No matter what faith or style of service, all churches share a common goal of spreading the message. But every house of worship needs a sound system that provides clarity, intelligibility and musicality. With that in mind, we present some install projects, ranging from whole systems to incremental upgrades. Each took a different route in their approach, proving there are numerous solutions to any audio problem for any sanctuary.
Mormon Tabernacle, Salt Lake City, UT
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints installed two Solid State Logic Live L550 Plus consoles (FOH and monitors) at Salt Lake City’s historic Mormon Tabernacle. The two desks will handle sound reinforcement for The Tabernacle Choir and Orchestra at Temple Square as well as a host of other events held at the venerable 3,500-seat venue.
The new L550 Plus consoles join four SSL L500 Plus desks previously supplied to the LDS Church. Those consoles have been upgraded to the L550 Plus spec, which supports 288 processing paths, 36 matrix outputs and 48 VCAs, and are in use at the LDS Conference Center as well as touring applications.
Broadcast and events sound engineer Troy B. Morgan noted that some of the Tabernacle’s older audio equipment was becoming unreliable. “We were getting ready to update some of our I/O systems and as we already had four SSL Live desks, it was natural to get two more,” he says. “We were familiar with them, they have tons of I/O power and they have flexibility that doesn’t end.”
The events requiring the most inputs feature the 400-member Tabernacle Choir and 100-piece orchestra. “The count can get pretty high,” Morgan says, typically requiring 64- to 80-plus mic inputs.
Due to the building’s size and acoustics, the FOH engineer has no need to add reverb, Morgan says. But certain elements of the consoles’ DSP get regular use. “We use the multi-band compressor and dynamic EQ all the time to help make up for some of the acoustics of the building, to help get stuff heard a little more clearly, and to avoid feedback,” he says. “We’re always using the console processing.”
With four audio engineers on the Tabernacle’s full-time roster, the L550’s show file capabilities are also in frequent use, with each mixer able to select a console-wide template as a starting point for any event. “We make use of the scenes and the show files quite a bit.”
Mormon Tabernacle
- Capacity: 3,500
- Key Components: Solid State Logic Live L550 consoles
- Integrator: In-house
First Baptist Church, Merritt Island, FL
The First Baptist Church of Merritt Island opened its doors in 1949 with a single mission to “Go into the World. Love God. Love People.” Over the last seven decades, the church has mirrored the community it serves, growing and changing.
Recently, First Baptist Church’s leadership focused on that mission’s next chapter, which was “remodeling the church and supporting facilities to better align with the community goals we are dedicated to,” said executive pastor Carey Dean. With the help of Don Allensworth, founder and president of The NewGround Group, they reimagined an expanded facility complete with a professional sound system designed to meet those needs.
To realize this goal, the church partnered with Pro Sound and Video. Now part of the Solotech family, PS&V has four decades of experience designing, developing and installing some of the most advanced AV systems in renowned venues across the country.
The PS&V team faced a major challenge of optimizing the sound within the large, very tall sanctuary, a space with 60-foot ceilings, a sloped floor and the ability to seat more than 1,000 worshippers, both at the ground level and in the balcony.
“The space was so large and contained multiple hard surfaces at varying angles, so understanding and mastering how sound travelled and behaved within the space required someone with a deep understanding and experience of audio,” said Patrick McGuire, technical ministry at First Baptist Church. “This is why working with a partner like Sound Pro and Video and a manufacturer like Bose Professional was crucial.”
The solution was an integrated system consisting of Bose ArenaMatch AM10 and AM20 arrays providing consistent, intelligible sound to every listener within the large sanctuary space. Complemented by ArenaMatch Utility AMU208 loudspeakers in the parking area, churchgoers are now welcomed the moment they arrive. Continuing throughout the common areas, Bose EdgeMax speakers and DesignMax DM10S subwoofer work together to create a seamless journey of sound as guests make their way to service.
As part of the renovations and expansion, in-ceiling and surface-mount FreeSpace FS2P pendant loudspeakers deliver top-quality audio in a low-profile footprint for the meeting rooms, office spaces and the children’s ministry area.
“We are pleased with our partnership with Bose Professional,” shared Pastor Dean. “We never thought it was possible for a space this large to sound so good.”
First Baptist Church of Merritt Island
- Capacity: 1,000+
- Key Components: Bose ArenaMatch AM10 and AM20
- Integrator: Pro Sound and Video
Glen Haven Baptist Church, McDonough, GA
On turning 75 years old this year, Glen Haven Baptist Church looked into the future, installing the powerful and versatile KLANG:konductor in-ear mix processor, which can deliver up to 16 immersive mixes and process 128 input signals at up to 96 kHz with low 0.25 ms latency.
