Background

Shelbyville Mills Baptist Church has been in its current facility since 1990. Having recently retired some debt, church leaders elected to perform some updates to their worship space including a complete redesign of their stage, new pews, paint, and carpet, and a new sound system. Church member Wendell Smith, already a big fan of Danley Loudspeakers, made contact with several contracting companies to obtain proposals. The church selected Essential Audio because “they stood out in speed, thorough review, enthusiasm, trusted references, and provided a proposal that met our needs.”

Project Goals

The sound system previously installed consisted of two loudspeakers; each were loaded with one HF horn and eight 4″ drivers. Mounted side by side above the podium, both fired straight at the balcony with no vertical tilt. The system provided acceptable speech reinforcement for the balcony and back part of the room, but the sound quality suffered due to poor high frequency coverage in the half of the room closest to the stage. Furthermore, the church’s music style had grown more dynamic in recent years, so the old system could no longer keep up.

In addition to the desire for more even coverage and appropriate dynamics, the stage needed to be brought under control – in terms of both noise levels and clutter.  The church knew that excessive stage noise needed to be controlled by the move to in-ear monitoring, and they were looking for a solution that would minimize the visible wiring and equipment that comes with having a band on stage.

Solution

Essential Audio provided a new speaker cluster comprised of a Danley SH60 for coverage of the back of the room and the balcony, a pair of SM60′s for downfill, and a TH115 subwoofer. The church’s aging analog console was replaced by an X32, and a P16 monitoring system was installed on stage.  Additionally, three Danley SH-Micro monitors and one Sennheiser Wireless In-Ear System give ample flexibility for their musicians’ preferences.  Amplification and processing are handled by a QSC PLD series amplifier.

In order to minimize stage clutter, Essential Audio designed and installed a custom floor trough.  The trough allows for snake inputs and other connections to be located below the surface of the stage and for excess wire to be routed to the exact position it needs to appear on stage before exiting the trough.  This flexible solution, along with three custom floor boxes, keep the stage wiring as neat as possible.