Bringing quality audio and video functionality to the church's worship experience was a particularly challenging endeavour because the space was originally developed as a shopping centre and, hence, not optimized for its current purpose. With careful planning and the right equipment however, services are a vibrant, contemporary experience-thanks in no small part to the sonic excellence delivered by loudspeakers drawn from the catalogue of Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio.
GC Pro (Guitar Center Professional Division) of Atlanta, GA - working in conjunction with Tampa, FL-based Event Resource Group - ultimately designed and deployed a sound reinforcement system at the church utilizing D.A.S. Event 208A 3-way active line arrays, Event 218A dual 18-inch powered subwoofers, Action M12A 2-way powered stage monitors, and a DSP-26 stereo / mono processor for loudspeaker management.
GC Pro account manager Brad Lyons engineered a fully comprehensive upgrade plan for South Biscayne Church's FOH and stage audio, broadcast audio, video for IMAG (image magnification), and broadcast video. He discussed the project and his reasons for selecting D.A.S. Audio.
"There were many design challenges in providing the ideal audio system for South Biscayne," Lyons reports. "Formerly a shopping centre, the worship centre's ceiling height was just under 20ft with a dropped ceiling. The space itself measures roughly 100ft deep and 70ft wide. With support beams running across the side of the area, this technically cut the trim height.
The sanctuary uses movable seating and has a capacity for roughly 900 people. Music plays a huge role in worship services, with a full worship band, vocal team, and occasionally a choir. But ultimately, the message is the fundamental teaching, so both music reproduction and a high level of speech intelligibility were essential from the sound system."
To address these challenges, Lyons and the Event Resource Group team flew two clusters of four Event 208A line array elements for the left-right hangs over the front edge of the stage (which faces into the width of the room) at a height of 18ft. For low frequency support, two D.A.S. Event 218A subwoofers - one enclosure per side -were positioned into custom recessed cubicles into the underside of the stage front. Four D.A.S. Action M12A floor monitors provide foldback for the vocal team on the front stage expansion. "Between the use of AFMG's EASE Focus acoustic modelling software for system tuning, we were able to plan how many loudspeakers were required and at what angles they should be positioned to achieve the perfect coverage pattern," Lyons explained.
(Jim Evans)