With some 20 musicians and a 100-voice choir, that’s the kind of power Glen Haven Baptist needed. KLANG:konductor is linked to the church’s Allen & Heath dLive C3500 FOH console, whose DM64 MixRack digital stagebox hosts a superMADI card, and interfaces with two DiGiCo DMI-MADI-B cards in the KLANG:konductor. This signal flow routes onstage inputs to the KLANG unit, and then back to the DM64 MixRack to feed the church’s Shure PSM 900 IEM system. It’s a slightly complex workflow, but offers positive implications for both audio staff and musicians.
“We’re using the KLANG:konductor for five or six of our core musicians currently, but plan to roll it out to more of them as everyone becomes familiar with its operation and benefits,” explains Brett Hill, the church’s director of technical ministries.
Prior to the KLANG install, all monitor signals were routed through the FOH console, which also had to mix the church’s broadcast audio. “Now the KLANG:konductor takes a lot of the pressure off the mix engineers,” says Hill. “Also, once a musician moves onto the KLANG platform and experience placing themselves in the mix onstage, they’re not going back to mono or stereo.”
Musical director / drummer Harrison Smith was skeptical at first. “But after about an hour with it, I see why everyone loves it.” After initially applying it to the “core” band — bass, drums and two guitars, Smith has expanded its use ever since.
In fact, once KLANG:konductor changed the culture at FOH, it did the same onstage. Previously, Smith would have to act as a moderator between the monitor mixes at FOH and the stage, taking requests from musicians for more of this or that and communicating those to the FOH mixer.
“Now, I have the KLANG:app on an iPad in the drum enclosure,” Smith says. “If they need an adjustment in their mix that they can’t do themselves, I can handle that from my iPad. It’s one more way of taking the burden off of front of house.” And the church didn’t have to change any of its onstage monitoring infrastructure — antennas, earbuds, and so on were the exact same the week after the KLANG:konductor was installed as they were the week before.
Glen Haven Baptist Church
- Key Components: KLANG:konductor, Allen & Heath dLive C3500
- Integrator: Clark Integrated Solutions
Princeton Pike Church of God, Hamilton OH
Founded in 1928 in the Cincinnati suburb of Hamilton, Princeton Pike Church of God has been growing ever since, and recently installed L-Acoustics’ L-ISA immersive sound technology for its 3,000-seat main sanctuary.
“The original install was 21 years ago, and we wanted something forward-thinking for the next two decades, which is what L-ISA offered us,” says church production director Eric Chancey. “For us, the difference in cost between the L-ISA design and standard left/right stereo was barely five figures. Our church board looked at the numbers and realized this is where church sound is going.”
Chip Self, owner and CEO of Cignal Systems, the installation division of St. Louis-based Logic Systems that integrated the L-Acoustics system, presented several options, including one in which the L-ISA configuration could be installed but used in a conventional manner, with immersive implemented later on. “But I had a feeling that the church would feel good about going with immersive,” he says. “They did, and it’s been a great move for them.”
The new house sound setup has seven Scene arrays, the centermost five each comprised of three A15i Focus flown over a single A15i Wide. These are flanked by two more Scene arrays of three smaller A10i Focus over one A10i Wide, with Extension arrays of one A10i Focus over two A10i Wide hung even farther out. All A15i and A10i systems are suspended using custom-fabricated Logic Systems exoskeleton systems.
Additional speakers include left/right out-fill arrays of two A15i Focus over two A15i Wide, 13 ultra-compact 5XT coaxials across the stage lip for spatial front-fill, five X12 stage wedges, a dozen flown 12KS21i subs, and 12 LA4X and seven LA2Xi amplified controllers. It’s all controlled via the new L-ISA Processor II with a standard 16-output licensing level to match the church’s relatively modest production needs, while minimizing the entry cost of an immersive system. L-Acoustics systems were also installed in the church’s gym, youth center, chapel and choir room.
Onstage, a pair of KLANG:vokal 3D IEM mix processors provide up to 24 individual mixes at 48 kHz and 96 kHz via KLANG:kontrollers for wireless in-ears. “This was a huge leap of faith into immersive sound, in both the L-ISA-controlled P.A. and the KLANG 3D monitoring. Moving into immersive with one system is a huge undertaking, but to do so with a second system is taking on a lot — they literally went from mono to the cutting edge of sound. But they realize immersive audio is the way forward for churches,” says Self.
Chancey says that L-ISA put the church on a path to the future but also fit its physical needs. “We have a large, wide stage and a large, wide seating area, and L-ISA helps us localize sounds within those spaces,” he explains. “The same goes for KLANG monitoring. Once you’ve mixed in that kind of environment, it’s hard to go back to conventional stereo. We were a little apprehensive about going into immersive sound, but L-ISA has made a believer out of me.”
