The fervor of upgrading sound reinforcement rigs — as well as lighting, video and broadcast systems — in the house of worship market continues at a dizzying pace. Much of this has been fueled by the rise of popularity of high-energy praise bands and choirs that up bring the SPL’s to a level that’s simply heavenly for many parishioners. These days, a 1960s-vintage Lowrey organ and a couple of well-worn Shure Vocal Master columns don’t quite cut it when presenting contemporary music services.
However, this not to imply that every sanctuary needs a system that could power a rock ‘n’ roll festival. In fact, quite the opposite is true, yet one universal request is a need for sound reinforcement that emphasizes vocal intelligibility and clarity first and wall-thumping impact second.
At the same time, no two churches are the same. Whether in a converted warehouse, arena or in the confines of a traditional cathedral-esque setting, acoustics can present a formidable challenge. And here’s where modern speaker designs really shine, often combining technologies such as directivity and precise dispersion control, DSP and even steerable functions to keep sound directed at the audience rather than the walls and ceiling.
With that in mind, we present this collection of more than a dozen recent installation projects, with both whole system and incremental upgrades. Each of these took a different route in their approach to making sure the word, the music and the message comes through clearly and cleanly, for the entire congregation — whether seated near the altar or in last row.
Fairfield Baptist Church, Lithonia, GA
Music is an integral part of the Fairfield Baptist Church, which was long overdue for a new system. So parishioner Alfred “Al-Tee” Williams — a three-time Grammy winner and FOH and monitor mixer for acts including Jay Sean, Kool & the Gang, Fantasia and Ludacris — selected a Bose Professional RoomMatch configuration and a Yamaha QL5 digital mixer for the 129-year old facility.
“We were having trouble getting good coverage to all of the seats, and the low-frequency response we were getting from the existing system was not what we needed,” Williams explains. He had heard the Bose system earlier this year while mixing Ludacris at Park City Live during the Sundance Film Festival. “I was amazed at how good the coverage was. But the real test came when I played tracks for sound check with some really deep bass. Ludacris’ song ‘How Low’ has a drop-tone that goes below 30 Hz and many subwoofers cannot handle this at the sound levels we need. I was blown away by the low-bass depth and impact the RoomMatch subwoofers provided. I wanted the church to sound like this.”
While at Bose headquarters, Williams put the RoomMatch system through its paces, with program material ranging from hip-hop to rock and Beethoven. “I wanted to see how far I could push the system,” he says. “Once we had gone through all that, I knew the RoomMatch system would work for our church.”
Designed and installed by Williams, the system has two L/R arrays, each with three symmetrical and three asymmetrical modules. Four RMS218 double-18 subs deliver “Ludacris-level” bass. Two RoomMatch modules handle areas outside of the left/right clusters, while four RoomMatch Utility RMU208’s provide front fill. Powering is via 10 Bose PowerMatch PM8500N amps with ESP Link cards. A Bose ControlSpace ESP–880 processor with a Dante card offers system management.
The outcome is nothing short of spectacular,” he notes. “The room is filled with music, the coverage is consistent and comprehensive. And the sound is great right out of the box — the EQ has hardly been touched. With the Dante card, we can control the system from anywhere. Last Sunday, I mixed the vocals on an iPad from the second row; the week before, I was able to control the system from Pittsburgh!”
Williams says everyone in the church loves the sound now, including church media director Cleon D. Frazier. “Our previous sound system was underpowered and presented us with dead spots in the sanctuary,” adds Frazier. “The Bose RoomMatch system solved those problems, and the congregation can definitely tell the difference.”
North Boulevard Church, Murfreesboro, TN
Besides providing high-quality live audio in its main sanctuary, North Boulevard Church of Christ broadcasts its worship services over a local television station, records them for use in a satellite church and provides simultaneous Spanish and Chinese translations.
