In Their Own Words:

Background:

Wooley Springs Baptist Church is a thriving congregation in Toney, Al, just northwest of Huntsville. As the church’s worship music grew increasingly dynamic in recent years, it became more and more evident to Wooley Springs’ Technical Director, Chad Sockwell, that the church’s original sound system had reached the end of its useful life. Not only did the speaker system lack the needed horsepower, but the musicians on stage also needed far more robust monitoring facilities than were afforded by the two coaxial wedges in place at the time.

There were also modifications and updates that needed to be performed to the church’s video and lighting systems. An electronically retractable screen had been hung at the center of the upstage wall and covered a significant portion of the baptistery when lowered into position. As video became more and more integral to the worship service, however, choosing between the screen and the baptistery became more of a problem. Consequently, it was the church’s wish to move away from the center screen and add a pair of screens on the angled walls to the left and right of the stage. Finally, Chad did want to add some accent lighting, though the church was not willing to allocate the funds necessary for a theatrical lighting overhaul.

Chad worked with Essential Audio’s Ben Williams and Al Gilbert on the original wish list and the subsequent revisions that brought the project inside the church’s budget constraints. The church approved a phased approach to the upgrades as a part of a larger remodel of the interior of the worship space.

Project Goals:

The new sound system would need to produce quality, dynamic, full-bandwidth audio consistently across the floor and balcony. The new console would need to accommodate a higher channel count and have improved EQ facilities. Finally, the church wanted to move to a hybrid monitoring system consisting of wedges and IEM’s controlled by personal mixers.

The center retractable screen was to be removed and replaced with a pair of smaller screens. 6 LED par lights were to be installed for accent lighting along the upstage wall.

Solution:

Through his own research, Chad had zeroed in on the X32 as his console of choice. Because the channel count of the church’s analog snake was no longer sufficient and the conduit was filled to capacity, the old snake was removed and replaced with several CAT5e lines. A pair of S16 digital snakes were installed in the amp rack (located in a closet off stage left), providing ample inputs for the new system.

The old speakers were replaced by a pair of Danley SM96′s, arrayed together in a center cluster, which provided for 120 H x 90 V coverage. Because the room is exceptionally wide, a pair of Vue Audiotechnik i8 speakers were installed to catch the extreme angles. Wooley Springs’ sanctuary presented a unique challenge due to the odd geometry of the balcony, so four KSI perimeter mount drop-in ceiling speakers were installed as balcony fills. A Danley TH115 Subwoofer was installed in a newly created cavity beneath the pulpit. QSC PLD series amplifiers were employed to power the system and to take care of the basic system EQ, Delay, and Limiting. A trough was installed as part of the stage retrofit by the contractor. The lid pieces were fabricated and installed by Essential Audio.

Because the church had recently replaced the projector that had been in use on the center screen, a second identical unit was procured, and these were re-deployed on the new screens. The projectors were rigged closer to the tile grid than the one had been previously, making for a cleaner ceiling. The aging VGA distribution system was replaced by an HD-SDI infrastructure, allowing for standardized signal format. Six RGB pars were installed for accent lighting. The lights were mounted above the tile grid and skylight baffles were cut in to the tiles, in order to keep the stage clean and eliminate the need for unsightly light bars. The lighting system is controlled by computer-based software.