In Their Own Words:

Background:

When they were tasked with finding a company to overhaul their church’s AVL systems, Brian Lane, Justin Gentry, and Jack Baker visited a number of churches and spoke with several different contractors. A couple of months into the process, the team got connected with Ben at Essential Audio through church member Dale Hoffman.

The church’s tech team had some ambitious goals for the project, but they had been given a strict budget. After working through a number of revisions, Essential Audio was able to provide a plan to accomplish all of the objectives.

Though a few pieces of equipment had been replaced, most of the sound, video, and lighting equipment at the church was 20+ years old. The sound system was under-powered and provided poor coverage. Consequently, there was severe distortion (especially during the church’s new contemporary worship service), and speech intelligibility varied wildly from okay to very bad, depending on where you sat. The theatrical lighting was controlled by a combination of two small theatrical dimmer boards connected to several different kinds of dimmer packs, and there were not enough lights to provide a consistent wash on stage. House lights were controlled at an electrical breaker panel in the video booth. A large motorized screen had been installed in the center of the sanctuary, but church members lamented the fact that it covered up a large cross with stained glass, which had previously served as the main focal point on the stage. Finally, as for the camera system, suffice it to say that the pastor looked more like a Smurf than a human on the weekly TV broadcast.

Project Goals:

A complete overhaul of the Sound, Video, and Lighting systems would be required.

The new sound system would need to pack plenty of punch and deliver consistent coverage to every seat. The church’s growing worship team would require an an expansion of their AVIOM system and the addition of wireless in-ear monitors. Flown Choir monitors were needed, as choir members in the back rows struggled to hear the two wedges placed just behind the modesty wall. Strategically-placed absorption panels would be required to tame the acoustics of this cavernous space.

The goals for the video system were to replace the single center screen with two on either side of the stage and to overhaul the entire video infrastructure. The new camera system was to include a combination of manned studio-style cameras and broadcast-quality robotic cameras, as the old system required an unrealistically large number of volunteers to operate. Furthermore, in addition to the live switching capabilities that would be used in their weekly TV broadcast, the team wanted the ability to record each camera shot individually and record multi-track audio so that they could do post-production editing.

Moving lights were to be added to provide a better creative palette for the weekly services, as well as to provide greater flexibility in lighting their multiple children’s productions held throughout the year. The lighting system would need to unify all house and stage lighting and be controllable via button panels located in several different locations throughout the sanctuary. (Maintenance staff previously had to enter the secure TV booth just to turn the house lights on and off.) The compact fluorescent lights in the chandeliers were to be swapped out with more video-friendly LED bulbs. A truss would be installed at the proper angle relative to the stage, and an all-new inventory of theatrical fixtures would be added. Back lighting would be provided for the pulpit and choir for video purposes.

Solution

The church’s new speaker system is deployed in an LCR (Left Center Right) configuration, and is comprised of Danley Sound Labs’ Snyergy Horn series loudspeakers, supplemented by a pair of Danley’s TH118 subwoofers. The Danley solution provides plenty of horsepower and does an excellent job of distributing the sound energy evenly across the seating plane, while keeping it off of the architectural boundaries and thus minimizing the reverberant field. A number of floor pockets and patch points were added to provide for maximum flexibility on the stage. The patch panel was re-worked and re-located to a more accessible spot adjacent to mix position, so that signals can be routed to the front-of-house and video consoles with minimal effort. The church had recently replaced their aging analog console with a Yamaha M7CL, which was recommissioned as a part of the new install. A wireless in-ear monitor system was installed in the new amp rack and the directional antennas were mounted in the old organ chamber beside the stage. The church also elected to upgrade their assistive listening system as part of the overhaul. Ironically, no one has asked for a receiver since the new speaker system was installed. The church reports that one man who had previously used the assistive listening system commented that, for the first time in years, he could hear the preacher with only his hearing aid.

The entire video system is built with an HD-SDI infrastructure. All signals run through a matrix router. Because all of the signals (computer and video sources) are converted to SDI format at the source, any source can be routed to any destination. One JVC studio camera on a Miller Tripod and two Panasonic HE120 Robotic Cameras were installed. The control room is outfitted with a 2M/E HD-SDI switcher, providing for separate output buses for the main sanctuary screens and the record feed. Auxiliary buses feed the rear screen (for the benefit of the choir), the two confidence monitors (40″ LED panels) affixed to the front pews, and the Youth Room for overflow purposes. The control room also houses a robotic camera controller with tracing memories and a Mac Pro outfitted with Adobe Creative suite for post-production editing. Finally, the control room also houses a video playout server which schedules playback over a fiber line running from the church directly to the local cable company.

The lighting system was completely overhauled. A truss, powder coated brown to match the natural color of the ceiling, was suspended from the main structural members above the congregation at a 45 degree angle relative to the stage. The truss was loaded with a full complement of LED and conventional fixtures. Backlighting was a tricky endeavor in this highly traditional space, but custom bracketry was designed, fabricated, and installed to allow for lights to be mounted in front of the organ chamber. This solution provided backlighting with minimal visual impact and made the lights accessible for servicing without a lift. A 48 channel ETC Dimming system was installed with several control panels located throughout the sanctuary. All of the house lights (retrofitted with LED lamps) and all of the conventional stage lights are controlled by this system. During services, the architectural control system is overridden. The two-universe Jands Vista system takes over, allowing the operator to have complete control of every light in the room. A Pathways DMX distributor was installed, and a number of DMX outputs were provided on the stage.

Conclusion

3 separate in-depth training sessions were held for church staff by a full-time audio designer, a touring lighting designer, and a professional video editor. Several church members outside of the normal tech crew were able to attend these sessions. Essential Audio is proud to have been a part of this project and looks forward to seeing how First Baptist utilizes this technology for continued kingdom advancement.