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California's Bonita Valley Community Church.
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"When the city expressed concern about the low-frequency energy reaching the neighborhood, we were able to address their concerns and reduce the low frequencies at the back wall of the stage using an end-fire configuration for the subs." - Jim Martin, Director of Technology, Building God’s Way, Ogden, UT.
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Jim Martin, BGW's director of technology, designed a lighting system for Bonita Valley that includes mostly lighting products from Mega-Lite, including 80 Mega-Lite Baby Color Q-70 fixtures. Martin chose the Baby Color Q-70 fixtures for their compact size and powerful illumination. "The units fit easily into the truss system and provide outstanding output relative to their compact size," he says.
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A custom motorized truss and control system was fabricated by Newport News, Va.-based Applied Electronics. It includes 16 CM Lodestar motors that allow it to hang at different heights.
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… with the size of the installation and the jump to the new technology, Martin worked with the church in the new space for several weeks to be sure they had the comfort level they needed.
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"Working with lots of different set-ups gave me some valuable experience... My job is simply to 'hold up' whoever is on stage," VanBuren says. Most often, that is Worship Pastor Gabe Terrado.
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"Having a system that is truly volunteer-friendly, yet powerful enough to achieve the looks we have in mind, has been a huge benefit. The Enlighten One console offers the best of both worlds; it’s feature-full and easy to use." - Richie VanBuren, Technical Director, Bonita Valley Community Church, San Diego, CA.
With its new 1,400-seat sanctuary, Bonita Valley Community Church has become one of the largest churches in California's San Diego area. Outfitted with all new audio, video and lighting systems, the church, led by Senior Pastor Jeff Brawner, is now poised for further growth. But making the move from its old building put Bonita Valley's technical staff on a steep learning curve.
“We were running five services over a weekend with one on Saturday and four on Sunday morning,” recalls Bonita's technical director, Richie VanBuren. “It put a lot of pressure on the staff and volunteers, plus almost everything we had there was old technology.” VanBuren and Worship Arts Director Gabe Terrado were excited about moving into the new facility and looked forward to the advantages of the new AVL systems—but knew they would have a lot to learn.
VanBuren describes his knowledge of production as self-taught. He recalls his first experiences with sound at another San Diego area church where the youth group was struggling. “I had no experience,” he says of his first assignments, “but really just wanted to help.” He worked out kinks for the church's productions and got experience when the college group started bringing in bands. It wasn't long before the church approached him about running technology for services.
“We were using mostly hotel ballrooms,” VanBuren recalls, “so every Sunday morning we had to put in a sound system. Soon I knew how to put an entire system together.” Doing a lot of his learning from other sound engineers and videos, he looked for any opportunity he could to learn about sound.
Mixing of Old & New
“Working with lots of different set-ups gave me some valuable experience,” VanBuren adds. Six years ago, a family connection introduced VanBuren to Bonita Valley Community Church, and his arrival coincided with an opening for a sound engineer. From the beginning, he believed that he could make a contribution running sound for worship services there. He also started to learn lighting techniques. When the new building became a reality, all of VanBuren's skills were put to the test. “My job is simply to 'hold up' whoever is on stage,” he says. Most often, that is Worship Pastor Gabe Terrado.
Terrado has been a familiar face and musical presence at Bonita Valley for nearly 20 years, first as musical director and more recently as the dedicated director of the worship team. Terrado came with some serious musical credits. As he recalls, “At 20-years-old I was playing guitar for pop music star Lionel Richie and did some touring with jazz saxophonist Ronnie Laws.” But when a family came into the picture, Terrado's life as a touring musician was put aside for a more practical career of software developer. “With two children and a family to support,” he says, “working in the San Diego area was the right thing to do.”
Terrado's life, however, took a turn when his technology job went away. “Before I came to Bonita Valley [a] chance meeting with an evangelist changed my life,” he says. Given new purpose, Terrado arrived at Bonita Valley and in only a few months was asked to be musical director, and he has served in that capacity for 15 years. Occasionally, he was called upon to lead worship when the youth pastors were ill and though he resisted at first, five years ago, he started singing and leading worship.
In 2012, Terrado was made director of worship and now coordinates the efforts of several worship leaders. “[Having] multiple worship leaders gives us lots of flexibility,” he says. During the week, Terrado selects songs and works with the senior pastor to prepare two Sunday services at 9:30 a.m. and 11:30 a.m. in the new facility. “Everyone learns their part for Sunday, then we bring it together to rehearse our productions,” he says. “Our new technology is helping us to do that.”
