The words of popular pastor and televangelist Joel Osteen are heard loud and clear by more than 10 million of his followers each week. His teachings are carried over a huge broadcast network that reaches into more than 100 countries, but nowhere are his words more important than to those in attendance each Sunday at his home base, Lakewood Church in Houston.
There, a team of talented audio engineers, led by Senior Director of Audio and Technical Production Reed Hall, recently upgraded the audio system in the nation's largest megachurch. Teamwork at this amazing facility, as well as the audio team's experience on the road, made this mega audio upgrade a reality.
“We weren't really planning this type of upgrade at this time,” says Hall. “In fact, we had budgeted to replace some consoles first, and we really need them, but after we heard what some of the new speaker designs had to offer, we felt we had to consider an upgrade.”
Hall and his lead audio engineers, BK Beard and Brad Duryea, have the benefit of keeping in touch with new audio technology and speaker designs as their work supporting Joel Osteen Ministries includes monthly road trips to stadium-sized venues in major cities. In addition, the engineers often work assignments with outside production companies. According to Duryea, “We all enjoy working on different parts of audio: mixing, design and optimization. It's something I think we have in common, we all like the variety, and we're grateful that this job allows us to have that. We are always hearing something new or solving some new problem when we are on the road.”
It was this type of experience that planted the seed for the audio upgrade at Lakewood Church. Hall had been working with a new speaker system design and thought it would be interesting to get it into the church to do a side-by-side comparison with the existing system. After auditioning the touring system in Lakewood's sanctuary, the engineers agreed with Osteen's comments, “We want to be the best at everything we do. If people can hear the difference, that's what we want to do.” With that, the console upgrade was put on hold and the team began looking at designs for a major audio overhaul.
Obstacles and Opportunities
Lakewood Church is used to dealing with big challenges. In 2005, the ministry relocated from its old building in northeast Houston to its new home, a 16,800-seat facility southwest of downtown Houston. The former athletic arena was renovated at a cost of nearly $100 million into the new campus, with a five-story addition at one end to house offices, classrooms and broadcast facilities along with five auditoriums that seat a total of 3,600. In addition to raking the main floor for seating and adding an ample stage area, lighting and sound systems were added to create the impressive, arena-sized sanctuary.
Lighting equipment for the sanctuary includes MA Lighting's grandMA console for production lighting control and a MA light console for control of house lights by seating section. For spotting action on stage, including Osteen's key light, 40 Philips Vari-Lite fixtures, including eight model 3500 units, 24 model 3000 spots and eight model 3000 wash fixtures, are used, supplemented with Elation Platinum Beams. Some 600 PAR and ellipsoidal fixtures are used for front wash, backlighting, choir and accenting areas of the stage. Four Strong Super Trouper 2k follow spots highlight the action on stage, and a complement of 23 5k ARRI studio fixtures provide additional lighting for broadcast and backlighting.
A building-wide HS-SDI network feeds two Daktronics 8mm LED screens flanking the stage on each side with a massive 35-foot Daktronics 12mm LED screen at the center. In addition, video content can be projected to the back wall from a 20,000-lumen Christie HD projector, as well as directed to an LED curtain system with 24 four-foot by eight-foot sections that can be combined in any configuration. The versatile system is used regularly on the road for IMAG and background content, but also for some of the special events in the sanctuary.
"After we heard what some of the new speaker designs had to offer, we felt we had to consider an upgrade.
Reed Hall
Senior Director of Audio and Technical Production, Lakewood Church, Houston TX
In addition to difficulties with lighting, converting the arena presented a number of challenges for audio. As part of the original room redesign, Russ Berger Design Group of Addison, Texas, provided consulting services that identified key areas of concern for audio. The most critical items were addressed to convert the sports arena into a mammoth sanctuary with a stage as a focal point and sloped seating, raked across the room. The resulting design of the original sound system was, as Hall describes it, “nearly revolutionary” for the time. Despite a comprehensive redesign to support high-quality audio, some areas of the sanctuary proved hard to reach and problematic to tune. In recent years, lack of headroom, deficiencies in upper midrange, and high-frequency clarity provided indications that the system might be underpowered—leading the team to explore the replacement of power amplifiers.
Working with Shawn Mullins and Joe Smart of Houston-based sound contractor Covenant Communications, the team started looking at new designs of audio components that could meet the needs of this big sanctuary. Covenant had been involved on other efforts at the church, including designing sound in some of the smaller rooms as part of the 2005 remodeling, and was chosen by Hall and his team to do the major sound system overhaul.
“Good relationships made it possible,” says Smart. “It's not about us being superstars, but about us being honest and knowing what we're doing. We're very transparent in our dealings—on this and other projects. Then, we can shift our focus to work with the client as a partner. It's all about making them successful. When they are in a winning situation, we win, too.”
Hall and his audio team at Lakewood Church know that budget for a major upgrade is always a critical factor, but there are other concerns with running a megachurch that are important, as well. “A big part of our decision was knowing that our vendor would be around for parts,” Hall says. “It's just this simple: If we blow a speaker in rehearsal on Tuesday, by Wednesday it needs to be fixed. For us, it's that level of performance we're looking for—from ourselves and from our vendor. It's really necessary for an operation of our size.”
