All churches share the common goal of spreading the message. Some have a greater emphasis on spoken word; others rely more on music in any variety of styles, from liturgical to flat-out rock ‘n’ roll. Yet, all houses of worship need a sound system that provides clarity, intelligibility and musicality. With that in mind, we looked at some recent install/upgrade projects.
World Changers Church International, Atlanta, GA
World Changers Church International (WCCI) was founded in 1981 by renowned author and bible teacher Creflo Dollar and provides simple, practical teaching and understanding of the Bible. In 1995, this thriving Christian worship center moved to its present location, the 8,500-seat World Dome in the Atlanta suburbs.
During the Covid-19 pandemic, WCCI approached Jason Farah of Outline US expressing a need to upgrade its existing sound system and asked Farah to undertake some room modeling with 3D modeling software.
“Even by American standards, the Dome at WCCI is a rather large sanctuary — their worship style is contemporary R&B-influenced gospel music, and their pastor is one of the best I have ever heard. This is a church deserving of the best,” says Farah, who also has served as WCCI’s audio consultant for many years, providing onsite service and maintenance.
“Seeing what they saw on the simulations was convincing in itself, but I told them of my experiences with Outline and in particular its performance in similar circumstances. Subsequently, on the basis of the trust in our relationship and the clear advantages of the Outline system indicated by the simulations, they engaged Jeffrey Cox and I to design and install an Outline system for them.”
WCCI’s new Outline system comprises four GTO cabinets at the top of the arrays for the long-throw, four GTO C-12 in the middle for the medium range, and four Mantas 28 at the bottom of the arrays for the nearfield. Also suspended are four GTO-SUBs in a cardioid configuration and three Mantas 28’s to cover the upstage choir area. Outline’s Open Array simulation software was flawless in its prediction with the system, performing exactly as predicted, with minimal electronic corrections, covering the 8,500-seat room perfectly. The expansive under-balcony space was covered with Vegas 24 speakers, for seamless coverage throughout that space.
“Although the simulation software indicated that our design would cover the sanctuary well, the actual result was WAY beyond our expectations. I’ve worked with Outline products for many years, and to this day, the results still amaze me,” Farah says.
WCCI’s FOH engineer George Kelly adds, “I’m most impressed with the clarity and stereo imaging. While I give credit to the DiGiCo SD7, I find it very easy to mix on the Outline boxes. I find myself making small incremental adjustments, as opposed to a 4 or 5 dB jump just to get a vocal or instrument to be heard. I’ve also been approached by many parishioners, saying the under-balcony speakers sound incredible. The entrance to the sanctuary starts under the balcony area, so I feel so confident when members and visitors enter knowing that they will be met with a warm, clean, punchy sound.”
Outline’s Jeffrey Cox sums up the project: “The client is thrilled with the results we provided, but the best compliments always come from the lay people (like the ushers or parishioners) who comment, ‘I don’t know what you did. All I know is, I’ve never heard the music, nor the pastor’s message sound as good as I hear it now.’ Those comments are proof that we served the church to our very best ability.”
World Changers Church International
- Capacity: 8,500
- Key Products: Outline GTO line array system
- Integrator: SES Integration
- Designers: Jason Farah, Jeffrey Cox
Fuente de Vida, Tampico, Mexico
Established by Dr. Herón Mendoza and pastor Lorely Medellín in 1988, Tampico, Mexico’s Fuente de Vida (“Fountain of Life”) has surged to become one of the Tamaulipas state’s most well-known evangelical churches. In 2011, its congregation moved into a newly-constructed worship space built on the former site of the coastal city’s Gaona bullring, but the domed arena suffered from lack of proper sound coverage and poor intelligibility. Now, that has finally been rectified with the installation of an L-Acoustics A Series system designed by Juárez-based IM Systems working in tandem with Mexico City-based L-Acoustics Certified Provider Vari International.
“Fuente de Vida’s worship hall can seat 8,000 people, but their original sound system did not have the capacity to cover the entire seating area and it really wasn’t optimal for the shape and size of the venue, which is set up in the round,” says IM Systems director Cesar Muñoz. “In addition to doing sound design, I’m also a touring audio engineer and work at my local church in Ciudad Juarez, where we installed a K2 system with Vari International back in 2016. I’ve been in love with their speakers ever since, and I knew that an L-Acoustics solution would be a good fit for this project.”
Working closely with Vari’s system engineering team, Muñoz used Soundvision simulations in conjunction with acoustic measurements of the venue to come up with a five-array design that would deliver even distribution throughout the entire main floor, including the under-balcony sections. Three frontal LCR hangs, plus two rear-firing ones, are each made up of two A10i Focus flown over two A10i down, and all five clusters hang from the circular truss ring over the stage. Up in the balcony, 11 additional A10i Wide speakers mounted to an existing catwalk supply blanketed coverage of the entire upper seating area. Seven LA4X amplified controllers power and process all of the A Series enclosures.