The church’s new sound and video system is centered around a pair of Allen & Heath GLD-80 digital mixers. “Our previous system was 17 to 18 years old, and it was designed for our needs at that time,” said Mike Jones, who oversees worship production for the church. “We wanted a system that sounded better and had the capability to handle everything we’ve been working into the worship service.”
Nashville’s M3 Technology Group provided the church’s live audio and video systems as well as its broadcast and recording gear. A Dante network feeds all of the mics from an Allen & Heath AR2412 AudioRack on the stage to the GLD-80’s used for live and studio mixes via the GLD’s built-in digital snake. “We installed Dante cards in the GLD-80 mixers,” says M3’s Chris Montini, “and chose a wireless microphone system and a DSP that are also equipped with Dante.”
To simplify system operation, both GLD-80s have the same setups for channel assignments, scenes and layers. This allows any of the church’s tech staff to mix the live auditorium sound or the broadcast and recording sound with no additional training on the hardware. Jones added that “the GLD is intuitive and easy to learn. Once you understand the basics, it’s fairly simple to operate.”
Christ Chapel Bible Church, Ft. Worth, TX
Since its founding in 1984, Christ Chapel Bible Church has steadily expanded, adding buildings to its main campus and opening a satellite location. To upgrade the 1,800-seat main sanctuary, the church chose an L-Acoustics KARAi line array system, supplied by Fort Worth’s Electro Acoustics, Inc. The system consists of 32 KARAi enclosures configured into four line array hangs of eight enclosures each, with each hang topped by two L—Acoustics SB18i subs, all powered via eight L-Acoustics LA8 amplifier/DSP controllers.
Due to the light weight of the KARAi boxes, Electro Acoustics used most of the ceiling rigging points they installed for a previous system 10 years ago. Besides clear, intelligible sound for spoken word and music, KARAi brings wide coverage to the space. Its 110° horizontal directivity can address everything from the front floor rows to the balcony seating.
“Some of my team attended a sound system shootout last year, and when we got to L-Acoustics we all just stopped and said, ‘What was that?’” recalls Electro Acoustics’ Chris Jordan. The church’s technical director was at the same show and was equally impressed with the sound. “We both thought that KARAi would be a great fit for the church,” says Jordan.
“We are able to keep the energy off the side walls and on the audience, consistently covering every seat,” Jordan adds. “And with eight amplifiers, we have plenty of headroom for what has become a very energetic music program. The church believes in excellence, and KARAi met their expectations.”
St. Madeleine Sophie, Schenectady, NY
St. Madeleine Sophie is a Roman Catholic church with a modern architectural design built around a fan-shaped sanctuary and wood-beamed ceiling.
The open ceiling promotes good acoustic diffusion but its ceramic tile floor, hardwood pews and painted walls contribute to an overall “live” sound quality. In this environment, St. Madeleine’s previous point-source audio system was unable to provide good vocal clarity and it suffered from uneven coverage, frequent feedback and a noticeable rear-wall bounce.
Dominick Campana of Pro Sound Associates in Guilderland, NY was brought in to design a new sound system. Campana chose a Community ENTASYS ENT-FR full-range column coupled to an ENT-LF low-frequency column for each side of the chancel and a Community dSPEC226AN DSP processor for loudspeaker management and system equalization. He installed three new Shure hanging microphones over the choir, a pair of Shure earset wireless mics for the priests and new amplifiers to power the system. The new audio system is a “hands-off” design using Shure automatic mixers. Community painted the ENTASYS columns to blend with the church’s interior.
Campana says St. Madeleine’s is pleased with their new audio system. “The intelligibility is great, the choir is happy with the music quality and we’ve virtually eliminated the feedback issue,” he said.
CRC Christian Church, Pretoria, South Africa
One of South Africa’s largest churches, the recently constructed 6,500-seat CRC Christian Church in Pretoria, turned to local distributor Tadco to supply and install a DiGiCo SD10 at front of house, an SD8 for monitors and a second SD8 in its studio, which broadcasts live to many other CRC Churches around the world.
