Houses of Worship — September 1, 2005

Sep 1, 2005 11:07 AM

Houses of Worship Top Story

The Right Answers, Right From the Start

Mega-churches with sophisticated video operations may get a lot of ink these days, but there are always thousands of others pondering simpler, earlier steps along the video pathway, and their needs for reliable advice and training start at the very beginning.

Glenn Collinge, southeast regional sales manager at FSR, thinks there is a notable gap in training for prospective church video users just starting down the video road. For these users, large screens, big Barco or Christie projectors, and a broadcast-quality switcher are a long way off, if they figure in church plans at all.

"Most people will start out with just a projector and a computer," Collinge says. These users will turn to something familiar—like Microsoft PowerPoint—as a tool to project scriptural texts and hymns. Although the application is simple, it's still often not done quite right. "A lot of times people don't know how to choose a screen," Collinge says. "If they don't get the words up there in a large enough size, they won't have the impact."

Solving these problems is fairly easy, he says, and doesn't require training so much as familiarity with some simple rules of thumb. But a threshold is waiting to be crossed, and most churches will reach it sooner or later. "If you are a non-traditional church and your worship leader doesn't follow the lyrics strictly, which a lot of contemporary worship leaders don't, that's when PowerPoint starts to show its weaknesses," Collinge says.

Responding to a highly extemporaneous preaching style can mean finding and projecting scriptural texts the pastor cites off the cuff—a task that's difficult or impossible with PowerPoint, but is specifically addressed by a number of worship software packages on the market.

"You can go on the Net and find these packages with a simple search, and they will often send you a trial version at no charge," Collinge says. Among other criteria, he suggests checking out how many hymns are pre-loaded in the software's database, and how many different Bible versions are available. These options will save church volunteers a lot of keyboarding. Many packages also offer quick scriptural search-and-display options that can find specific texts, flow them into template slides, and get them on screen within moments—just the thing when the media director is trying to keep up with an improvisational preacher.

"I don't think most people are aware of how much easier this will make their services," Collinge says.

The next big "line in the sand" comes when a church wants to import a video clip. This can be a great idea, but once you want to include video, Collinge notes, you need transitions between computer inputs and the new video. You may also need a DVD player, or a computer with enough RAM to do fast switching among signal sources—maybe even a dedicated switcher. These needs, in turn, may add up to a call for help—ideally, a call to a professional systems integrator.

Unfortunately, some churches, in the name of "stewardship," cut themselves off from this potentially beneficial relationship, says Tom Knesel of Aviom. "Church clients often work so hard to get the best price that I think they miss the point that part of what you are paying for in system integration is the expertise of the integrator."

Knesel also points out that churches with only occasional or limited needs for technical assistance have a wide range of options available, including web communities, message boards, and a variety of seminar and conference programs. Getting involved in a virtual community like Church Sound Check, Knesel says, can pay off many times over in good advice and sound answers to common questions.

Installation News

Folsom Church Gives New Meaning to "Service Department"

Spiritual aspirations aside, it's a good bet that every pastor has at one time or another dreamed of addressing their burgeoning flock from the lofty heights of a world-class house of worship, gazing upon row after row of faithful within gilded walls, towering ceilings, and ornate stained glass. Of course, all great dreams grow from seedlings, and many houses of worship soldier on contentedly in smaller venues and makeshift homes, a firm focus on their mission directing them to take whatever accommodations they are blessed with and make them into a warm and welcoming space.

Such is the story of The Gathering Place Christian Fellowship, Folsom, Calif. As venues go, Senior Pastor Phil Jones, Associate Pastor Mark O'Connell and their staff inherited an interesting one, setting up shop in a former automobile dealership. After meeting for several years in what had been the showroom, they recently remodeled the former service department, creating a welcoming and unique sanctuary space. The carpeted room is at once sizeable and intimate, with large, round tables replacing the traditional rows of pew seating. A coffee and pastry bar and bookshelves give the sanctuary the feel of a coffee shop or bookstore, encouraging socialization and participation amongst the congregants.

The large, concrete structure was not without its challenges. The finished sanctuary is about 70ft. deep by 90ft. wide, but with a ceiling height of about 13ft. "The seating area is virtually square, and it's subdivided by six steel pillars," explains Gary Roda, house of worship designer at Stockton, Calif.-based Quality Sound. "The pillars are integral to the structure and could not be removed, so we had a choice of either pretending they weren't there or incorporating them into our design as speaker locations."

EASE studies confirmed that the low ceilings made a conventional loudspeaker design unacceptable. Instead, Roda opted for a high-fidelity distributed system using twelve AcousticDesign AD-S82H high-output, two-way speaker systems from Costa Mesa, Calif.-based QSC Audio. Digital processing handles delay and phase correction, and subwoofers provide extra low-end punch.

"A conventional loudspeaker approach would have meant SPL differences of more than 10dB around the room," Roda recounts. "The distributed system, which is divided into six separate zones, provides articulate, even coverage with level variations under 3dB at all seats." Equally importantly, mix levels are exactly the same in the front of the room as at the sound booth in the rear, making mix decisions much more relevant.

