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Redeemer Church in Riverview, Florida.
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Three Ashly nXe1.52 dual- channel 1,500-watt network-ready amplifiers power the mono loudspeaker system. "Having the amps on the network makes it simple and convenient to power up and down from front-of-house," says Paul Garner, owner of Christian Sound Installations Inc. of Valrico, Fla.
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A Roland RSS VR-50HD Multi-format A/V Mixer (left) acts as both a switcher and a scaler for images going to the screens. Three strategically located Vaddio WallView 19HD full 1080p PTZ cameras are connected to a Vaddio ProductionView controller (center) to capture the events on stage.
For more than 10 years, Redeemer Church in Riverview, Fla., held Sunday services in a modest modular building. When they were finally able to make the move into a new permanent building with a 550-seat sanctuary, Pastor Craig Swartz knew that extraordinary technology would be one key to their mission.
“We're only a mid-size church,” says Swartz, “but we wanted all of what you'd expect in a large church.” Swartz came to the Tampa area to plant the church that now has a weekly attendance that averages 250 and is reaching beyond its new walls to worshipers in Texas and as far away as the Ukraine and Kenya, East Africa through its recorded services posted online.
Swartz came to the east coast from his native Chicago to attend seminary in South Carolina in the 1980s. He had no previous experience in public speaking and no exposure to audio technology, but his experience interning during seminary gave him an appreciation for good sound. An off-campus seminar on the importance of audio and lighting that he attended further cemented his resolve to have the best possible systems whenever possible. “With the quality of sound in theaters and at concerts today,” he says, “people enter a church with an expectation of quality and your effectiveness as a speaker decreases dramatically when a poor sound system distracts or otherwise interferes with your message.”
When considering audio, video and lighting systems for the new building, Swartz would not settle for sound and lighting to be left as an afterthought. “Too often,” he says, “growing churches don't consider lighting and sound from the beginning. We weren't going to have that happen.” Swartz and several knowledgeable volunteers from the church worked closely with general contractor, FHS Industrial Constructors LLC of Bartow, Fla., and building designers, The Avante Group Inc. of Valrico, Fla., on a building design that would facilitate great productions with provisions for great sound and lighting, as well as oversized-screen locations and good sight lines.
A Fresh Start
Redeemer Church's new building design includes a spacious fellowship hall, a classroom complex and seating for 550 in a 16,000-plus square-foot sanctuary. Looking to the future, the sanctuary design also provides areas to easily expand seating for 300 more. Swartz, committed to outfitting the sanctuary with gear that would help them move forward, fought hard to retain ten percent of the overall project budget for quality technology. While he knew it was necessary, with little hands-on experience with technology, Swartz would have to rely on his volunteers and other experts for systems design. “But even if I knew exactly what we needed,” Swartz says, “it would never have come to be without the knowledge and support of our volunteers, some of whom had experience in professional audio.” Swartz worked closely with his volunteers and outside contractors to design systems for the new building, ultimately engaging Paul Garner, owner of Christian Sound Installations Inc. of Valrico, Fla., to complete AVL design, installation and commission the new systems.
Garner came to the project with years of experience that included a unique background as a touring musician, audio engineer and successful building contractor. Garner's teen years were filled with performing music in his family's touring band, joining as a drummer when he was just 13 years old. But, Garner wasn't just a good drummer. “I was always good with the technology, too, and ultimately picked up work as a sound engineer, again servicing musical clients and touring acts with varied styles from rock bands and R&B to jazz.” He was on the road again, but with a wife and children, constant touring and life on the road was losing its appeal so Garner started his own construction company to keep his work closer to home.
As his company expanded Garner took on additional projects doing part-time technical direction at churches. “That's where it started 'clicking,’” he recalls, “I saw that churches really needed someone to help them technically. Even though sizes vary, I saw that every church really had the same needs.” Garner established his company, Christian Sound Installations (CSI), in 2008 to service that need. “I started CSI as a ministry business,” he says, “despite it being a bad time for the economy. I knew we would be successful simply because it was what the Lord wanted.” Garner describes his business as “wonderful, challenging and exciting work” and, at 58 years old, he says, “It's about sowing blessings where they are needed.”
