audio distribution.”
Cristo Hattingh, owner of SoundGP, was tasked with the voicing of the system, and with overcoming the challenges imposed by height restrictions and the church interior’s funnel-shaped space, with the floor rising and ceiling declining toward the farthest seats in the space, which contributed to the creation of standing waves in the low-mids, posing an obstacle to even coverage at the low-end.
Ultimately, the team leveraged the interconnected Harman components and software to effectively overcome those obstacles for an innovative and successful solution.