“DiGiCo’s intuitive layout made training the church’s students and volunteers a breeze,” says Tadco’s Perry Elias.
Henry Underhay, the church’s head of audio, was impressed with the systems. “I come from a live rock music background, where things need to happen creatively on the fly and being able to set up the mixer in the most comfortable layout for an engineer has brought me tremendous joy. The fact that you can access settings for, let’s say, a vocal channel from a previous show into your current show has also been a real blessing.”
Underhay added that the was sound was important factor in the decision. “These consoles are sonically very transparent with very little — if any — unwanted coloration,” but also felt that reliability is also essential.
“I tend to be quite paranoid, even in the safest situations. The guys at DiGiCo seem to know this and all the fail-safes, — like redundant power supplies or seperate reset capabilities of the processing and audio units — has really put me at ease. I have not yet had to use any of these measures; but it’s nice to know they’re there.”
Northwest Bible Church, Dallas, TX
For the revamped sound system at Northwest Bible Church in Dallas, consulting firm Wrightson, Johnson, Haddon & Williams (WJHW) designed an LCR system using EAW QX speakers. All three of Northwest Bible’s QX arrays individually provide more than 90 percent coverage to the main floor seating using QX564i for a true Left/Center/Right system.
To complement the QX units, WJHW’s Jim Burdette used EAW KF394 and KF364 compact three-way systems for short-throw audio. “Those have a very similar mid-high profile to the QX500’s, so that worked very well,” Burdette said. WJHW rounded out the system with UB52i cabinets for the side and front fills.
Burdette spoke highly of the QX Series’ tuning and pattern control. “The pattern offerings are very usable for designing cluster arrays that behave well together,” he said. “When trying to cover a majority of the audience with each of the left-center-right clusters, you need something that arrays well and has minimal phase, off-axis and interference issues. The previous system sounded pretty poor from not having the pattern control or the coverage of the QX. This is a significant step up.”
The upgrade also greatly impressed its listeners. “People of all generations feel the sound is much improved and much more pleasant, and those with more discriminating ears have commented on hearing all the different parts, instrumentation and tonality.”
Lighthouse Christian Church, Rosemount, MN
For years, Lighthouse Christian Church had been trying to reduce stage noise and clean up the sound in this 350-seat sanctuary originally designed for pipe organ. An upgraded sound system a few years back helped, but worshipers were still having difficulty hearing vocals clearly. Musicians were fighting for audio space and the overall house sound suffered from all the noise competition.
The solution came in the form of a myMix personal monitor mixer system, consisting of six individual myMix units, myMix control and a myMix input expander. The IEX16L connects to a Behringer Eurodesk 3282A mixer via the 1/4 inch insert jacks. There are eventual plans to purchase a digital mixer, which will connect to the IEX16L with little or no difficulty with simply a change of cables.
“Budget-wise, it was a fairly small expenditure in terms of its the impact,” says sound engineer Scott Goerdt. “The difference myMix made was an immediate, noticeable difference across the board, night and day. Worshipers are no longer looking back at us sound guys. Muddied sound and feedback are no longer issues.” And the musicians also seem pleased. “It’s improved my playing,” says keyboardist Brian Johnson, “I have a better sense of what other people in the band are doing, which allows us to blend better and I can make sure that my part fits in with others.”
Cross Pointe Church, Duluth, GA
Seemingly an unlikely location for a church (built inside a former Boeing missile factory building), Cross Pointe Church upgraded to a Meyer Sound system.
Designed and installed by Tom Larrison of Norcross, GA-based Blue Hat Design, the new rig has two main two hangs, each with seven MICA’s, providing uniform coverage for most of the 1,700-seat sanctuary. Meyer UPM-1P’s provide front and center fill and four 1100-LFC subwoofers in left/right cardioid pairs supply low-end. A Galileo Callisto loudspeaker management system with two Galileo Callisto 616 array processors supply drive and optimization.
