EL PASO, Texas – When Pastors Charles and Rochelle Nieman first answered the call to preach the gospel in 1977, they were holding services in a tiny railroad hall in El Paso, Texas. Today, the Niemans' vision has been realized in the newly constructed home of their Abundant Living Faith Center (ALFC), which counts more than 15,000 active members. With approximately 8,000 worshippers attending services at ALFC weekly, the new facility's 3,620-seat main auditorium was designed and built to deliver music and liturgy clearly and intelligibly via a complete L-ACOUSTICS sound solution.
A fellowship built on contemporary ministries and musical performances, ALFC placed audio, video, acoustics and lighting at the top of their list of priorities for the new worship facility. Early in the design process, Michael Garrison Associates (MGA) was brought on board to integrate these technology systems throughout ALFC's new home. With careful consideration for ALFC's somewhat limited budget, MGA set a course to dazzle visitors not only at regular services, but also the regional and national conferences, and high-level contemporary Christian music concerts hosted by the fellowship.
It was these concerts that MGA President Michael Garrison used as his guide when designing the sound system for the main auditorium. "Their sound reinforcement system needed to meet the requirements of the A-list touring groups' technical riders," Garrison observed. "These days, that almost always calls for a line-array loudspeaker system."
Despite this seemingly simple solution, the Niemans weren't sure of the line-array option. They had heard a fair number of line array systems in other houses of worship, as well as at concerts in their local civic center. "Their opinion was that all the line-arrays they ever heard were too harsh and too aggressive for their tastes – to the point of walking out of some high-priced concerts that featured their favorite artists," Garrison recalled. "They really wanted a system that could deliver concert sound levels, but with a more refined sonic quality than what they had yet heard."
On a quest to find the right sound system solution, MGA led the Niemans on a tour of several large churches, where they listened to several line-array systems. They were unimpressed. But construction on the new worship facility was moving forward, and in the interest of keeping pace MGA provided infrastructure to support both a line-array system and a more traditional exploded cluster array.
Then, just as the sound system question seemed insurmountable, a solution arose. MGA turned to L-ACOUSTICS, the loudspeaker manufacturer they had relied upon on previous projects, including the Christian Faith Center in Seattle, Washington; Lakeside Church in Sacramento, California; and Calvary Temple in Irving, Texas. Upon hearing the L-ACOUSTICS KUDO(tm) system, MGA concluded that it "uniquely had all of the performance characteristics that ALFC wanted and needed–not only the very refined high level sound, but also the ability to adjust the horizontal coverage angle of each KUDO box to avoid directing a significant amount of sound energy to the side walls," Garrison said.
In order to optimize KUDO for the space, MGA's design team worked closely with L-ACOUSTICS' technical support team, including Steve Armstrong of PROS, Inc., the Northern California and Northwest representative for the manufacturer. In the end, due to budget, the very wide fan-shaped seating arrangement and some difficult sightline issues, ALFC and MGA agreed to execute a monaural system consisting of left, center, and right arrays. The three six-box arrays of KUDO and two four-box arrays of flown L-ACOUSTICS SB28 subs are all powered with the new LA8 amplified controllers.
When height limitations and structural elements made it clear that the three main KUDO arrays could not cover a significant portion of the farthest seats, MGA's senior consultant Brian Roggow made the decision to supplement them with L-ACOUSTICS KIVA(tm) delay arrays. These four six-box KIVA arrays covering the gallery sections are powered by L-ACOUSTICS LA4 amplified controllers. Additionally, five 8XT front fills were added to complete the system.
The audiovisual and lighting systems were substantially completed and operational for the dedication services, held December 29-31, 2007, though the general construction of the new facility was not completed until almost six months later. The results were apparent from day one, however. "Everyone at ALFC and MGA is very pleased with the performance of the sound system," Garrison said. "We have had to make several adjustments to aiming and tuning due to things like the acoustic wall panels being installed well after the dedication services and structural support elements not being exactly where designed, but the system has responded well and coverage is excellent."
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