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.
Two Cities Church, Winston-Salem, NC
Two Cities church in Winston-Salem, NC, recently opened its new home and hub. The 1,300-seat worship center features a d&b audiotechnik XSL line array system to ensure an unparalleled auditory experience.
Established seven years ago, the Two Cities church has experienced exponential growth. Its previous worship center held only 450 members, and after the pandemic, attendance skyrocketed. The church purchased into a hub for its congregation and community.
As a dedicated member and volunteer at Two Cities, Michael Brammer, CFO of Special Event Services (SES, a Concert Stuff brand) was involved in the process from the beginning, consulting on the building itself and bringing in SES as the project’s AVL designer and integrator. SES Integration installed all the audio, lighting, video, rigging and acoustical treatments.
“From the very beginning, we knew this would be a job for d&b,” states Brammer. “In addition to being a world-leading product, there was familiarity and comfort with d&b from the church’s technical and pastoral staff. As it happens, the XSL was announced right as we began designing the main worship center, and there could not have been a more perfect product for the room. Its size-to-performance ratio is unmatched and the directivity and control from the SL-Series is exactly what we needed.” The smallest sibling of the SL-Series loudspeaker family, XSL serves as an uncompromised solution for a wide range of venues and events.
After demo sessions with members of the Two Cities technical team listening to different products and deployments, they chose the configuration of the XSL system and flown SL-SUBs for the facility. The system comprises XSL mains and A-Series speakers (as outfills), positioned to deliver optimal sound quality and uniform coverage. The team used d&b’s ArrayProcessing to optimize coverage for every seat in the room.
“We could not be more pleased with our P.A. install; d&b is simply world-class when it comes to amplified sound, and that’s exactly how we feel about the finished product we received,” states executive pastor David Vogel. “With the precise planning and execution of SES, matched with d&b’s superior-quality DSP and loudspeakers, our project expectations were more than exceeded.”
“The quality and responsiveness of the system is incredible,” adds Brammer. “Everything sits perfectly in the mix, and there is no shortage of headroom. The audio is clear and crisp without being harsh, and the low end is warm and musical. This system is a pleasure to both mix on and listen to every weekend. Personally, I think Two Cities is now one of the best sounding modern houses of worship around. The goal was to create an engaging state-of-the-art environment with pristine audio quality, and I am immensely proud of the entire team for their design and execution of this job.”
Two Cities Church
- Capacity: 1,300
- Key Products: d&b audiotechnik XSL system
- Integrator/Designer: Special Event Services (SES)
Victory Church, Tulsa, OK
“This system can handle anything,” says Skylark AV senior design engineer Tyler Mergy of the L-Acoustics K2 loudspeaker rig that was recently installed at Victory Church. “Any genre of music, any conference they need to put on, it’ll do it. It’s rider-ready for anything.”
The nondenominational evangelical church in Tulsa was seeking a single audio solution for various types of content. The large house of worship produces elaborate theatrical shows for Christmas and Easter. For the rest of the year, it offers a mix of dynamic, song-based worship services. Fortunately, locally based Skylark AV had a solution: an L-Acoustics K2 system with the right mix of elements for the main campus’s 5,000-seat sanctuary, which first opened 20 years ago.
Keith Carroll, Victory Church’s director and FOH engineer, calls the new K2 system “the most incredible transformation of the church’s sound quality that I’ve heard in the 10-plus years I’ve been here. The sound reaches every part of the room, every seat, and it reaches it consistently, in terms of sound quality and level. Even in parts of the room where some acoustical treatment was needed, the clarity and intelligibility of the sound is incredible.”
Victory Church’s tall and long worship space is well served by Skylark’s design. There are a dozen K2 per side, backed by four flown K1-SB low-end extension enclosures, with 14 Kara II per side as sidefills. Low-end is bolstered by eight KS28 ground-stacked subs, powered by LA12X amplified controllers. The K2 are driven by six LA7.16i running in single-box resolution, which significantly reduced the number of amplifiers needed, while the Kara II are powered by LA4X.