Preserving 360° sightlines of the church’s circular stage, the project’s subwoofer deployment presented an interesting challenge. “There was no way to install subs underneath or to the sides of the stage as a normal front-facing venue would,” says Muñoz. “We had to use a KS21i stack in the middle of a massive structure suspended by wires in the middle of the venue that supports lighting, LED screens and audio systems. We tried several iterations using different configurations of KS21i and KS28 subwoofers, but thanks to the excellent acoustic predictions provided by Soundvision, we chose the perfect solution, which was a central hang of four KS21i driven by a single LA12X. Low end is definitely no longer an issue.”
Following Vari’s installation, which took less than a week, Muñoz critically listened to the results with Fuente de Vida’s Dr. Mendoza. “We walked around the whole auditorium just listening and staring at the speakers for over two hours and he was very impressed by the clarity and smooth distribution throughout the entire venue,” he reports. “The following day was the first Sunday service since the upgrade and the congregation could tell the difference in quality right away. People were sitting in zones around the venue they’ve almost never sat in — including the balcony, which had been empty for years — due to audio cancellation issues or lack of speakers covering those seats until now. From the first seat to the very last, the church can now deliver a quality experience to its congregation.”
Comparing Fuente de Vida’s A10i system with his church’s larger K2 rig, Muñoz is impressed with the performance of the compact A Series. “The sound pressure and consistency of these small A10i systems is incredible,” he marvels. “I’ve been a touring audio engineer for over 13 years and have had the privilege of listening to many different P.A.systems, but L-Acoustics keeps impressing me every time. The A Series is definitely a solid option for churches. These small boxes sound so big! Regardless of whether I’m on a tour or an install project, if I see that gold and black logo, I know it’s going to be an awesome sounding day!”
Fuente de Vida
- Capacity: 8,000
- Key Products: L-Acoustics A10i
- Integrator: Vari International
- Designer: IM Systems
Mt. Zion Church, Clarkston, MI
Mt. Zion Church, known for its vibrant congregation and dynamic worship services, sought to enhance its audio experience and ensure that every sermon, musical performance and spoken word is heard with absolute clarity., With its extensive expertise and track record of excellence, ISP Technologies was selected as the partner for this project.
The church demands a lot from its audio system. In addition to presenting highly dynamic worship services with a full band and vocalists, the 3,400-seat facility frequently hosts large events such as touring concert acts, dance competitions and other large community events.
Despite the room’s modern, high caliber feel, the previous audio system left much to be desired, being incapable of cleanly producing the desired SPL for the concerts, while offering inconsistent coverage of the seating area.
An innovator in pro audio gear design and manufacturing, ISP Technologies provided Mt. Zion with an emergency system for a contemporary Christian concert by Crowder. Because of the amazing sound, ISP was then chosen to design a new cutting-edge system to replace the sanctuary’s outdated gear.
“We are thrilled to be chosen by Mt. Zion Church for this installation,” says ISP Technologies CEO Buck Waller. “Our team is dedicated to creating innovative audio gear that exceeds our clients’ expectations, and this project is a testament to the trust that Mt. Zion church has placed in our capabilities.”
The new system is comprised of 10 HDL3112 line array cabinets per side in a left/right stereo configuration, complemented by eight XMAX-218HO subwoofers placed into newly constructed bunkers under the stage lip. ISP designed the system with 55,000 watts true RMS with the utmost fidelity, clarity and midrange.
The installation process was handled by Battle Creek, MI-based BC Pro Sound, ensuring seamless integration and optimal performance of the equipment. System control and processing is accomplished via QSC Q-SYS. The custom touchscreen user interface allows the speaker system to be reconfigured for different uses within the space. With the tap of a button, the speakers can be zoned to cover the entire seating area. Alternately, areas can be removed completely from coverage (such as the upper balcony) when not needed. Other presets allow users to run the subwoofers from the main Left/Right mix or from an aux/matrix.
In addition to the speaker system controls, additional touchscreen options can quickly and intuitively manage how the existing Allen & Heath dLive console as well as guest consoles feed into the P.A. via new Dante and analog connection points.
“With our old system, many of our congregation members would complain to me about the sound in the room,” says Mt. Zion FOH engineer Mike Strange. “They either could not hear it, or it was very harsh sounding. With the new ISP system, I can tell the membership is much more engaged during praise and worship. The low-end is full and there is a good amount of clarity in the mids. It has a very clean, professional and smooth vocal sound.”
Mt. Zion Church
- Capacity: 3,400
- Key Products: ISP Technologies HDL3112 line arrays
- Integrator: BC Pro Sound
Rhema Bible Church, Randberg, South Africa
Founded in 1979, and with a congregation of 45,000, the Rhema Bible Church is one of the largest church organizations in the Southern Hemisphere and was one of the first churches to defy apartheid laws, offering non-segregated services in the new South Africa. Currently under the leadership of pastor Joshua McCauley and his wife Pastor Tara McCauley, the Church decided to update the AV system in its flagship venue with the assistance of South African AV distributors Audiosure.
