“The creative use of staging, lighting, video and sound are essential in the telling of [the] good news of Jesus Christ to a multi-sensory society,” says Mike Wierick, executive pastor at Fielder Church. To that end, Fielder Road Baptist Church (simply known as Fielder Church) is always looking to leverage and expand the creative use of technology and music production in the 1,600-seat auditorium at its Central Arlington campus and across its other venues. Overseeing the technical operations of this thriving 60-year-old church complex in Arlington, Texas, is a big job. It's Don Erdmann's job. From solving audio problems to reviewing specifications for purchases to monitoring wireless frequencies to soldering together custom audio snakes to training volunteers on new technology, this engineer gets a technical workout daily. While he is clearly a hands-on engineer, there's more to Erdmann than meets the eye.
Erdmann can quite literally be called a jack-of-all-trades, having attained a business degree, operated a landscape business and installed business furniture. He has also been an auto mechanic, repaired bicycles and done engineering work for General Motors. That was all before discovering his passion for audio-video technology. That passion came to him by way of the church and stemmed from the simple act of rolling up cables after a service. “I was a volunteer at a portable church in my 20s,” he says, “just helping any way I could.”
Encouraged by a technical director who mentored him, Erdmann soon conquered simple systems for children's ministries and began applying his skills in a more complex and challenging 800-seat auditorium. When an opportunity to become the technical director of a satellite campus presented itself, Erdmann applied and got the job. The experience he gained with portable campus technology led him to help others looking to establish new ministries and, ultimately, to the ministry at Fielder Church. “I get excited seeing the vision and helping worship leaders achieve their goals,” he says. “That's what motivates me.”
There are plenty of opportunities for volunteers and many technical challenges at Fielder Church. Its Central Arlington campus has a traditional chapel that supports worship for 1,100 congregants with a choir and orchestra, as well as a 1,400-seat MetroCenter auditorium with theater seating that represents one of the area's most popular high-energy contemporary worship settings. In all, there are five adult worship services each week in three different venues. In addition to adult worship, there are three age-graded worship services. The East Arlington campus houses nursery and pre-Kindergarten space, as well as facilities for grades one through five, with additional venues for junior and senior high school groups, plus a college group and a singles' ministry.
Erdmann recently helped the ministry at Fielder Church launch a new portable campus. While some were skeptical about the amount of time and energy required to support a totally portable contemporary church, given the technical demands of their already expansive campus, Erdmann's experience with both portable campus technology and his “can-do” attitude—along with his experience with volunteers—has allowed Fielder Church to realize its goal of expanding off the main campus. According to Executive Pastor Wierick, “We immediately turned to Don Erdmann for help with the portable church. With his guidance, we were able to design and purchase a complete system that has met every need of the new campus.”
Thinking things through
While Erdmann knows a lot about the technology required to build a portable campus, he also knows that it is more than just buying the right gear. “It's more than technology,” he says. “I know first-hand that doing a portable campus the wrong way—out of car trunks—can burn up volunteers quickly. I wanted to avoid that and do it right.” To that end, Erdmann enlisted the help of other technical experts who design portable systems, his former employer, Portable Church Industries of Troy, Mich. The company works with all aspects of portable worship for interim situations or, as in the case of Fielder Church, launching new campuses. Together with Erdmann's team of staff and volunteers, the team designed a turnkey system that can be delivered to a location and assembled in two to three hours. According to Erdmann, with mostly volunteers operating the campus, an efficient design is key to both its portability and success.
Once assembled and checked, Fielder Church's portable campus runs two services, one Spanish and one English, each drawing about 100 worshippers.
“I get excited seeing the vision and helping worship leaders achieve their goals. That’s what motivates me.”
Don Erdmann
Audio-Video Engineer, Fielder Road Baptist Church, Arlington, TX
Erdmann coordinates four teams of volunteers at different technical levels who are assigned to set-up, tear-down and strike-out the portable campus. In order to prevent burn out, two teams of 10 people will work one Sunday, one team doing set up and one doing tear down. The two teams that work [one] weekend will be off the next, as the other two teams pitch in. In addition to the set-up teams, there is a “T1” technical director who sees that audio, video, lighting, and stage backline are set up in time and a “T2” who works primarily outside the auditorium on signage, check-in and other set up.
Careful consideration was given to all equipment used to build the portable campus for reliability, portability and operation by volunteers. A good example is the choice of the Allen & Heath GLD-80 as a portable, full-featured digital audio mixer. “I really like the sound and the way Allen & Heath surfaces are laid out,” says Erdmann. “While it can be used by a novice, it can get as complex as you need. We also needed the small footprint and lightweight design, and with the GLD-80 we didn't have to compromise.”
The GLD-80 has an analog-style channel processing section that the team finds to be very intuitive (important when you have multiple operators and volunteers at the helm) and an 8.4-inch touch screen display. Another important feature for Erdmann's volunteers is the customizable, drag-and-drop assignment of inputs and mixes to the fader strips. That allows them to save their set-ups for quick changes on stage as well as the mixing engineer's personal tastes.