Pastor of worship and creative arts Alfred Burgess reports that MICA’s power and clarity was immediately noticeable. “MICA has the coverage and the clarity we want, and now it’s really enjoyable to sit out here and listen.” He was also impressed by the 1100-LFC’s. “The low-end is amazing and doesn’t just rumble at you like some other subwoofers. The sound is powerful, yet tight and clear.”
The new MICA installation is complemented by Avid Profile and D-Show consoles at FOH and monitors, Waves and McDSP plug-ins and Shure PSM 1000 in-ear systems. The church’s nine-year-old Meyer CQ-2 system will serve in a second Cross Pointe campus due to open in late 2014.
King Street Church, Chambersburg, PA
Nashville’s Morris Light & Sound has completed upgrading the King Street Church in Chambersburg, PA with a NEXO GEO S12 line array (five per side and two RS18 Ray Subs flown in the center), a Yamaha CL5 digital console at front of house and two Rio 3224-D I/O Stageboxes behind the stage.
“Given the traditional architecture and diverse worship styles at King Street, we needed to provide a system that was aesthetically pleasing and also met performance requirements for church’s various services,” states Danny Rosenbalm, VP of integration for ML&S. “The NEXO GEOS12s were a great choice as they provide exceptional coverage and strong full-range music reproduction, all while keeping the spoken word and vocal clarity in paramount importance.”
The church seats 550 in the sanctuary and 725 in a separate contemporary worship space, for its traditional, contemporary and blended services. The contemporary and blended services have anywhere from six to ten musicians and vocalists as part of the praise band.
“The tech team had heard the NEXO and Yamaha systems at many conferences and training sessions,” states the church’s audio install project coordinator, John Petrarca. “As the church is made up mostly of volunteers that share house audio duties, we needed a system that was up to date and could make transitions from one service style to the next. The system also allows for future growth, from video production to multi-site possibilities.”
The church engineers were already familiar with the CentraLogic platform on the M7CL. “The CL5 provides them the ability to mix twice the number of channels, adds new dynamics and EQ plug-ins and employs Dante protocol for device connectivity,” adds Rosenbalm. “Dante networking significantly cleaned up the signal path from the existing traditional copper snake. It also gave the church the ability to connect multiple venues on campus as well as provide broadcast with new recording possibilities. Overall, we are extremely pleased with the results from Yamaha/NEXO system.”
Canvas Church, Irvine, CA
In 2011, the founders of Canvas Church broke away from Irvine Presbyterian to form a church “for people who don’t like church.” The original congregation has since more than tripled and the church recently relocated to a larger home — in a warehouse space yet the interior is warm and welcoming.
“We do a sort of post-contemporary service, with a full band: bass, drums, guitars, keyboards and a few vocalists. There’s a lot going on,” explains Norman Gordon, the parishioner who specified a new sound system and runs front of house.
Gordon recommended a PreSonus StudioLive 32.4.2AI console, along with StudioLive 328AI mains and a StudioLive 18sAI subwoofer as the FOH system. A pair of 328AI’s used as monitors completes the package. “The AI series really had everything we needed,” he explains. “Having been an analog guy most of my life, I love that warm, English, analog sound. It’s something I wouldn’t have expected with digital. I was pleasantly surprised at how warm and open the console sounded.”
Every service is recorded, using Capture software to record the individual tracks in real time, which are exported into Studio One for mixing.
Gordon reports that the congregation is happy with the new system. “You know what they say about the soundman — if you don’t get any complaints, it means you’re doing your job.”
Fellowship Church, Knoxville, TN
Working in the Fellowship Church, technical director Scott Bradford has made Waves plug-ins an essential part of the signal chain. “We are running two Waves-enabled DiGiCo SD8 consoles — one for FOH and one for monitors. Both have a Waves SoundGrid Server One and Waves plug-ins,” says Bradford. “We also have a recording desk with Waves plug-ins and three workstations for production staff working on videos and audio. In addition, our two student rooms have been upgraded with Behringer X32 digital mixers, and we are looking to incorporate Waves MultiRack on those consoles as well.”