Building Specifics
"Everyone learns their part for Sunday, then we bring it together to rehearse our productions. Our new technology is helping us to do that."
Gabe Terrado
Worship Pastor, Bonita Valley Community Church, San Diego, CA.
Bonita Valley's new venue for worship didn't come about overnight. “Our new building was really about 10 years in the making,” Terrado notes. “There are many complications to building in our area of the country, including the complexities of building permits, planning and financing. But once the decision was made to start building, everything fell into place.” A major factor in the Bonita Valley's ability to accomplish all they wanted with the new building was their decision to enlist the help of church architect, Building God’s Way (BGW) and benefit from its unique methodology and practices.
According to Jim Martin, BGW's director of technology, “It's not the typical general contractor-subcontractor relationship. BGW not only brings local contractors in to be a close-knit part of a team, but creates an environment where the church itself is involved from day one.”. As part of its unique strategy, BGW encourages the church to minister to the workers on-site and looks to subcontractors to work together to look for cost savings to help the church. “In addition to building remarkable churches,” he says, “more often than not we can offer the church a sizable donation at the end of the job.”
BGW has experienced affiliates across the country and chose local construction partner, Erickson-Hall Construction of Escondido, Calif., to implement its design for Bonita Valley's new facility. Another unique practice of BGW is to put design professionals on-site with church leaders for three days of cooperative design “charettes” to work out a building and technology design that everyone agrees to. “It takes intense effort to design in real time,” says Martin, “but [the] results are amazing and it puts us all on the same page.” Martin also feels that having AVL experts involved from the beginning of the building design is key to BGW’s success with technology.
Tech for Flex Space
Flexibility was an important factor in the design of Bonita Valley's sanctuary. “From worship services to events, there were a lot of different things we wanted to do with the space,” Terrado explains. To provide a flexible space that would allow the church's productions to go from a concert to a theatrical look, BGW integrated a custom motorized truss system, as well as a control system designed by Martin and fabricated by Newport News, Va.-based Applied Electronics. The system employs 16 CM Lodestar motors that allow it to hang at different heights. For a more theatrical look, the design can be lowered to hang about 16 feet above the stage with a curtain, the truss serving as a lighting grid. For praise and worship, the truss system is raised to a high position and illuminated.
For lighting, Martin designed a system comprised of LED Par, ellipsoidal and moving head fixtures, all from Mega-Lite. Forty EvriColor Tri-RGB lighting fixtures with 15-degree lenses provide dramatic downlighting that wash the stage to create mood. Sixteen Drama LED W fixtures with 19-degree lenses were installed on the front of house truss to provide the main front lighting for the sanctuary. Movement and texture effects are covered by 20 Axis 7D5 moving head fixtures, and the truss work is illuminated with 80 Mega-Lite Baby Color Q-70 fixtures. Martin chose the Baby Color Q-70 fixtures for their compact size and powerful illumination. “The units fit easily into the truss system and provide outstanding output relative to their compact size,” he says. Another benefit Martin points to is the unit’s outstanding value. “Considering the number of fixtures needed to light up the entire truss system, the affordability of the unit was an added bonus,” he reports.
For lighting control, Martin integrated the Enlighten One console. VanBuren uses the console to program productions during the week, but designs scenes so volunteers can “make it their own” for Sunday worship. “Having a system that is truly volunteer-friendly, yet powerful enough to achieve the looks we have in mind, has been a huge benefit,” says VanBuren. “The Enlighten One console offers the best of both worlds; it’s feature-full and easy to use.”
Video also played a key role in the design of Bonita Valley's new space. Four preexisting cameras capture the action on stage. For IMAG and lyrics, BGW chose the U6BH LED display panels by Dicolor to create three 16 x 9-foot video walls at stage left, right and center. RGBLink processors integrated with existing switchers control the video content.
“The Dicolor LED Display panels had all the features we were looking for to make an impact in the space,” says Terrado. “Most importantly, we knew it was a reliable product [that[ fit well within our budget.” With their high contrast, refresh rate and resolution, the U6BH LED display panels had the combination of features the church needed, including outstanding service and support. “We are really thankful to Mega Systems for going above and beyond on service and support,” Martin says.
Martin used EASE 4.3.9 acoustical simulation software to provide detail about room characteristics and to help with speaker placement. “It's a scientific approach for acoustic treatment and speaker placement,” he says. “It not only gives us optimal speaker location, but shows us clearly how speakers and the room will work together.”