Audio System Specifics
"We wanted to provide all of what you’d expect from a large church."
Craig Swartz
Senior Pastor, Redeemer Church, Riverview, FL.
To provide outstanding audio in the Redeemer church sanctuary, Garner designed a sound system using three Electro-Voice EVH-1152D/66 horn-loaded loudspeakers for the mains. The EVH-1152 features a rotatable waveguide and is available in coverage patterns from 40 x 30 to 90 x 90 degrees. Garner used EASE acoustic simulation software to model the mono system comprised of three sections: a 60 x 90 center loudspeaker flanked by 60 x 40 patterns. For many churches, Garner offers a mono system solution to simplify operation by volunteers. “We wanted a quality system with great intelligibility that would be both economical and easy—in fact, fun—for volunteers to run.” Garner argues that without a complete understanding and command of how to handle stereo imaging, engineering a stereo system can be an extra layer of complication for volunteers that can lead to uneven mixes and poor sound.
To meet the load limits of the new building's design, Garner looked to Danley Sound Lab's compact TH-118 sub to provide an efficient low-end solution. “The TH-118 has a tremendous amount of high-fidelity output for its size,” he says. “We were able to complement the EVH’s with just a single TH-118 flown above the center of the stage. It’s so efficient, they actually asked us to turn it down a bit from the level we set at commissioning.”
Three Ashly nXe1.52 dual-channel 1,500-watt network amplifiers power the mono system, each of which uses its network-ready feature to reside on a private amplifier network. “Having the amps on the network makes it simple and convenient to power up and down from front-of-house,” says Garner. “But more importantly, it gives the operator an immediate overview of system performance.” Volunteers use the LED indicators on the Ashly system to monitor temperatures, along with input and output levels, which Garner finds promotes confidence in the system's performance. “It also greatly simplifies troubleshooting,” says Garner, “and heads off problems before they become catastrophes.”
Garner installed an Allen and Heath GLD-80 console with an Allen and Heath AR2412 digital snake to mix audio in the sanctuary and for recording services. The GLD-80 provides up to 48 input processing channels, eight stereo effect returns, 30 configurable buses, and 20 mix processing channels. “The GLD is one of the finest consoles on the market with its top-of-the-line preamps and other professional features, but more importantly, it's a breeze to train people on it.” Features like “drag and drop” and the ability to save and recall settings, Garner says, makes it an ideal choice for volunteer operation.
Based on past success and a proven record of reliability, Ashly Audio network-ready processors were installed in the Redeemer Church sanctuary. Together with Ashly amplifiers and the WR-5 remote control, they give the church great sound quality plus the ability to easily switch between full, audio-engineered services and smaller, auto-mixed events, such as weddings and funerals. As you might expect, the Ashly ne8800 8x8 Protea matrix processor provides loudspeaker processing, and a protective brick-wall limiter, but it also taps several key microphone inputs from the digital snake.
To accommodate the wide range of services and events held in the sanctuary, Garner configured an Ashly WR-5 programmable wall-mounted remote control to operate two preset states: Preset 1 mutes the tapped microphone inputs and passes the console output for normal services, and Preset 2 reverses that arrangement for simpler auto-mixed events. The ne8800 is configured to provide intelligent feedback suppressors on each input when in auto-mix mode. “With the ‘Dugan’ style auto-mixer that is built into the Ashley processor, we essentially created two very different sound systems with the same equipment,” Garner adds.
On stage, existing Altec Lansing floor wedges provide monitoring for vocalists, but all musicians use Allen and Heath ME-1 personal monitor mixers and Shure SE215 earphones. This allows them to select any channel from the GLD-80 console and see the assigned labels for that channel. They can create their own mix, which means volunteer engineers mix only the house and the vocalist monitors. According to the engineers, this makes everyone happy—including them.
Redeemer Church offers worshippers a mix of traditional and contemporary musical styles featuring strings, electric and acoustic guitar, acoustic piano, keyboard, electric bass and drums, as well as featured vocalists.
