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"Helping You Sound Your Best" |
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COLLEGE HEIGHTS CHRISTIAN CHURCH JOPLIN, MISSOURI WORSHIP CENTER SOUND - VIDEO - LIGHTING STAGING - RECORDING
The College Heights Christian Church of Joplin, Missouri had been meeting in two smaller room in their facility for over 10 years and had grown to the point of having five services every Sunday morning. The new worship center had been a dream for over seven years. The budget was tight but the need was great. A 1700 seat room has greater needs than a gym-a-torium or a chapel. This project was worth tackling since it is Gary Jordan's home church.
The building committee checked references and directed the architectural firm to hire Jordan Audio Consultants to work the project for the acoustics, sound reinforcement, recording, video projection, video production, stage lighting, intercom, and production logistics. The blueprints were completed with the engineering and design work included as needed in 2006. Progress on the building began in February of 2007. The first worship assembly was February 18 of 2008. It was a long, long year.
In an effort to maximize the budget the technology team at the church offered to build the systems with volunteer labor. This allowed us to save about $25,000 in labor fees. Our team is blessed to have three IT professionals, two professional audio technicians, two professional video technicians and a commercial electrician. This gave us an advantage especially with the system's designer (Gary Jordan) on the tech team to be able to make changes as we went along.
Most of our installation time was on Saturday mornings. We choose to have the line array speakers hung by a local AV contractor. We also hired a local independent engineer (Ron Neiderd) to assist with some of the intricate interconnection wiring. An old friend (Ryan Krob) came up from Stillwater OK to punch the terminals on the back of the patchbays.
ACOUSTICS The acoustics of the room were both calmed and redirected with the application of strategically placed absorbing panels, hidden base traps, and diffusion panels. Some of the treatment was removed by the architect to reduce costs. These elements are soon to be added to correct the problems that resulted from the budget cuts.
SOUND REINFORCEMENT 1700 seats in a 180 degree fan presents its own challenges. 1000 seats are on the main floor, while 700 chairs are in the stadium seating. The negative space ceiling made possible the application of large line array speakers. Two arrays are all that were necessary to provide complete coverage to the entire seating. Each array consists of 9 modules. Each module include two 8" woofers and a single 7" high powered ribbon driver. The speakers are the SLS LS8800. The speakers are made right next door in Springfield Missouri.
The worship team was expanding from a simple four piece band with three singers to a six piece band with six singers. Once a month a 70 voice choir and 30 piece orchestra is added to the worship team. The demands on the sound system will be increasing far beyond the demands on previous systems.
The system has 72 microphone lines that feed a patch bay in the sound booth. Four of the lines are on the catwalk for hanging microphones for the choir. The system has four monitor mixes from the main console and six stations of the Aviom personal monitor mixers with Concert Systems LLC powered floor monitors. The system can accommodate an overhead speaker mounted at the catwalk for the choir.
The mixing console is a Soundcraft MH2. It has 48 mono inputs and 4 stereo inputs. It is an 8 buss console with 8 VCA groups and 10 auxiliary mixes. It is a top drawer analog console that meets our needs very well. We researched several choices for digital consoles in the initial investigations. Our discussions always came back to price and choices. For the price we had the invest, we only had one choice and we were not comfortable committing that much money without further choices. A digital desk may be in the booth someday, but right now we are very happy with the Soundcraft analog console.
The stage monitoring speakers were built for us by Concert Systems LLC Six "Dixie Cutter EMP" floor monitors were added for vocals and special applications. A total of five "Bunker Buster POWER" floor monitors (each with an 180 watt amplifier) were added for the band members.
The sub woofer system is quite unique. There are four sub enclosures. Two enclosures have dual 18" 1100 watt woofers. The other two enclosures have quad 12" 600 watt woofers. Each pair of woofers have separate output from the digital system processor. The 18" boxes are voiced for very deep tone (and earthquakes.) The 12" boxes are voiced for punch. We worked out this idea with Concert Systems LLC design engineer Gary Lavengood several years ago, but never had a client that would commit. This project is proof that the idea was very sound.
