Houses of Worship — September 15, 2005

Sep 15, 2005 10:50 AM

Houses of Worship Top Story

Worship is Prime Arena for New Best Practices Book

Led by the International Communications Industries Association (ICIA), a committee of AV experts has developed a consensus view of the right way to go about an AV project, and the result is a book the committee chairs feel may be of particular value in the worship arena.

Audiovisual Best Practices: The Design and Integration Process for the AV and Construction Industries is available through ICIA's website. It's the result of a wide-ranging effort that began last fall, when ICIA brought a dozen experts together at its Virginia headquarters to begin brainstorming the book's contents and approach.

Chair of the committee Mark Valenti, of The Sextant Group, says one of the prime uses of the finished book is as a guide that integrators can give to their clients at the very beginning of a job. "When I land a new project, I'll send a copy to the architect and the engineer," Valenti says. "It's a way of saying, 'Here's what we're going to try to do.' Consultants, integrators, owners, architects, and users will all be users of this document."

Integrators who work in the worship field may find the book especially helpful to users as well, Valenti notes, because AV projects in church settings are often led by volunteers and others with little or no awareness of either effective project planning or AV technology. Best Practices can serve as a preview of what lies ahead along a project's implementation trail, and as an ongoing reference explaining and supporting key project decisions all the way through.

These uses may be particularly valuable in light of the importance of the worship market to integrators. Best Practices cited the recent ICIA Market Definition study, in which AV dealers and integrators cited the religious market as one of the industry's most attractive segments. Nearly 60 percent of respondents termed houses of worship an "important" or "very important" user segment.

During the development of Best Practices, added pains were taken to incorporate viewpoints of architects and other designers, Valenti says. "We felt it was important to have architects' reviews at a time when we were still able to make significant changes."

The finished book looks at how AV systems and considerations should be integrated into every phase of a construction project from formation of the project team through design, construction, and building commissioning.

It includes specific AV best practices throughout its 200-plus pages, highlighted as call-outs from the text. It also includes graphical depictions of the most common project delivery methods, design processes, schedules, and other project elements, along with listings of standard contract documents and other materials.

The actual writing was done by Tim Cape, CTS-D, of Technitect and Jim Smith, CTS, of HB Communications.

Taly Walsh, ICIA's senior vice president for marketing and membership, notes the committee also interfaced extensively with the association's education department to be sure that the group's identified best practices were aligned with what's taught in ICIA's numerous courses and schools. She also says the new book will become "a living, breathing document," subject to continuous updating and refreshment through ICIA's website and other vehicles.

Installation News

Good Shepherd Outfits New Sanctuary with dV-DOSC

With service attendance and membership both steadily on the rise, Good Shepherd United Methodist Church in Charlotte, N.C., has expanded its existing facility with the addition of a new worship center that now serves as the church's primary sanctuary.

ClarkPowell, a design-build AV integrator with seven offices located throughout the Carolinas, was selected to provide the audio/video systems' design and installation for the new 750-seat, fan-shaped room. After evaluating the client's need for a loudspeaker system that could handle everything from the church's praise team and choir to theatrical events to touring contemporary Christian artists, the firm suggested that an L-Acoustics dV-DOSC system be installed.

As specified, a total of 16 dV-DOSC loudspeakers plus four dV-SUBs have been flown above the front left and right sides of the stage. Furthermore, two ceiling-mounted MTD112b coaxial loudspeakers fire down on the rear area of the stage for choir fill, while four additional MTD112b enclosures are found on the stage for monitoring.

ClarkPowell had not worked with L-Acoustics products prior to this project; however, Systems Designer Chris Dunegan felt that the choice of loudspeakers couldn't have been better. "We initially selected the dV-DOSC because its compact size fit the room well; we could get the right curve out of the arrays without compromising sight lines," he says. "However, after installing the system, I am absolutely thrilled with its sound and control. The coverage—both horizontal and vertical—is extremely precise. You can take one step up a ladder at the back of the room or the stage steps at the front and hear the coverage begin to fall off. And everyone is amazed at how even the level is from front to back and side to side. The coverage is exactly as the Soundvision acoustic modeling software predicted and every seat is a good one.

"Bernie and Paul from L-Acoustics were also tremendously helpful throughout the entire process. Their technical expertise and support made this project an extremely pleasant experience and I look forward to working with them again soon."

During rehearsal, guitarist Dan Lauerman (left) and bassist Nate Lenz (right) of Christ The Rock's worship team use Aviom's personal mixers to save their mixes for upcoming services.