Princeton Pike Church of God
- Capacity: 3,000
- Key Components: L-Acoustics L-ISA System
- Integrator: Cignal Systems
Dom von St. Blasien, St. Blasien, Germany
It’s not often that anyone gets a call to install a sound system in a 239-year-old cathedral that originally was a Benedictine monastery with roots going back to the 10th century. That alone is different, but the church is a historically significant, 203-foot tall, 118-foot diameter domed structure that’s the largest of its kind north of the Alps. That was the task of Stuttgart-based designers Macom Gmbh and Wolfegg, Germany-based AVEO Gmbh.
Large domed rotundas present a major acoustical challenge. The solution came in the form of Kling & Freitag’s VIDA Beam Steering array technology. The sanctuary is divided into a main seating area under the dome, with the congregation facing the altar at the far end of the room. Behind the altar is a rectangular room known as the Monk’s Choir.
The rotunda area is served by two Kling & Freitag VIDA-series M 200 active, coaxial column speakers. Each is 86 inches tall and 6.3 inches wide and 5.25 inches deep. Each of the M 200 arrays is mounted between the two columns flanking each side of the altar and each contain 32 1” dome tweeters and 16 4”h drivers.
The secret here is the individual DSP and amplifiers powering each driver, for enabling beam steering (up to 90° horizontal and ±45° vertical). The VIDA (Versatile Intelligent Digital Array) technology enables the system to direct sound only where it needs to be, which is essential for maintaining intelligibility in this highly reflective environment and the VIDA platform’s newest J-beam algorithm goes beyond remotely setting the width and tilt of the beam, but adds a controller for setting the energy distribution within the beam itself.
Two smaller (42.6” tall) K&F VIDA M 110 arrays with 16 1” tweeters and eight 4” low/mid drivers cover the Monk’s Choir, on custom floor stands as speakers could not be mounted on the wall surface. Rounding out the system are short-throw K&F E90 compact column speakers used as near-field fills in the Monk’s Choir and monitors near the altars.
Dom von St. Blasien
- Capacity: 550
- Key Components: Kling & Freitag VIDA M-Series
- Designer: Macom Gmbh
- Integrator: AVEO Konferenzsysteme
Nashville Life Church, Nashville, TN
Nashville Life is 10-year-old ministry founded by gospel artist and 15-time Grammy Award-winner CeCe Winans and her husband, Alvin Love II, and where their son, Alvin Love III, is now lead pastor. Although in existence for a decade, it finally found its own home this year in a newly renovated former church building.
Given the deep musical roots of its founding family, Nashville Life chose a flexible set of audio tools to meet its needs: a DiGiCo Quantum225 console, linked to four Dante-enabled A168D stage boxes along with a DQ-Rack in the amp room, for switching and patching, all on a Dante network along with a new EAW KF810 sound system. In addition, 12 KLANG:kontrollers — six connected to Shure PSM 1000 IEMs and six hard-wired IEMs for the band members — provide the church’s musicians and vocalists with a highly customizable but easy-to-use monitoring solution at their fingertips. The integrator on the project was Blackhawk Audio.
Nashville Life is volunteer-driven and Trey Smith is the church’s most experienced live-sound mix engineer. “The Quantum225 was a good choice for the church,” he says. “For those of us with experience in touring, we’re already familiar with DiGiCo, and if not, it’s an intuitive, logically laid out console to learn.”
The Quantum225 handles the church’s entire audio workload, from front of house to monitors. The 12 KLANG:kontrollers are connected via direct output from the console through a DMI-KLANG expansion card that supports up to 64 input channels — to a separate bus mix for the church’s streaming audio. “It sounds complicated, and the console is maxed out,” says Smith, who also tours as the FOH engineer for country star Thomas Rhett, “but the Quantum225 handles it all and is still simple for anyone to operate.”
After installing the Quantum225, Blackhawk Audio president Rick Shimer says he’s in awe of what the console is capable of doing. “This was the first time we’ve had DiGiCo on a Dante network through a DMI card, and the amount of flexibility is insane,” he says. “The Quantum console is handling four 16-channel A168Ds, a 48-channel DQ-Rack, 16 channels of stereo KLANG mixes, plus subgroups. It’s an amazing amount of I/O and it’s not even breaking a sweat.”
Nashville Life Church
- Capacity: 350+
- Key Components: DiGiCo Quantum225, KLANG:kontrollers, EAW KF810 line arrays
- Integrator: Blackhawk Audio