Mergy, who worked on the project with fellow design engineer Zach Kimrey, calls the LA7.16i amplified controllers are “game-changers — they reduced the number of amps we needed without reducing the amount of available power because they can be run in single-box mode. Six of these in single-mode resolution literally replace a dozen LA12X, providing the church with a very cost-effective solution,” Mergy adds. “And the K2 truly fill the room; we’re really just using the HF drivers on the Kara II to reach the edges of the sanctuary. K2 supplies all the SPL the room needs.”
Carroll says he and the church’s music staff were looking forward to hearing the large-scale, Broadway-style productions that Victory has come to be known for, such as its Easter pageant. “The musicians, in particular, are excited about that,” he says. “They’re running their IEMs flat, without EQ, and that’s resulting in virtually no distortion at all, at any volume level. Everyone onstage is much better able to engage with the songs now because of the sound. Having L-Acoustics really has been an incredible transformation for us.”
Victory Church
- Capacity: 5,000
- Key Products: L-Acoustics K2 Series
- Integrator: Skylark AV
- Designer: Tyler Mergy, Zach Kimrey
Maris Stella, Incheon, South Korea
Maris Stella, named after the patron saint of South Korea’s busy port city of Incheon, is a comprehensive senior care facility established in 2013 by the Catholic Foundation. The first of its kind in the country, Maris Stella provides an integrated program of pastoral care for its residents with a rich offering of social and cultural events and pastimes, plus daily celebration of Mass in the facility’s 400-seat auditorium, which also hosts lectures, film screenings and live performances.
A decade after its initial construction, Maris Stella management decided to upgrade the audio system to improve its quality and intelligibility. KV2 Audio distributor Daon SD collaborated with consultants Audio Control to supply and install a pair of ESR106 active column speakers.
Audio Control CEO Mr. Noh and the church’s head priest considered several factors in selecting a new sound system. The previous system relied on multiple full-range loudspeakers distributed throughout the space. In addition to being visually intrusive, coverage and sound quality left much to be desired, particularly in terms of vocal intelligibility. Keen to resolve these issues, the church staff turned to Mr. Noh for advice.
After several demos of KV2 systems from Daon SD, Mr. Noh was convinced that KV2 would be the right solution for the auditorium. He was very impressed by a demo of KV2’s EX Series, and while that demo effectively piqued Mr. Noh’s interest, he ended up proposing a different solution — KV2’s elegant ESR106 active column array system. ESR106 deploys multiple 6” woofers and a single 1” HF driver mounted on a wide dispersion horn for high quality vocal and music reproduction in challenging acoustical spaces.
Mounted to the left and right of the stage, the ESR106s have proven to be an excellent choice for the auditorium, where the relatively low ceiling height compared to the depth of the room was a challenge.
“In order to secure the loudspeakers to the wall, we customized the wall mounting hardware so that we could mount the cabinets safely on the striated wooden wall cladding,” recalls Daon SD’s John Park. “In an ideal world, we’d have raised the installation height slightly to ensure optimum coverage for both the front and back rows, but the configuration of the room didn’t allow us to do that,” states Park.
“However, once we turned the loudspeakers on, our concerns were forgotten. Crystal clear sound filled the room from front to back — in fact the coverage and throw of the ESR106s defies common sense! The clarity and intelligibility — even from the back seats 25 meters from the stage — are simply in a different league to the previous system. It’s hard to believe that this is possible from just two enclosures.”