To improve headroom and clarity, Covenant first demonstrated Crown IT12000HD amplifiers on a section of the existing system. It made a huge improvement, according to Smart. Smart was also anxious for Hall and his team to hear the new JBL VTX loudspeaker technology, which was introduced in early 2012. So when the opportunity arose to address a front-fill problem the team was having, Smart introduced them to JBL's VT4886 VerTec subcompact speakers. The sound of this very compact speaker caught the team's attention. In fact, within seconds of hearing the performance of the small passive three-way line array box, Hall reports saying, “We'll take it.” Duryea agrees, “We were floored by the performance—not what we expected from the size of the box and a departure from the JBL sound to date.”
Once the team began hearing demonstrations and researching competitive line array systems, they became sold on having the features and reliability of JBL's new VTX line. The massive operation to replace the existing system began with a comprehensive system redesign employing Harman's JBL VTX Series line arrays and subwoofers along with Crown Audio I-Tech HD Series amplifiers and BSS Audio BLU-800 signal processors.
The audio team at Lakewood Church opted for BLU-800 signal processors because they needed a reliable DSP that would support a flexible architecture and provide lots of I/O capability. “We chose London because we are very familiar with the product already and know it sounds great and does what we want,” says Duryea. “We also like it because it integrates well with a HiQ-net setup, like the Crown amplifiers, and allows consolidated controls from within System Architect.” For the lead engineers, iPad and iPhone control options were also desirable features.
Lakewood Church employs five London products in the sanctuary: Two BLU-800s handle the AES signal infrastructure for the PA. Another BLU-800 handles the analog backup, to take over in case there is ever a digital signal failure, clock problem, or one of the main processors fails. This backup processor is already feeding the amplifiers, as well as using analog signals from the console. In the event of a failure, the amps will auto sense the lack of digital signal and take the analog signal within about a quarter of a second. A BLU-100 handles monitor processing for choir monitors and wedges. The team also has a spare BLU-800.
"We shift our focus to work with the client as a partner ... when they are in a winning situation, we win, too."
Joe Smart
Covenant Communications, Houston, TX
The speaker components selected for Lakewood Church included 60 JBL VTX V25 line array cabinets and 20 VTX S28 subwoofers. The system is flown in four arrays: main left-right V25 arrays of 20 enclosures each, two suspended arrays of 10 S28 subwoofers and two side arrays with 10 V25 loudspeakers each. The team selected a 60 Hz crossover point for the V25's to achieve a better blend between the main speakers and the subwoofers. The main left-right arrays curve down 90 degrees to cover from the front seats all the way up to the back bowl of the church. In addition, 26 JBL VerTec VT4886 subcompact line array elements are employed—eight for sound reinforcement for the choir, 12 used as out-fill with six deployed as front-fill. A total of 73 Crown IT12000HD amplifiers power the system.
CRITICAL LOGISTICS
Deployment of such a large complement of speakers and rigging required a great deal of organization and planning. Lakewood Church has five services each weekend starting Saturday night, then two services in English on Sunday morning followed by a Spanish language service and, finally, a young adult service Sunday night. There was no large block of time to install the whole system. To complete the installation and keep the church operational, the work had to be carefully organized to take place on Monday and Tuesday in order to complete by noon on Wednesday before sound check for the Wednesday night service. Audio engineer BK Beard, who has been working with Hall since he was a teenager, credits teamwork and a strong work ethic for making it all come together.
“We are a good team,” Beard says. “I suppose we are a bit like a race crew or sports team. It's got to be that way if you want to function at that highest level. We are fortunate to have a knowledgeable and talented group who are probably harder on themselves than any management could be.”
The church's lead audio engineers worked closely with Covenant Communications to do logistical and prep work first, getting wiring and infrastructure in place, amps installed and tested with DSP's programmed prior to starting a month-long process of replacing sections of speakers at a time. Smart and Covenant contractors worked alongside Beard, Duryea and the audio team at Lakewood Church. As Smart says, “BK and Brad [Duryea] are so good at what they do, it was more like working with partners than customers. Interns, staff, everyone, showed up with gloves on ready to work. They were very involved in the process.”
Over several weeks, the team installed out-fills first, then mains, which required overcoming significant obstacles in the big room, including the removal of seating for sufficient floor space under the arrays. The sub configurations were installed last. “We like the involvement,” says Duryea, “because we want to understand for the future. And with our experience, we're not afraid to get our hands dirty.”
Duryea also notes that his team's contributions to the installation work made the labor significantly more affordable. “With as many as 20 people working in the sanctuary at one time, an upgrade like this one could get very expensive,” he says. “People think that with a large church we don't have to worry about budget, but we really do.”
As a final step, Paul Bauman, a leading designer with Harman International (owner of JBL, Crown, BSS, AKG and other professional audio brands) and recognized expert in line array technology was brought in to tune the system. “We're huge fans of Bauman who was lead designer of the VTX,” says Duryea. Bauman used Harman Audio Tuning (HAT), Harman's proprietary system, to make final adjustments to the room. “The tuning was really impressive and made the noticeable differences we were expecting, like the clarity and additional headroom on Pastor Joel's lavalier mic [that] we were missing,” Duryea adds.
The ultimate goal for the audio upgrade at Lakewood Church, according to Audio Engineer BK Beard, “was to have Pastor Joel's conversational voice be heard and understood by a person in the back row.” That's a complex undertaking given the size of the room and the contrasting demands on the massive audio system to provide the sound levels necessary for a powerful contemporary service and, at the same time, the crystal clarity to deliver the message from a conversational pastor who prefers a lavalier microphone. “We are able to make it happen,” Beard says, “because we have the right gear and the right team to make it all work.”