Other features of the GLD-80 include 20 fader strips in four layers with motorized faders and rotary control for immediate access to gain, pan and aux sends, as well as SPDIF and AES3 digital outputs. Inputs come by way of AR84 expander racks (eight XLR inputs/four XLR outs). The technicians at Fielder Church appreciate that the digital snake and built-in Aviom interfaces on the GLD-80 represent significantly less weight for their portable system. Also useful for portability and convenience is the GLD-80's ability to record and playback a stereo signal directly to and from a USB memory stick. Playing back virtual mixes helps Erdmann and his team in solving technical audio problems and training volunteers.
Portable storytelling tools
For the portable campus, Erdmann located two used Meyer Sound UPA-1C loudspeakers that he repaired to be his mains, pairing them with two Danley TH-115 subwoofers, which he describes as robust, efficient and affordable. He recently installed six new Danley subs as replacements to support the existing EAW KF761s that are configured five per side in Fielder Church's main auditorium. He claims the efficient Danley design provides three or four times the punch of the cabinets he has replaced—and requires roughly half the power.
In the main auditorium, the team mixes on an Avid (Digidesign) Venue digital audio console with a front-of-house (FOH) box equipped with two digital signal processing (DSP) Mix Engine cards, two IOx cards and a Snake card connected to a Stage Rack with six eight-channel analog input cards, two analog output cards, one digital output card and an Aviom card. Erdmann has plans to add a MADI card so he will be able to distribute up to 64 channels of audio to other MADI devices.
“This console has allowed us to move forward in the digital mixing world,” Erdmann says. “Partnered with Pro Tools, we can edit our rehearsals and upload the files so the artist can practice during the week or playback the files to adjust our DSP in the distributed broadcast areas. It's extremely flexible.”
In order to prevent burn out, two teams of 10 people will work one Sunday, one team doing set up and one doing tear down.
Shure Wireless Workbench 6 beta software has allowed Erdmann to monitor all his wireless microphone networks, as well as place tools to make critical adjustments in the hands of his engineers at the front of house. With the software, engineers can change frequencies of remote receivers, mute microphones, as well as monitor RF, audio, battery condition, and gain. The recent release of the software provides a real-time scanning capability, which utilizes a receiver to monitor the set up and then advises about optimal configurations to avoid interference.
Fielder Church employs Rise Vision Enterprise, an open source and cloud-based digital signage platform, to distribute information to mounted flat screens. Erdmann is pleased with how well the system has met the church's needs, as well as how easy the system is to operate and expand. A readily available and HTML-based solution for digital signage broadcasts, a surprising benefit of the system is that it is free—plus it works with just about any device that will support a browser.
To implement HD signage and video distribution at the main campus, Erdmann employs ZeeVee's ZvBox 170, a combination HD MPEG2 encoder and QAM modulator, to share HD video sources over coax. This has allowed Fielder Church to move to HD without having to replace existing coax wiring. Control of the ZvBox from Erdmann's iPhone allows him to easily simulcast from the auditorium to anywhere on campus. He has also built an effective broadcast delay system using Elgato EyeTV software to record and delay broadcast to other on-site venues with reported high quality at a very affordable price.
Worship services at Fielder Church's main auditorium have a high-energy look and the feel of a concert environment. Sets change four or five times a year around a 16- by 9-foot Da-Lite center screen and ten 42-inch Panasonic professional plasma screens fed by Renewed Vision ProVideoPlayer. An Eiki XT-5 3-LCD, 15,000-lumen projector provides images fed through a Blackmagic DVI Extender.
To light productions, Production Designer Joel Caron favors GrandMA Series 1 lighting consoles and GrandMA onPC software in the smaller venues on campus. The GrandMA full-sized console in Fielder Church's main auditorium drives four ETC 96-channel dimmer racks that control a mix of ETC, Chauvet and Martin fixtures, plus trigger cues for PVP and a Catalyst Media Server. “We look for reliable gear but need to get bang for the buck, so we'll consider used equipment or whatever works for us in a particular application,” Caron says.
One hundred ETC Source Four Lekos and 60 Source Four Pars are used for theatrical lighting in the main auditorium, along with 70 more Source Four Pars used as house lights. A combination of eight Chauvet ColorDash Pars, 12 Batten-Tris and eight Battens light backdrops and set pieces, along with eight Martin Mac 2000 Wash fixtures that provide vibrant colors for backlight. According to Erdmann, “Chauvet Lighting has allowed us to expand our LED inventory with affordable pricing, as well as fixtures that don't flicker on video.” Six Martin Mac 250 Entours and four Vari-Lite VL2500 Spots are used for aerial beams and texture.
Today, Erdmann is doing the technical work he loves, what he feels God wants him to do. His background as a volunteer and his experience with audio-video technology for worship has taught him that each campus is unique—and that a portable campus can have as much or more energy than a fixed site.
“Volunteers are a big part of it, part of the growth, and truly the backbone of the church,” he adds. “Together, we use technology—whatever we can—to create a distraction-free service that allows people to see Jesus.”