All the amplifiers for the sub woofers and the four floor monitors are Crown model K2 units. These models feature a "sleep" mode. After 60 seconds of silence the amplifier goes into standby mode. This saves electrical power. The amplifiers for the line array are Crown model CTs units. These models feature switch mode power supplies for efficiency.
The amplifiers are distributed into three tech rooms to minimize the speaker cable runs. Each sub woofer chamber has a rack with power for the local subs and one of the line arrays. The amplifiers for monitors and the 70 volt distributed ceiling speakers outside of the worship center are located in the tech room centered back stage.
VIDEO PROJECTION A pair of 16' wide by 9' high front projection screens flank the stage to provide clear viewing to about 95 percent of the audience seating areas. (With a 180 degree seating plan it is difficult to provide excellent viewing to all seats.)
A pair of 5500 lumen DLP units provide the wide format projection for lyrics, announcements, video clips and scriptures. The projectors are mounted on cantilevered shelves on the front of the video lighting booth. (This is different than the original design, but works very well.)
A 60" diagonal plasma directly in front of the platform, beneath the window to the video/lighting booth provides a confidence monitor for the participants on the platform. A dedicated 20" VGA monitor connected to the second video card on the recording computer provides a count down clock for the preacher (although it seldom does any good.)
WORSHIP CENTER LIGHTING The stage lighting system was designed around the idea that the budget needed to allow for future growth. A distributed dimming approach was adopted to reduce costs of the electrical work and the initial capitol costs. The system began with 66 dimmers. Half are on a catwalk above the platform. The remainder are flown above the rear row of the main floor seating. This provide adequate lighting for most worship events and simple productions. Provision are included to accommodate robotic fixtures in the future and the addition of 48 more channels of dimmers.
Provisions are also in place to accommodate several temporary dimmers for special effects during productions.
Many of the fixtures were already in the churches inventory. Some instruments were purchased used. Others fixtures were purchased new. A strong inventory of bulbs and gels were also assembled to best accommodate the week to week need.
Control for the stage lighting system is a 48 channel Zero 88 Fat Frog console. Control for the house lighting is a simple six fader interface for the Lightronics architectural dimmers.
The stage is much larger than anything we have had previously for worship. A 44' by 12' modular extension is in place at the front of the 48' wide permanent stage. When the modular stage removed there is room for the 30 piece orchestra.
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VIDEO / LYRICS PRESENTATION AND AUDIO RECORDING STATIONS
AUDIO RECORDING AND LIGHTING CONTROL STATIONS
SOUND CONTROL BOOTH WITH SUPPORT EQUIPMENT AND PATCH BAY
THE NORTH END OF THE SOUND CONTROL BOOTH IS SET ASIDE FOR A CAMERA OPERATOR AND THE PRODUCER
AVIOM MIXER AND CONCERT SYSTEMS LLC POWERED MONITORS -"BUNKER BUSTER"
SOUTH SLS LS8800 NINE BOX LINE ARRAY
NORTH AMP ROOM CONCERT SYSTEMS LLC AVL-412 AND CVL-218 SUB WOOFERS - backsides
ONE OF THE 218 BOXES DURING TESTING AT THE WORKSHOP (those are big woofers in there)
NORTH AND SOUTH AMPLIFIER RACKS
CENTER BACKSTAGE MONITOR AMPLIFIER RACK
WORSHIP CENTER STAGE LIGHTING
CATWALK WITH DISTRIBUTED DIMMER STICK AND LIGHTING INSTRUMENTS
TWO DIMMER STICKS AND LIGHTING INSTRUMENTS - see glass booth behind
CATWALK WITH ACOUSTIC REFLECTORS FLANKED BY TWO LINE ARRAYS
HOUSE LIGHTING DIMMERS
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