While distributed systems are hardly new, as Roda points out, "typically, distributed systems tend to use the in-ceiling approach. It's not all that common to create one using high-quality speakers. Although it was a challenge for the church to understand and accept what I was proposing, they ended up being pleasantly surprised and exceptionally pleased with the results."

Installation was also simplified by using the AcousticDesign series. "We welded custom brackets to the posts and mounted the speakers right to them using QSC's IntelliDock mounting system," Roda reports. "It really helped streamline the installation process, and the church was very pleased with the aesthetic appearance of the install."

The system is powered by QSC's RMX-series amplifiers. "They're great-sounding and very robust," Roda explains. "We've used them for years and I've yet to see one break. They're reliable, don't draw much power, and are priced right. Overall, they are an extremely good value and very well-matched to the loudspeakers system."

The church reports being overjoyed with the new system. "They're a very progressive church, and while the music isn't high-decibel rock, it is a very contemporary sound with a full band and six or seven singers," Roda reports. "The pastor often leaves the platform and moves around the room, and the distributed system is completely free of feedback issues. The whole relationship between the congregation and worship leaders is very intimate. The system really turned out to be exactly what they needed."

MGA Installs dV-DOSC and Coaxials at Calvary Church

Fresno, Calif.-based Michael Garrison Associates (MGA), a design-build systems contracting firm that has served the church market for nearly 30 years, installed its first L-Acoustics system at the new 110,000-square-foot Calvary Church (formerly Calvary Temple) in Irving, Texas.

Under the direction of MGA Senior Systems Designer Brian Roggow from the firm's satellite office in Springfield, Mo., twin arrays, each comprised of ten L-Acoustics dV-DOSC cabinets plus three dV-SUBs, were flown above the left and right sides of the stage in the 1,500-seat main sanctuary. For low-frequency reinforcement, four SB218 subwoofers are positioned up in the room's center cavity while two SB118s are located under the stage. Four additional coaxial MTD108a systems are further called upon to deliver front-fill, and all loudspeaker systems are powered by L-Acoustics' own LA Series amplifiers.

"Our initial system design for Calvary Temple featured a more traditional trapezoidal type of enclosure that would have been concealed behind the soffit," recalls Roggow. "However, during the building construction phase, several people from the church visited Angelus Temple in L.A., which has a full dV-DOSC rig, and they decided that they wanted a similarly aggressive concert-style system to better accommodate their contemporary worship band."

"We threw MGA a real curve with our eleventh-hour decision to upgrade the loudspeaker system," says Kerry Jones, executive pastor at Calvary Church, "but they responded with sincere willingness and enthusiasm to accommodate our desires. We witnessed their rather substantial effort to quickly redesign the system and supply this new equipment with very short notice."

Michael Garrison, owner of MGA, comments on the support they received from L-Acoustics, "We could not have pulled this off without Paul Freudenberg's invaluable help. I called him late one day upon completing our computer modeling to request a factory review of our design work; I was overwhelmed by his willingness to actually meet me at the job site the next day. So, with less than twelve hours notice, he was on an airplane to meet me in Dallas. And once the plan was approved, Paul executed a Herculean effort to get the product delivered on time."

Roggow continues, "After getting everything installed and angled correctly, we found the loudspeakers to be extremely precise in their directivity and remarkably consistent in terms of coverage throughout the sanctuary. The system also has very good gain-before-feedback and rear rejection of the stage, which is critical because the pastor often walks down the front of the sanctuary wearing a Countryman E6 microphone while the band is performing and he obviously needs his voice to be intelligible above the music. That was one of the biggest challenges we were tasked with, but this system handles it very well."

"The audio system MGA installed in our facility, in my opinion, is the best church sound system that I have personally experienced," says Jones. "It is equally excellent for both speech and music reinforcement."

Although MGA had not previously installed an L-Acoustics system prior to this project, Roggow sees that inevitably changing. "The Calvary Church system came out very nice and we were all really impressed with the dV-DOSC's wave guide, which is wide, accurate, and very pleasing to the ear. These speakers do everything that they're touted to do and are truly a 'for real' product. After seeing how well dV-DOSC performed, we're all very anxious to use L-Acoustics' new Kudo system, which seems like it will be an ideal solution for several projects that we have coming up. It's a little sweeter sounding than the dV-DOSC and can handle everything down to a lower bandpass, which will be better suited for churches that aren't quite as 'rock and roll.' Plus, its ability to be horizontally or vertically oriented with its dispersion pattern adjustable on either axis will certainly be of benefit to some of our clients as well."

Product News

Alcons double QR36 column array.

Alcons at PLASA 2005

At this year's PLASA Show, Alcons will present a number of new product range additions and highlights of the current line-up.

With last year's PLASA still as prototype, this year the production model of the LR14, Alcons' ultra-compact line array module, will be on show. Featuring the patented RBN401 pro-ribbon driver and double 6.5in. woofers with a dispersion pattern of 120x15 degrees, the LR14 is designed as either ultra-compact line array system, or as under-fill of the LR16.