Martin's sound system design features 16 RCF TTL33-A compact, wide dispersion, three-way active line array modules installed in left-center-right configuration with two arrays of six modules each for left and right sides and an array of four modules in the center. “TTL33-A was the perfect fit for the room,” says Martin, “rated at 250 watts for highs, 500 watts for midrange and 500 watts low frequencies at full-bandwidth, they have plenty of horsepower for what the church needed”. Six TT052A speakers are placed on or just above the stage lip as a front-fill subsystem. To cover the low end, four TTS36AS subwoofers rated at 4,000 watts (2 x 2,000-watt digital switching amplifiers) are suspended in two hangs of two cabinets each in an end-fire configuration with the central array to provide effective direction control of low-spectrum sound. “When the city expressed concern about the low-frequency energy reaching the neighborhood, we were able to address their concerns, as well as reduce the low frequencies at the back wall of the stage using an end-fire configuration for the subs,” says Martin.
The audio system is processed with RCF's RDNet. RDNet's Control 8 hardware interfaces (controlling a maximum of 256 devices in subnets respectively) allow direct control of specific presets or modifications of parameters like gain, equalization or delay. Based on RS-485 communication protocol, RDNet is designed to make the management of complex audio systems simple and intuitive. Control for audio in the sanctuary is handled by a Midas Pro 6 digital audio console. While VanBuren and Terrado were initially concerned about the big leap from their old analog console, they found that training provided by Midas at its Las Vegas facility was great.
“Training was a great experience,” offers VanBuren. “That alone gave us a lot of confidence. Now, I love the Pro 6 for its versatility.” In particular, VanBuren points to the ability to save mixes. “I don't have to mix one time, changing for every song. I can save the mix and recall it so there are only minor adjustments.” The console is also equipped with RPM-TB248/48 I/O, a 48-channel digital recording solution that allows recording right from the console. An additional feature of Pro 6 noted by both Martin and VanBuren is the ease of upgrading in the future to Midas Pro X for more channels and features. Stage design for Bonita Valley included a Whitley Solutions drum enclosure and an off-stage amplifier room for isolation. According to Terrado, this made effective monitoring on stage critical. Roland M-48 personal mixers were installed to work with Shure in-ear wireless system, with P10T dual-channel transmitters, P10R bodypacks, and SE425CL earbuds. While it was new technology for Terrado and his team, personal monitoring presented some great advantages. “The M-48 immediately appealed to us,” he says. “With 16 stereo channels giving each performer their own control of level, panning, equalization and reverb—they sound great, too. I've heard other systems, but these mixers really stand out.” VanBuren also likes the system. “I don't worry about monitors anymore,” he says, “and can just focus on front-of-house.
In his design, Martin paid particular attention to components to help avoid RF interference, like the Shure ULX-D wireless microphone systems and helical antennas. “The Shure ULX-D is a great microphone for this location,” he says, noting the narrow-band response of the system and the abundance of other RF in the area, including the church's own video walls.
Training & Techie Prep
Upon completion of the new venue, Terrado and VanBuren took time to come up to speed with all the new equipment. “Our process is to get the key players to training courses on the lighting and sound consoles early,” says Martin, “then spend about a week training with them.” However, with the size of the installation and the jump to the new technology, Martin worked with the church in the new space for several weeks to be sure they had the comfort level they needed. “Though there were concerns about all the new technology, the team at Bonita Valley really adapted well and quickly. It's amazing how far they have come and what they accomplish every week,” he notes.
Bonita Valley's new technology is turning out to be a game-changer. “Before we moved into the new building, it was hard to get people to volunteer,” recalls VanBuren, “but I knew we needed help in the new building—especially in a venue of this size. The Lord provided.” Sunday mornings see helping hands from a pool of 35-40 avid volunteers plus 10 singers and musicians on stage. “We had a huge response,” says Terrado. “So many young people wanted to be a part of it.” And VanBuren adds, “We've seen volunteers as young as 11 or 12 years old produce great results.”
The new lighting, video, and sound systems are a huge upgrade from what Bonita Valley started with, and it's allowing the team to follow their mission to a whole new level. “Our technology is new,” Terrado notes, “but our goal has always been the same: to deliver the message of Jesus Christ. Our new AVL systems are helping us to do that—in a way that just wasn’t possible before.”. Terrado and VanBuren agree that the new technology is making a huge impact on the congregation’s worship experience, and the response has been outstanding. “Seeing our members’ faces when they walk in the worship center, you can tell they’re blown away,” says VanBuren. “That’s the best part.”