Christ the Rock Community Church Upgrades to Aviom's Pro16 Monitor Mixing System

After upgrading its sanctuary's sound system to include the use of Aviom's Pro16 monitor mixing system, Christ The Rock Community Church's worship teams have cut their sound-check time from a frustrating 45 minutes to an easy four-minute process, all while improving the bands' overall mixes. Scott Tomashek, technical services director at Christ the Rock, knew a monitor system upgrade was necessary due to difficulty with training volunteers to understand the concept of monitor mixing with the current setup.

"The musicians were spending valuable rehearsal time on long sound checks, yet were not happy with the results," comments Tomashek. "We first considered upgrading just the monitor console, which would provide more individual mixes, but realized the cost was much more than expected. By going with the Aviom system, we were able to save a good amount of money."

Christ The Rock Community Church also upgraded its audio snake and in-ear monitors (IEMs). In addition, 54 channels of Whirlwind three-way split were installed with the direct output of the split going to the FOH board. The first isolated output feeds the recording board while the second isolated output goes into a patchbay designed specifically for the Aviom system. The 16-channel AN-16/i-M microphone preamp module accepts a direct feed from any stage input via the patchbay. With a second patchbay in place at the stage rack, Tomashek can feed audio from the Aviom Personal Mixers either into the IEMs or into amplifiers and wedges.

Other benefits enjoyed by Tomashek and the worship teams are the ability to mix 16 different inputs in true stereo and recall their saved mixes, and easy installation using a single Cat-5 cable.

"The worship teams and guest performers really love the ability to save their mixes," Tomashek says. "The musicians are able to easily control it. There was a team that was here two weekends in a row, did all their settings in one weekend, and saved it all on the Aviom system. They came back for a rehearsal on a Thursday night, we plugged it in, and they were ready to go. They just hit recall and the sound check was completed in four minutes." Christ The Rock Community Church, founded more than 20 years ago, began as a street ministry in the downtown area of Appleton, Wis. It soon made its move into religious services, beginning with a 13-member congregation in a cemetery chapel. Christ The Rock moved into its current 1,500-seat sanctuary four years ago. Services are held three times a week with an attendance of about 2,000.

Product News

Community Expands iBox Installation Loudspeaker Range

Community has announced the launch of four new models in its successful iBox series of installation loudspeaker systems, the range that offers a wide variety of pattern control and array options from same-dimensioned, full-range, and sub-bass enclosures. The new iBox iHP3500 series are high-performance three-way systems, based on a third enclosure dimension, which is slightly larger than the existing 1200 and 1500 series.

The iHP3564 and iHP3594 are large-format, full-range systems. The driver complement in both consists of a 15in. (380mm) high-power, low-frequency driver, an 8in. (205mm) mid-range driver, and a 1.4in. (36mm) exit / 2.87in. (72.2 mm) edge-wound voicecoil compression driver. High-order crossovers minimize band overlap and the large-format horn flare delivers well-controlled dispersion, 60x40 degrees for the iHP3564 and 90x40 degrees for the iHP3594. The well-controlled off-axis response enhances system performance when combined with other iBox full-range and subwoofer elements in clusters and arrays.

Both the iHP3564 and iHP3594 can be used in passive or biamp operating modes. The passive mode is designed to deliver outstanding performance with simple and economical electronics configuration, while the biamp mode allows greater system flexibility, particularly when used with advanced digital processors such as the 4x8 matrix Community DXP4800.

The i118S and i215LVS are high-power subwoofers, designed to complement the iHP3500 series full-range cabinets with matching exterior dimensions to allow combinations in arrays and clusters that are acoustically and aesthetically designed to work together. A small footprint also makes these subwoofers an ideal choice for unobtrusive ground stacking where space is limited.

The i118S uses a single 18in. (460mm) high-power driver while the i215LVS consists of dual 15in. (380mm) high-power, low-frequency drivers. The 15in. and 18in. drivers utilize Community's patented Cool Coil technology to minimize power compression and ensure long-term reliability, and are used in front-loaded, ported configurations.

In common with all iBox series loudspeakers, the four new models use rugged 13-ply Baltic birch enclosures, finished with Community's robust TufCoat finish. The enclosures incorporate 23 load-rated M10 rigging points and four M8 OmniMount 120 inserts in the rear. Simple and flexible installation is achieved using optional hardware from an extensive range designed specifically for the iBOX series.

NEC Selects the Realta HQV Video Processor to bring Quality Video to Plasmas and Projectors

NEC Solutions America has partnered with Silicon Optix to bring award-winning HQV processing powered by Teranex to NEC plasmas and projectors. The new NEC TheaterSync external video processing unit will seamlessly connect to its displays for outstanding video performance.