The ultra-compact line array range is complemented with the LR14B. The ultra-compact, lightweight, high-output bass module of the LR14 line array has double Neodymium 12in., double-tuned, band-pass configuration. The LR14B combines a low weight with high specific SPL output, making the LR14B an excellent low-frequency extension in both stacked and flown array configurations.

A new support item of the LR14 range is the BRK-3LR14, which is a swivel bracket for putting three units of LR14 line array modules on a single tripod speaker stand. This makes the LR14 range even more flexible. With a pipe speaker stand, the array can also be mounted on the LR14B module to create a "speaker-on-a-stick" array.

Last year's "sneak preview," the Q-series modular ribbon line source columns, will now be on show in full-production guise. The series has been designed as solution to obtain ultimate intelligibility in "acoustically challenging" environments. The scalable ribbon-arrays combine very high directivity with totally controlled dispersion, in both the vertical and horizontal plane.

The columns, with lengths of 0.5 meter or 1 meter, feature patented, all-new pro-ribbon transducer technology, with immense output capabilities. The RBN1801 pro-ribbon driver offers an extreme power handling of 3kW and a very high efficiency of 110dB with 1W at 1 meter, with a frequency operating range of 1kHz to 20kHz (+/-3dB).

Currently, the series consists of two models: the QR18 (0.5 meter length, with RBN1801 and three 6.5in. woofers) and the QR36 (1 meter length, with two RBN1801s and six 6.5in. woofers). Both feature frontal bass reflex-loading and Alcons' patented "Real-90" horizontal dispersion.

Of course, a selection of other Alcons products will be on show, including the already famous LR16 "The Ribbon" pro-ribbon line array module plus the LR16B bass system and the VR8 and VR12 systems, which recently were applied in London's West End theater productions.

Visit Alcons Audio on stand AA6 on the Upper deck.

For more information, visit www.alconsaudio.com.

Gefen Splits Video Eight Ways with Cat-5 Cable

Simple, economical Cat-5 cables are used to extend and distribute computer data or other video sources to eight different displays with Gefen's new 1:8 VGA Cat-5 distribution amplifier. This new solution joins Gefen's existing selection of audio/video tools for system extension, distribution, and performance.

Video walls, airport monitors, kiosks, and similar environments are targeted for use with this new distribution amplifier from Gefen. It supports sources and displays that output and accept VGA signals, commonly used for computers, consumer electronics, and displays including plasma and LCD.

"Analog sources and displays are still being utilized throughout the industry, and particularly in those cases where primarily text-based information needs to be fed to multiple monitors," says Hagai Gefen, president and CEO. "This new solution provides a reliable method of signal splitting that also supports video extension."

Cat-5 cables are used for extension, capable of sending VGA signals up to 330ft., and Gefen supplies Cat-5 cables in various lengths for this purpose. VGA Cat-5 receivers are supplied for each monitor on the receiving end.

Shepherd Multimedia and Kramer Scalers Open Field to the Religion Market

Theology is colliding with technology in today's religion market, and Kramer Electronics is providing a cost-effective, versatile product for church installations.

Churches are now reaching their congregations through high-tech multimedia systems. Song lyrics, sermons, and Bible passages are projected on multiple monitors, and services can be televised to other areas within the building, such as lobbies, nurseries, and hallways. The Kramer ProScale Digital Scaler/Switchers make it possible to get the same clear, high-resolution picture on every monitor, regardless of location. The scalers also allow various media sources to tie into one control box and seamlessly switch to all the inputs.

"Many churches now consider projection systems as important as computers—they are an integral part of the building," says Josh Lyon, media consultant at Shepherd Multimedia, a professional electronics installer focusing on the religion market. "The Kramer ProScale products have opened up a whole new world to them, because they are extremely versatile, and economically priced. They get a $50,000 capability at a fraction of the price."

The VP-719DS, with a list price of $1,395, and all the Kramer ProScale Digital Scaler/Switchers are true multistandard video to RGBHV scalers. They are also glitch-free switchers, an important consideration in houses of worship. Glitch-free, fade-thru-black switching found in the ProScale Digital Scaler/Switcher line-up ensures that video images support the service, not distract from it.

The scalers output native-resolution video for LCD, DLP, and plasma displays and allow scaling of standard graphics or video resolution to any of the supported output resolutions. The units can be controlled via front-panel touch keys, infrared remote control, and RS-232, giving churches easy command over their system.

Clint Hoffman, vice president of marketing at Kramer Electronics, reinforces the company's value commitment. "Our mission is to provide the highest-quality product at the best value in every market. This belief has really had an impact in the religion market, allowing budget-conscious churches to have outstanding systems," he says.

The explosive double-digit growth of the religion market over the last five years has demonstrated that multimedia systems are now more a necessity than a luxury for most churches. While the bigger business is installing systems in existing structures, new churches are incorporating electronics into the basic plan. "The multi-media systems are as automatic as electricity and carpet," Lyon says.