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[M. Erik Matlock]

I am collecting the worst of the worst for an upcoming article. Looking for tragic things we have witnessed in churches that took it upon themselves to install their own systems. Not wanting to embarrass anyone. Don't need specifics, just the most unbelievable encounters with church sound systems.

Allow me to demonstrate...

A service call to fix a system in rural Georgia found me standing in the center aisle, unable to contain the horrified shock on my face. Directly above the pulpit was a sheet of plywood with about 25-30 car stereo speakers screwed to it.

Later, in about the same area, I found another church with two Fender guitar amps hanging on the back wall from coat hooks. They claimed it didn't get loud enough to cover 250 seats.

There are plenty more. But, let's hear yours...

[Keith Broughton]

Not a horror story but certainly a problem...
"We need really good sound but we should get a really low price  because we are a church"
 

[Jonathan Johnson]

The small church I grew up in was built in 1898. It seats around 100-120 worshipers. Obviously it didn't have a sound system installed then, but sometime in the middle of the last century, a sound system was installed -- with all the technology that date implies, including a tube amplifier and a single 8" "full-range" loudspeaker in an open-back wooden cabinet.

Since the system was installed because the people in the back couldn't hear, the speaker was hung on the side wall to cover the seats in the back. Then, when the preacher got up to the pulpit and saw a microphone, he would think, "I don't have to talk as loud."

Now the people in the front couldn't hear, so an enthusiastic member of the congregation built a couple of speakers (poorly, I might add) and mounted them on the front sidewalls to cover the front pews. No attention was paid to polarity of the wiring, impedance on the system, or any technical details like that. To cap it off, this member was also partially deaf, with his hearing loss mostly in the higher registers. As a result, the system sounded horrible -- but to his ears, it was fine.

That's not all. The amplifier was located in the pulpit. You couldn't adjust it without making a scene.

In the 1990s, when I was in my early 20s, I replaced the entire system. I won't say it's a great system, and knowing what I know now, I would have done some things differently. But it serves our needs, and works considerably better than that first system ever did.

[Taylor Phillips]

I'm not sure if you would really call this a self install since they used professional equipment and a company, but the architect who designed the building was a member of the congregation and in charge of much of the decision making.   They installed 4 PA speakers in the ceiling pointed straight down at the floor in a 50x50 room with a 20' vaulted ceiling.  Very poor coverage and lots of trouble with feedback.  I imagine part of the reasoning for doing it that way was so that you wouldn't have to see the speakers - they've been using a pair of wedges on stands either side of stage for 10 years now.   

[Thomas Le]

I have a short story of classic stupidity. We're all familiar with the Renkus Heinz ICONYX right? Well before I came along to my current church, an acoustic specialist spec'd a pair of them for a new cathedral style church for the pulpit audio. Odd choice for a new building when they can rig up a decent point source/line array rig instead but it's their money and I wasn't there to give some insight. The stupidity comes in when they positioned it so that it's behind the pulpit, mic facing the sticks. Add to the fact that it causes obvious feedback issues, they EQ it like an aggressive plateau and add delay to it and possibly a high threshold gate. There's also an EAW AX rig for the choir/live band installed.

A simple solution to kill the ICONYX and route the pulpit audio to that AX rig right? The church was built in 2008 and I've been fighting a losing battle for almost a decade... at this point I just don't care anymore about the speech and focus on the music mix instead... I believe the term "money talks" applies here.

[Stephen Swaffer]

Something like 25 years ago, I was asked to take over the sound at our church-main qualification was that I know how to handle a soldering iron.  In any case, they had had an upgrade done by an professional company prior to my arrival-for the most part fairly well done.  A well designed central cluster, Peavey Architectural amps and processing (digital EQs and crossover), excellent coverage.  I'm not sure the history of the BiAmp 12 channel mixer-but it was serviceable, mics were EV 767s?.

Inexperienced as I was, one thing that frustrated me was that the mics sounded different on each channel-and the difference travelled with the snake channel (though it took a while for me to figure this out since I was reluctant to mess with a "pro" job.)

When we moved the PA booth and upgraded the mixer, about 6 years after I started, I discovered the reason.  Someone, apparently in an attempt to deal with RFI, had added a hodge podge of caps to various channels on the snake.

I guess, I felt, and feel like, when a customer spends $10,000 (in 1989) on, what to them is a major upgrade, not correcting an issue like this is laziness.  While finding the problem might have taken some time, the fix was a pair of wire cutters and 5 minutes work!

[Milt Hathaway]

I don't consider a congregation who has to settle for the DIY sound system to be nearly the as bad a horror story as what I've seen many times where churches buy the gear and installation from the system designer/equipment dealer. I've got plenty of those.

[Robert Lofgren]

I don't consider a congregation who has to settle for the DIY sound system to be nearly the as bad a horror story as what I've seen many times where churches buy the gear and installation from the system designer/equipment dealer. I've got plenty of those.

[Caleb Dueck]

I've worked for a broad range of AV contractors, primarily in the HoW market.  As a general rule, at least for the West Coast and Midwest, DIY is usually on par with the low end contractors/music stores.  The worst systems I've seen were a mix of DIY or low end contractor/music store.  Nearly no systems that I have personally seen that were decent were DIY. 