The Silicon Optix/Teranex-born HQV technology meets the demands of the high-performance display market by utilizing true 10-bit video processing, full four-field motion-adaptive video deinterlacing for both standard-definition and high-definition signals, temporal-recursive noise reduction, automatic multi-cadence detection, and pixel-based detail enhancement. The scaling engine inside the Realta uses as many as 1,024 taps and can scale all resolutions up to QXGA. The Realta implements the same video processing power 1 trillion operations per second as the famous $60,000 Teranex Xantus box.

The NEC TheaterSync will offer a complete array of connectivity, including all SD, HD, and PC signals over standard analog, DVI, and HDMI inputs. Additionally, TheaterSync will incorporate the newest HQV algorithm, CNR (codec Noise Reduction), to reduce the artifacts caused by MPEG and other codec compression methodologies.

The Realta HQV processor has already received numerous awards and accolades, including the "Best of Innovations" award for the Embedded Technologies category at the 2005 Consumer Electronics Show; Sound & Video Contractor's "Pick Hit" Award from InfoComm 2005; "Most Promising New Technology" and "Most Exciting New Company" from The Perfect Vision; "Best Buzz" of CEDIA from Insight Media; AVGuide Monthly's "Best Product Overall"; Red Herring's "Top 100 Innovators" award; and Fred Kahn's "Silver Best of CES" award.

The NEC TheaterSync will be available in October 2005, $3,595 MSRP.

ADL 600 Now Shipping

PreSonus Audio Electronics is now shipping the ADL 600, a high-voltage class A, two-channel vacuum tube microphone preamplifier (MSRP $2,295). The ADL 600 is designed by world-renowned tube circuit designer Anthony DeMaria, president of Anthony DeMaria Labs, and engineered, manufactured and distributed by PreSonus in Baton Rouge, La. The ADL 600 is a world-class, one-of-a-kind preamplifier design, loaded with six vacuum tubes running on 600V power rails and delivering an astounding 75dB of gain and -100dB signal-to-noise ratio.

Features on the ADL 600 include variable microphone input impedance, instrument input, line input, 48V phantom power, -20dB pad, phase invert, variable high pass filter, as well as analog VU and fast-acting ten-segment LEDs for metering. No expenses are spared in the ADL 600 with custom-designed input and output transformers, toroidal power transformer, rotary switch attenuators, conductive plastic potentiometers, military-grade vacuum tubes, and the list goes on.

The ADL 600 delivers a rich and smooth sonic character perfect for any microphone, instrument, sound module, keyboard, stereo buss signal conditioning, and even mastering.

Please visit the ADL website at: www.presonus.com/adl600.html for more information.

Upcoming Events

Syn-Aud-Con is Bringing Two Seminars to Secaucus, N.J.

Sound Reinforcement for Operators and Sound Reinforcement for Technicians
Oct. 17-20, 2005 - Secaucus, N.J.
Operators is held Monday-Tuesday
Technicians is held Wednesday-Thursday

"We have been getting many requests to come to the New York / New Jersey area. We are looking forward to returning. The last time we were in this area was in April 2003.

"The seminar is held in the Meadowlands area. Public transportation to New York is within walking distance of the hotel. The hotel is located 12 miles from the Newark Liberty Intl. Airport. For more information on seminar details, please click on this link: Secaucus, N.J.

"The course outlines are listed below. I will be glad to answer any questions you may have regarding the seminars. Please ask for Brenda at (800) 796-2831"
- Brenda Brown, Syn-Aud-Con

Sound Reinforcement for Operators (click on link for course outline): This seminar addresses the subjects that are essential for operating a sound system. This is a basic course and the emphasis is on practical rather than theoretical, using real-world explanations of potentially complex subjects. Multimedia demonstrations drive the point home and convey a level of understanding that will help head off problems before they occur. The system operator is a vital part of the signal chain. Price: $500

Sound Reinforcement for Technicians (click on link for course outline): This seminar is for those who install, configure, and calibrate sound reinforcement systems. It covers the theory behind how systems work and demonstrates how to use instrumentation to look "under the hood" to troubleshoot systems. This technician-level course is for those who already know the basics of operation, but want to dig further into how systems work and how to fix them when they don't. Price: $600

Take both Sound Reinforcement for Operators and Technicians: $1050

Other Helpful Links:
Course Agendas
Seminar Pricing
Instructor
CEU Information
Leader in Education
2005 Brochure