LAKEVILLE, MN — Completed just in time for their annual "Country Christmas" seasonal shows, the new EV sound system at Celebration Church in Lakeville, Minn, reflects the serious production needs of a large church like Celebration: more than 18,000 people attended the "Country Christmas" shows over a three-week period, hearing the country music themed event through a PA that brings EV sound to the church's 1100-seat theatre/sanctuary. The main PA is composed of seven Xi-1183 boxes in an LCR configuration, flown above four Xsubs under the stage. Four Xi-1082s provide front fills; four QRx112/75 are onstage monitors, and two ZX1s are used as musician's PMs. The whole system is powered by EV P3000RL remote control DSP amplifiers running IRIS-Net software.
The Story Behind the System
Celebration Church was founded ten years ago and has been in its current facility for four years. The head pastor and founder of Celebration Church, Lowell Lundstrom, was a country rock entertainer in the 1950s, and, after becoming a minister in 1957, recorded over 50 gospel albums. In 2005, Lowell was inducted into the Minnesota Music Hall of Fame. Lowell's son Lance is head sound engineer at the church.
As one would expect with a leader like Lundstrom, music, concerts and productions play a major role at the church. However, as is the case with many church projects, inadequate funds prohibited the installation of an appropriate sound system upon completion of construction. An interim system sufficed until this year's Christmas season, when Celebration Church took delivery of a new EV system. Purchased from Metro Sound and Lighting (St. Paul, Minn.) and installed by Audio Logic Systems (Bloomington, Minn.), this was a Minnesota project through and through–especially since the church is only a few miles from EV HQ in Burnsville.
"Although we were able to make the old system sound good by most people's standards," says Lundstrom, "there was a lot of room for improvement in clarity, and tons of room for improvement in coverage. Because the room functions as a sanctuary most of the time, the uneven pattern of the old system occasionally caused problems, with congregation members concerned about sound levels."
Installation took place during the weeklong dress rehearsals for the "Country Christmas" production. The prospect of mixing a sold-out show with 70 cast members and musicians on a new system that had been installed and operational for less than 48 hours must have seemed daunting, but all apprehension was soon laid to rest. Lundstrom explains:
"On the day of the system changeover, we had nine hours to get the cabinets in the air and functioning for the final dress rehearsal that night. I was expecting to tune the system for the room, EQ it to my taste, and then just do a little tweaking with the mix, which was already sounding pretty good on the old boxes. As soon as the band started playing, it was apparent that this system was a whole different animal. My mix totally fell apart, and I spent the next three hours in an EQ-ing frenzy."
The "Country Christmas" show has now closed for another year. Lundstrom offered some closing thoughts on how the new EV system will change the worship experience at the church:
"Church productions usually carry the stigma of being less than professional," Lundstrom added, "and rarely would one be mentioned in the same sentence as a show in a downtown theatre. We're looking to shake that reputation and produce relevant shows that rival the largest productions."
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