[John Rutirasiri]

I have a short story of classic stupidity. We're all familiar with the Renkus Heinz ICONYX right?

The 1st gen Iconyx had a single tweeter in the middle of each of the 4" woofer, which of course left big gaps between each tweeter.  Not exactly the line column they were trying to achieve.  I agree those first gen Iconyx were prone to feedback if mounted behind or on the same plane as the mics.  They had to be well in front of the mics.  (Some other line columns like SLS worked quite well on the back wall, behind the altar.)

Later versions had three tweeters per woofer and sounded much better.

John R.

[Benjamin Gingerich]

I am collecting the worst of the worst for an upcoming article. Looking for tragic things we have witnessed in churches that took it upon themselves to install their own systems. Not wanting to embarrass anyone. Don't need specifics, just the most unbelievable encounters with church sound systems.

Allow me to demonstrate...

A service call to fix a system in rural Georgia found me standing in the center aisle, unable to contain the horrified shock on my face. Directly above the pulpit was a sheet of plywood with about 25-30 car stereo speakers screwed to it.

Later, in about the same area, I found another church with two Fender guitar amps hanging on the back wall from coat hooks. They claimed it didn't get loud enough to cover 250 seats.

There are plenty more. But, let's hear yours...

Hey Eric
I could give you a few,
This is one we just finished a few weeks ago and is power related. We did a full AVL in North Georgia.

They had three phase power coming into the building and split out to three old dimmer panels that had been converted into straight power panels. The church didn't tell us or the electrician's that a DIY relay system had been installed in the 80s, that was wired into another panel in another closet, all of the outputs from each of these breakers in the old dimmer went to this relay system.

After the electrician got us outlets at all of our points we started powering audio gear and hanging lighting fixtures, changing the load on this 1980s diy system caused the relays to fail and to close whenever load was added to them and in turn sending 360v to each outlet, the only time it would show 360v is when there was load on the circuit (multi-meter read 120 until load was added)and the electrician only provided single outlets so it took some time to figure out.
The pastor later informed us that he knew about the relay issue and they had similar issues in other places and didn't tell us because he knew that it wasn't up to code and the whole campus was done that way by his brother 20+ years ago.
8 lighting fixtures, 1 dmx splitters, 1 Jands CL controller, 2 power amps and a Protea fried.

[Stephen Swaffer]

Benjamin,

I am curious to know how you wound up with that voltage from failed relays.  OT for this thread-so I asked it in the AC power forum under "Odd voltage readings."

[M. Erik Matlock]

Has anyone else ever attempted to setup wireless mics inside a faraday cage? I had the absolute pleasure of fighting the weirdest dropouts and interference for hours, while setting up 6-8 units in a rural church.
At some point, just short of losing my mind, a member mentioned that there had been a radio station in the building before.
A quick search of the attic space over the sanctuary revealed what looked like a million feet of old copper in random coils and piles. (think of the snake pit scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark)
I never would have guessed it was there or that it would respond like it did.

Another one built a sound booth inside the peak of a 29-foot cathedral ceiling, at the very back of a huge sanctuary. Forget how close to impossible it was to tune the system or mix from there. The big issue was a dude my size making 200 trips up those stairs.

Another church had to change the building plans, after it was already wired. I returned once the drywall and paint crews were done, to find a fire rated window installed in front of the sound booth. Completely sealed and virtually sound proof. The only solution we could reach was studio monitors mounted on each side, tuned to resemble the sound of the room. Not ideal.

Another fresh build was on piers, not a slab, over a lovely Georgia red clay slope. Fortunately, it rained hard the night before we got there and we only had one day to finish the wiring.
The front drainage was still not finished and the water all went under the building.
All wiring had to go under the floor. I was in the mud. Lots of it. Seemed to be a foot deep. We had to keep one clean guy in the sanctuary and me under the floor. Solo mud wrestling.

[Eric du Toit]

I don't know if either qualifies as a horror story, but when a church contractor/architect decides that no acoustic advice is necessary, wanted, or will be tolerated on a 32' ceiling, 800 seat + 200 balcony space, the end result is a sound "booth" at the very back of the balcony high enough that you can almost touch the 32' ceiling with an RT60 value so high that speech intelligibility is difficult.  Names and places will not be given to protect the guilty, but with the advent of the internet, research, and people who care, there is no excuse for poor sound and rejecting good advice in a 1000 seat space.   I suspect that the right consultant would have also warned that the sight lines from piano/organ and orchestra to the music director were non-existent, but why would instrumentalists need to see the music director?!

[Frank DeWitt]

It seems that with all purchases, the more you know, the better chance of getting what you want for a fair price.  In our case, we spent a lot of time learning sound.  Attended some seminars, joined forums, listened a lot and more.  When it came time for a new system, we already had a good relationship with a local company.  We a called them.  They came out, tested the room, made recommendations and guided us through the buy and install.  (They sold us some equipment and recommended that we buy and install other parts our self.)

We are very pleased with the system and the vendor.  Our leadership knows and understands the value of the company we hired.

[ProSoundWeb Community]