“"…your effectiveness as a speaker decreases dramatically when a poor sound system distracts or interferes with your message."
Craig Swartz
Senior Pastor, Redeemer Church, Riverview, FL.
Sound on stage is captured with a Shure ULX-D digital wireless system equipped with SM58 and Beta 87 cartridges and complemented with Beta 58 wired microphones. The Shure wireless system was chosen for its outstanding RF performance and quality sound. Microphones and capsules were selected for both their versatility and reliability.
Video Details
In addition to great sound, Redeemer Church wanted a low-cost and flexible video system that would allow them to capture services for distribution around the building and into classrooms, as well as for Internet streaming and archiving. The volunteers also wanted the ability to handle additional cameras for future location shoots and other projects. Three strategically located Vaddio WallView 19HD full 1080p PTZ cameras with a Vaddio ProductionView controller capture the services and events on stage and provide inputs to a Roland RSS VR-50HD video mixer. The versatile Roland Video mixer acts as both a switcher and scaler with intuitive touch screen control.
“This video mixer had all the features they needed in the sanctuary, and it's also portable so they could take a couple of video cameras on location and easily mix audio and video,” notes Garner. He also likes the mixer's capability to directly stream via USB. To complete the video system, Garner installed Roland's Video Capture software for the ability to do more advanced editing and production in the future.
Panasonic PT-DZ680 6,000 lumens projectors are trained on 110 x176-inch Da-Lite Cinema Contour HD1.3 208D screens affixed to walls to the left and right of the stage. Screens are typically used to display lyrics and scripture verses and occasionally to provide image magnification. Projected images have even been used to enhance services with Skype calls with missionaries from remote areas of the globe. A third Da-Lite Cinema Contour HD screen is used as a confidence monitor on the rear wall to display words for musicians and presenters.
LIGHTING ESSENTIALS
Similar to the easy-to-use sound system, Garner designed a basic lighting system with a mix of LED and conventional lighting fixtures distributed across three 30-foot suspended battens. A back row includes four Lightronics 5-in-1 RGBAW LED fixtures to wash color on the back wall and two Elation ELED Fresnel 150 fixtures that are rigged to provide high quality backlighting for the pastor for video recording and broadcast. Twelve ETC Source Four PAR fixtures controlled with a Lightronics AR-602 six-channel x 2400 watts per channel DMX architectural dimmer provide ample downlighting for the stage while a front batten holds four Lightronics DB-624 six-channel x 2400 watts per channel distributed dimmer bar systems, twelve ETC Source Four PARs, two Source Four 19-degree ellipsoidals and six Source Four 26-degree ellipsoidal fixtures all using 575 watt lamps to provide key, fill and spot lighting for productions.
Garner assembled a simple and affordable DMX lighting control station consisting of a Lightronics SR516D desktop capture/preset module, an AirDMX box and Scenex Lighting's AirDMX app that runs over Wi-Fi signal on a standard Apple iPad. With an intuitive graphical interface that looks like a basic lighting console, the system is designed to be easy to setup, program and operate, so ideal for Redeemer Church volunteers. AirDMX supports a large fixture library that affords the church a quick set-up and includes features like full cue timing control, color picker, and storage for up to 120 cues and 120 programs. Manual override of individual channels and master control are also supported for on-the-fly lighting changes.
Swartz and his team of volunteers are recording sermons and leveraging the Internet connection, but have not implemented all the technology designed into Redeemer Church. “We are looking forward to moving to the next level with each step,” he says.
Like Swartz, Garner encourages all his CSI clients to look to the future. “A building can only hold so many people,” he says. “You can add services, but with better technology and Internet capabilities you can reach more people in your town and beyond; really, anywhere.” Swartz agrees: “I went into this project convinced of the importance of technology, like good lighting and sound,” he says. “Next, we are looking to add live streaming and podcasts and we have all the equipment to do it. The ability to ‘switch on’ technology piece by piece to reach our worshippers is exciting.”