For his go-to Waves plug-ins, Bradford notes, “The Waves SSL 4000 Collection gives our mix the vibe and depth we have always wanted on drums, electric guitars and especially vocals. The Waves CLA Classic Compressors give us that color palette that most vanilla digital consoles cannot offer, and the Waves C4 Multiband Compressor has been amazing for bass, acoustic guitars and vocals. Its presets are fantastic, and its solo and bypass features help me teach my trainees what compression is and what it does.”
All in all, Waves has helped Bradford achieve the goals he set out for the church’s technical team. He concludes, “Waves has given my team the ability to go deeper into training, help our volunteers grasp the concepts of audio and achieve a much more pleasing and engaging sonic experience with a lot more ease.”
St. Theresa Church, Maui, HI
Pro audio installation company Bounty Music revamped the local St. Theresa Church with a Soundcraft Si Expression 2 digital console, Crown DCi 2|1250 amplifier, a dbx DriveRack PA2 and two JBL CBT70JE-1-WH column loudspeakers. The 550-seat church required all gear to be streamlined into an integrated network with one-switch control.
Due to the variety of groups performing at the church, music can vary among multiple genres within a given day. The Si Expression 2’s recallable features made the console the best solution for the Church. Another bonus was a low profile install. The console is housed in a cabinet hidden from the general audience, which makes the ViSi Remote App 2.0 perfect for controlling the audio from a distance.
Given the wide and shallow structure of the seating arrangements, the CBT70JE-1-WH loudspeakers were chosen to provide excellent coverage in every seat, without consuming much real estate. “I have always relied on Crown amplifiers for their sound quality and their reliability, especially powering JBL loudspeakers.” said Bounty Music’s Paul Weinstein, “and the DriveRack PA2 is a great all-in-one solution, for room EQ and anti-feedback.”
Sun Valley Community Church, Tempe, AZ
Sun Valley Tempe merged with Bethany Church two and a half years ago. “The audio system was old and primarily designed for natural speech, orchestra and choir reinforcement in an acoustic setting,” says Eric Johnson, the church’s technical director. “Plus, the building is a complex geometric design, basically a 5-sided pentagon with a 7-sided auditorium that’s about 160° wide, with a raked floor, many complex angles and no parallel surfaces. This presented a real challenge when it came to choosing a new loudspeaker system.”
Acoustically treating the room could have cost hundreds of thousands of dollars, and completely tearing down the ceiling and remodeling the room wasn’t an option, either. The solution came in the form of a Martin Audio MLA system, offering technology to “precisely control the audio output and put the energy onto the seats while keeping it off the ceilings and walls.
The installation team included the system integration company Clark, SVCC and riggers from Clearwing. The 1,300-seat auditorium now features nine MLA Compact enclosures per side in left-right hangs with seven Martin Audio DSX subs in arc formation along the downstage edge. Two WT3 speakers for extreme left/right outfill, six DD6 speakers for front fill, Martin MA3.0 and MA2.8Q amps and a Merlin complete the system. The rest of the setup includes a Soundcraft MH2 40-channel desk at FOH, Sennheiser Evolution Series wireless and DPA mics.
According to Johnson, the system upgrade was a success. “The musicians can now focus on the nuances and subtleties of their music that can finally be heard without overwhelming the space.”
University Christian Church, Ft. Worth, TX
Located on the Texas Christian University campus, University Christian Church upgraded with Tannoy column line arrays in a system designed by Taipale Media Systems (Allen, TX) and installed by SAV of Plano, TX.
The church’s cruciform design has seating in the main sanctuary, along with upper and lower seating in side areas. The last pew on the main floor is 120 feet from the main loudspeakers and balcony seating extends back another 20 feet. The organ and choir are behind the altar.