Maris Stella
- Capacity: 400
- Key Products: KV2 Audio ESR106
- Integrator: Daon SD
- Designer: Audio Control
Christ Wesleyan Church, Milton, PA
Christ Wesleyan Church (CWC) is a 100-year-old church community that has maintained its beliefs and traditions even as it grew into one of the largest megachurches in the Milton, PA area. But there’s another side to this church, one that’s as familiar with Broadway as with “The Way.” Each summer and fall season, CWC puts on remarkably sophisticated theatrical plays and musicals — last year saw The Sound of Music performed in its 1,100-seat auditorium, where Titanic, The Musical and Diary of Anne Frank were performed the year before, and where the church’s affiliated high school also puts on technically sophisticated productions of its own.
“These are not your typical church productions,” agrees CWC communication / broadcast creative director Brent Mestach. “But it’s why we needed to up our audio game, as the productions became more complex and the number of wireless microphones began to exceed 50. And that’s why there’s now a DiGiCo Quantum338 console in use here. We needed more I/O, and we needed more power. We got it.”
The Quantum338 was acquired in late 2020, the same year it was introduced, through locally owned Divine Sound & Technologies. Subsequently, CWC also added a DiGiCo 4REA4 processor, purchased through nearby Clair Global. The Quantum338 serves as the church’s FOH console, for both theatrical productions and Sunday services, and is on an Optocore network with an SD-Rack used as a stage box. In addition, the 4REA4 processor and a DiGiCo A168 Stage expander unit are located in the converted upstairs bathroom space (formerly used as a cry room) that was renovated into a broadcast-audio control room during Covid, used to mix the church’s remote Sunday services. It currently interfaces with a DiGiCo DMI-WAVES SoundGrid card over Cat-6 and a Gigabit switch, though Mestach says the plan for the near future is to connect the 4REA4 with the Quantum338 on the Optocore network, allowing all of the mix positions to access all of the inputs from the stage.
“The Quantum338 and 4REA4 have given us a tremendous amount of flexibility to route audio throughout the auditorium and to be able to share resources for any application, from broadcast to theatrical shows,” says Mestach. “They’ve been a huge reason we’ve been able to upgrade our audio capabilities.”
Christ Wesleyan Church
- Capacity: 1,100
- Key Products: DiGiCo Quantum338, 4REA4 processor
- Integrator: Divine Sound & Technologies and Clair Global
Fellowship Church, Grapevine, TX
Headquartered in Grapevine, TX, Fellowship Church has implemented an Artist-1024 intercom system integrated with SmartPanels and Bolero wireless beltpacks to improve intercampus communications. The Riedel equipment significantly enhances system reliability and audio clarity for seamless communication irrespective of location, thereby connecting multiple campuses. Supplied by system integrator Clark, the Riedel solution has empowered Fellowship Church to fulfill its mission to “Reach Up, Reach Out, and Reach In” during services across its four campuses throughout the Dallas metro area. This system also makes it possible for Fellowship Church to reliably deliver religious and educational programs.
“With the upgrade to the Riedel intercom system, the audio quality has drastically increased, delivering crystal-clear audio — so clear that you cannot tell where I am — with zero dropouts,” says Corbin Rubinson, production engineer at Fellowship Church. “What’s even more impressive is the overall product quality; it’s incredibly reliable. We can make changes live on the fly while the system is operational without anyone noticing. With our previous setup, we had to shut down the entire system and pray that it would come back up.”
Founded in 1989 as a mission church of the First Baptist Church of Irving, TX, Fellowship Church has grown into a multisite house of worship with satellite campuses in Fort Worth, Dallas and Frisco. With its main facility in Grapevine spanning 123,000 square feet, the church’s campus features worship and atrium sections connected by a hallway. The Bolero coverage, provided by just five antennas, ensures uninterrupted wireless communication throughout the entire space, including the control room. The IP networked-based system provides the flexibility to throw down systems anywhere in the facility to immediately route new audio.
David Medford, Fellowship Church’s video engineer, notes that “the confidence the Riedel intercom system gives us is invaluable. We know it will work seamlessly and reliably, allowing us to be mobile and flexible. Volunteers equipped with Bolero beltpacks can move around different areas of the campus, and I can provide assistance anywhere it’s needed while remaining in communication with the control room the entire time. The system’s easy setup and mobility have saved us a significant amount of time — from an entire day down to only 20 minutes.”