“As one of the largest churches in the world, Rhema Bible Church needed an audio solution to match,” explains Audiosure’s Lesedi Maponya. “The church was already running FOH, monitors and broadcast systems, but having grown a sizable online congregation, they desperately needed a modern update to provide the best possible audio quality across all platforms. Additionally, the system needed to be easy to use for both technical and non-technical operators.”
To replace the church’s aging mix systems, Audiosure recommended Allen & Heath’s flagship dLive platform for the church’s consoles. “As soon as the church’s engineers road-tested a dLive, it was a no-brainer to go ahead and integrate it,” adds Maponya.
At FOH, a 28-fader dLive S5000 Surface is deployed alongside a DM64 MixRack for audio processing and analog I/O, and a Dante card is fitted for multitrack playback / recording. A second DM64 is employed at the monitor position, partnered with a 24-fader C3500 surface, and for the broadcast system, another C3500 is employed with a DM0 providing the processing horsepower. In addition to the MixRacks, a DX012 audio expander, providing switchable analog and AES outputs, was installed.
Audio is passed between the three systems via dLive’s unique tie-line feature, allowing signals to be patched directly to digital outs via installed gigaACE cards without consuming any of dLive’s 128 input processing channels or incurring additional latency. “The tie-line features on the console are one of the most useful, and powerful, features in the system,” notes Maponya.
For mixing, the engineers rely on dLive’s integrated tools including the comprehensive suite of zero-latency DEEP Processing compressors and preamp emulations, 16 RackExtra FX slots, plus powerful dynamic processors. “With 4 bands of dynamic EQ and multiband compression, the Dyn8 is a game changer,” Maponya says. “It gets constant use, in fact, it’s now hard to think of a time where dynamic EQ was not an option.”
On stage, Allen & Heath’s ME Personal Mixing System gives the worship musicians monitor mix control via ten ME-1 personal mixers. “The aim here was longevity and flexibility,” concludes Maponya. “The access to support and training for a church is important because everyone on the team should be able to operate the system. This is the beginning of a relationship that can grow from strength to strength.”
Rhema Bible Church
- Capacity: 7,500
- Key Products: Allen & Heath dLive consoles
- Integrator: Audiosure
Liebfrauenkirche, Zürich, Switzerland
Built in the late 1800s to serve Zürich’s growing Catholic community, the Liebfrauenkirche (“Church of Our Lady”) is designed in the style of an early Christian basilica, with nearly every surface covered with mosaics and frescoes of famous biblical figures and events. The church is also renowned for its high-quality vocal and instrumental music, with an ornate pipe organ dominating the wall behind the choir balcony.
However, the reverberant architecture led to compromised speech intelligibility during church events. To correct this problem while maintaining the awe-inspiring beauty of the sanctuary, the church installed beam-steering arrays from Renkus-Heinz.
Church staff contacted Urs Habegger, CEO of consultant Effekte.ch AG, to help solve their speech intelligibility challenge. Together with Chris Steiger, CEO of Promedias AG, as a leading audio and video solutions provider in Switzerland, they were well-positioned to help alleviate the church’s acoustic issues.
“As we’ve encountered in many other churches, Liebfrauenkirche had very long reverberation times in its nave. Given all the spectacular artwork, there were limited options for where we could mount loudspeakers,” says Steiger. “That’s why the only solution for this scenario was a beam-steered loudspeaker system from Renkus-Heinz.”
Effekte.ch AG installed and commissioned four ICC24/3 digitally steerable loudspeakers to improve speech intelligibility. A member of the Iconyx Compact Series, the ICC24/3 gives integrators even more flexibility in price, performance and footprint when addressing their most challenging projects. High-performance 3-inch, full-range drivers and state-of-the-art, multi-channel amplifiers, combined with Renkus-Heinz’s experience in beam-steering arrays, lead to stellar performance. The ultra-narrow cabinet disappears into venues. At the same time, the high vertical directivity of the ICC24/3 can penetrate even challenging acoustics, taking the performance of beam-steered line arrays to architecturally sensitive spaces and delivering pristine audio not only exactly where it’s needed.
After hearing the new loudspeakers, the church leadership and staff were ecstatic with the audio improvements. “The church is a work of art; it’s breathtaking inside,” says Habegger. “Thanks to Renkus-Heinz, the church congregation can now hear the liturgy clearly while basking in the visual grandeur.”
Liebfrauenkirche
- Capacity: 1,000
- Key Products: Renkus-Heinz Iconyx ICC24/3
- Integrator: Promedias AG
- Designer: Effekte.ch AG
