Hi-Tech Electronics Enhances the Sound at World Overcomers Christian Church
Be more than you have ever been before. Stop being a victim, be a victor. Be an Overcomer!”
That’s the message at Durham, NC-based World Overcomers Christian Church, and it is striking a chord with a growing number of congregants.
“World Overcomers Christian Church has been growing dramatically, and their new sanctuary is a reflection of their success,” says David Williams, president of Greenville, NC-based Hi-Tech Electronics.
The chuch’s directors had been happy with the sound system that Williams had selected for their original santuary a few years back — which included a dozen WorxAudio TrueLine V8i-Ps flown six per side and a pair of TL218SS-P subwoofers recessed into custom-built cubicles beneath the pulpit. So it wasn’t too surprising that they turned to Hi-Tech Electronics to expand upon the existing system when it came time to relocate into the new 3,000-capacity sanctuary.
“We had a great experience with our original WorxAudio equipment, so when the time came to move into our new sanctuary, it made perfect sense to build upon the equipment setup that had already proven itself so well,” says Ahmad “Marty” Taylor, the church’s audio director.
More Elbow Room
The new space is 200 feet wide and 100 feet deep. The stage/pulpit area is quite large and measures 80 feet wide by 40 feet deep. It looks out onto the width of the sanctuary. The ceiling has exposed trussing and measures 22 feet high. The area is carpeted and has acoustical treatments on the walls. Seating is removable and, as a result, can easily be configured to accommodate special services and other functions. The floor is flat throughout the space and there’s no balcony.
To make the most of the expanded space, and to optimize the worship experience to the congregation in this age of video and streaming media, World Overcomers Christian Church is taking full advantage of the latest in AV technology, including lighting, video, and recording capabilities. Of course, if the message can’t be heard, there wouldn’t be much to sing about. Williams notes how the WorxAudio TrueLine V8i-Ps proved well-suited for the move into the church’s new, bigger space.
“Because the room is considerably wider than it is long,” Williams explained, “it was very important that we deploy a loudspeaker system that had good, solid horizontal dispersion characteristics,” . With its 120-degree horizontal and 10-degree vertical dispersion pattern, the TrueLine V8i-P was a good match for this project. Further, music plays a vital role in worship services. There’s a nine-piece praise band and roughly nine more people on the vocal team. Because of the important role music plays in their services, it was essential that the loudspeakers not only offered a high level of speech intelligibility, they also had to reproduce music well. I really believe the WorxAudio TrueLine enclosures excel in these areas.”
In addition to the existing 12 WorxAudio TLV8i-P enclosures from the first installation, Williams added 16 more of the same model—bringing the total to 28 TLV8i-P enclosures for the new space. “Hugh Sarvis, WorxAudio’s CEO and director of engineering, was a tremendous help with this project,” said Williams. “In addition to working closely with me in the specification of loudspeaker models for this project, Hugh refurbished the church’s original loudspeakers so that all enclosures would have a new, uniform appearance once installed into their new home. Additionally, after the loudspeakers were installed, he came back, took a variety of measurements, and managed the tuning of the room. That level of service is above and beyond what most manufacturers offer these days—and church management noticed.”
Four Clusters of Seven
The 28 WorxAudio TLV8i-P enclosures were arranged in four clusters of seven elements each. These were flown two clusters per side, with the outer hangs angled to ensure coverage of the room’s extremities and the inner two clusters positioned to cover the primary left-right areas of the room.
In the center—directly over the stage/pulpit area—Williams and his crew deployed three WorxAudio TrueLine V5-P ultra-compact powered line arrays. “These loudspeakers are quite compact and worked really well in a downfill capacity to cover the front and center area of the space,” said Williams. “Equally important, because they are really quite small, they don’t obstruct the line of sight to the main stage area. With the TLV5-P’s in the center and the two larger TLV8i-P clusters positioned off toward the far left and right, there was plenty of free real estate for the deployment of the large video screens that serve as a backdrop to the stage.”
For low frequency support, Williams added another four additional WorxAudio TL218SS-P subs to augment the two enclosures from the original installation. Once again, the subwoofers are recessed into a specially-designed area under the stage/pulpit area and are distributed evenly across the front.
“Every loudspeaker selected for this installation is an active, or powered, model,” Williams reports. “This decision saved us considerable space, as we didn’t have to find a home for separate power amps. Equally significant, this ensures that the power amps are optimized for each enclosure and it simplified system cabling considerably.”
World Overcomers Christian Church employs a combination of floor monitors and in-ear monitoring. Williams specified eight WorxAudio UltraMax M1-P powered floor monitors. These wedges are used on an “as needed” basis—depending upon the nature of the service—and are positioned on stage accordingly. The praise band relies on in-ear monitoring consisting of individual Aviom personal monitor mixers used in conjunction with Shure in-ear monitors.
The Rest of the System
The Front of House mix position is located in the center of the sanctuary; roughly 65 feet back from the stage/pulpit area. An Avid Venue SC48 digital console resides here, along with an Ashley Audio Protea 4.8SP 4 x 8 digital loudspeaker processor that governs the WorxAudio system, while a Yamaha M7CL digital mixing console positioned at stage left handles monitor functions.
Wireless microphone technology plays a prominent role in the church’s worship services. Shure ULX series wireless systems are a staple of each service. These systems are used with Shure ULX2 handheld transmitters fitted with SM58 cartridges, and are used by the praise vocal team as well as the Associate Pastor. Lead Pastor Andy Thompson prefers to have his hands free and, thus, uses a DPA 4066 Omni Headband mic with his Shure ULX1 bodypack transmitter.
World Overcomers Christian Church records their services for broadcast and also streams a variety of video content from their website. Hence, audio for these purposes is recorded using an Apple Mac running Final Cut Pro. In addition to the audio equipment used in the sanctuary, there are multiple video displays, video cameras and other equipment that complete the church’s AV equipment roster.
Full, Even Coverage
Williams and his crew started the installation of the sound reinforcement system in World Overcomers Christian Church’s new sanctuary during the summer of 2011. The first service in the new room occurred in December 2011 and, since that time, Williams reports the equipment has performed above and beyond the expectations of everyone involved with the project.
“From day one,” he says, “everything has been working really well. The coverage is very even—absolutely consistent from side to side and front to rear. The broad horizontal dispersion characteristics of the WorxAudio loudspeakers made all the difference in this extremely wide room. The audio quality is terrific. Speech intelligibility is excellent, as it’s the system’s ability to reproduce music accurately. We’ve received numerous compliments.”
“The new system is working terrifically—exactly as we had hoped for,” affirms audio director Taylor. “The coverage throughout the room is excellent, and the sound quality is first rate. This system has made a huge impact on our worship services,” Taylor adds. “Its quality gives the impression as though you’re at a concert as opposed to a church service. It’s that impressive.”