According to Curt Taipale, the project required precise pattern control, which “meant choosing a very large format horn — which would be unsightly — or some type of line array. I chose a Tannoy QFlex 48 column line array. The uninitiated tend not to believe me when I tell them one tall, skinny column of loudspeakers can provide even sound coverage to listeners seated in the front as well as 140 feet away,” Taipale adds. “The eyebrows really start to raise when we mount a column vertically against the architectural truss and ‘steer’ the sound energy down onto the listeners.”
Taipale built the acoustical model using EASE software. In order to minimize how far the QFlex 48 protruded below the truss, it was raised as high as possible. As a result, the next truss blocked the HF section for the last six pews on the main floor. A single Tannoy VLS 15 passive column array on a nearby truss handled the last few rows, while additional units covered the lower and upper side transept seating, the choir and the balcony.
The result? “The project team, church leaders and church membership were beyond happy,” concludes Taipale. “They had not heard services so clearly in quite some time.”
Church of the Nazarene, Grove City, OH
The 2,800-seat main auditorium at the Church of The Nazarene (“The Naz”) upgraded its sound system with gear from Boynton Pro Audio (Norwich, NY), installed by church staff and volunteers. After its Yamaha LS9 monitor board was stolen, the church decided to replace it and a PM1D with a Yamaha CL5 at front of house and a CL1 at monitors and eight Rio I/O boxes: two Rio3224-D, two Rio1608-D, two Ri8s and two Ro8s.
“This was not our first experience with digital consoles,” states The Naz’ technical director Matt Groves. “One of our front of house engineers suggested we purchase a CL Series, and after researching it more, we discovered how functional it would be for us. Our audio engineers are volunteers with experience on our LS9 and PM1D, so the only training required was to watch the self-training videos on the Yamaha website.”
The church offers both traditional and contemporary services, including an 80-member choir, 15-piece orchestra, a full rhythm section and solo vocalists. “The use of the Dante system is so functional for us as a church,” Groves says. “Since we run two very different style worship services and host many events and concerts throughout the year, having the Dante network gives us the flexibility we need. We also needed to replace the existing wiring and patch bays, and being able to run a redundant network with Cat-5e cable between the consoles and Rio boxes was a huge cost savings for us. Our system now sounds the cleanest it has ever sounded. The clarity and depth of sound we’re getting from this system is amazing!”
St. Mary’s Catholic Church, Fennimore, WI
Many upgrades and installs involve some new gear and maybe a new coat of paint, but for St. Mary’s Catholic Church, in Fennimore , WI, the process went a lot further. Originally completed around 1910, the church had a look and feel that was more reminiscent of a European cathedral. During the 1970’s the ornate, gilded church went through what has been described as a “wreckovation” — stripped of its large carved wooden main and side altars, fresco-styled wall murals and given a “modern” monotonal interior paint job.
In a recent project, St. Mary’s Catholic Church decided to undertake replicating the look of the original facility. Restoring this historic structure to its former beauty was an immense — and certainly worthwhile — undertaking, yet the old-school approach of huge P.A. speaker clusters would have destroyed the look of the sanctuary.
Trying to fit modern technology into the original footprint was overcome by Peak Systems Group (Reedsburg, WI), who often deals with older traditional-style churches looking to upgrade. The speakers of choice were RCF’s VSA2050 steerable column arrays.
“It became part of the architectural space,” notes Peak’s Jason Keagy. “When a column is so streamlined and discreet, it is easy to incorporate into the vertical aspects of the architecture,” making the product practically invisible, while the steerability provides the competence to service the specific seating area well.” The VSA2050’s vertical steering angle is selectable from 0° to +/-40° via a PC connection or with IR remote control for beam steering.
The VSA2050’s can also be tied into a building’s life safety systems. While the main system is connected via an AC power input, a second DC power input with a ceramic audio terminal block provides priority override for emergency messaging.