Volunteers of varying ages, from high school students to seniors, can easily learn how to operate the system within minutes. The Artist-1024 intercom replaces an outdated setup dependent on paper labels that were frequently faded and difficult to read, making the color-coded Riedel SmartPanels especially valuable. Also, integrated GPIO triggers allow for a flashing light that signals to operators that the system is functioning.
“Our intercom system has brought tremendous improvement to Fellowship Church’s operations,” stated Riedel’s Ben Gabrielson. “They get the reliability necessary for their remarkable productions along with clear communication and greater efficiency for both the technical team and the entire congregation. I eagerly anticipate the church’s future endeavors with the technology.”
Fellowship Church
- Key Products: Riedel Artist-1024 Intercom; SmartPanels; Bolero beltpacks
- Integrator: Clark
Edenton Street United Methodist, Raleigh, NC
Established more than 200 years ago, Edenton Street United Methodist Church (ESUMC) is renowned for its famous pipe organ, alluring chandelier and majestic stained-glass windows.
The sanctuary recently upgraded with Martin Audio’s O-Line micro line array, which blends discreetly into the church’s 27” thick sandstone walls. The slim-line columnar solution, comprising two hangs of 16 O-Line modules, was recommended and installed by local production company RMB Audio.
The former system had been integrated within the chandelier in 1957 during a rebuild of the church following a fire. RMB founder, Cooper Cannady felt there was now clearly a need for higher SPL and a significant upgrade in speech articulation.
Although Martin Audio’s dedicated DISPLAY prediction software pointed toward a 12-box solution, Cannady recognized that by increasing this to 16 cabinets — driven from a pair of Martin Audio iKON iK81 multichannel amplifiers — he could increase both floor and balcony coverage while avoiding reflections back from the balcony fascia.
“The frequency response of O-Line (85 – 18k Hz) in a large voluminous space such as this reduces LF resonance,” he says. “At the same time, the sidelobe-free close spacing of five 21mm HF drivers ensured uninterrupted audio at the adjacent left and right pulpits, even though they are positioned slightly in front of the upstage O-Line hangs. This often creates problems with other systems, where you can’t have the speech articulation you want due to the proximity of the mics.”
Cannady adds that “within 12-15 feet of the arrays is a lectern, and with celebrants on lavaliers or headmics, and they can walk in front of the O-Line without feedback problems.”
The RMB team were familiar with the facility prior to installation, having frequently brought in Martin Audio CDD12 or CDD15 to augment the church’s sound capabilities for its progressive worship services featuring a full band. “Now with O-Line they can replicate what we were doing for them earlier,” says Cannady.
Dave Clemmer, ESUMC audio steward (and long-time collaborator with RMB Audio) noted “this installation took over a year of gathering acoustic measurement, before settling on O-Line with its audio spectrum quality and artistic design.” Another plus was the O-Line’s cabinets ability to be color-matched for a discreet appearance.
Now, the 1,200 or so who have been arriving to pack the sanctuary to worship each Sunday can enjoy a new experience. And they are not the only people to benefit. The choir, who had been finding it difficult to reference its sound through the existing foldback, received a new monitor setup as part of the Martin Audio CDD5 installation.
Reflecting on an installation that respects the heritage of the building, Cannady says that due to the O-Line’s forgiving nature, virtually no tuning was needed, despite sound swirling round a high elevation ceiling. “For very cavernous, large volume buildings with resonances, there is nothing better than O-Line.”
Clemmer agreed. “It’s an amazing installation with beautiful sonic quality,” he concluded.
Edenton Street United Methodist
- Capacity: 1,200
- Key Products: Martin Audio O-Line
- Integrator: RMB Audio
