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Author Topic: Treatment Advice for Chapel  (Read 6565 times)

Stephen Bolech

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Treatment Advice for Chapel
« on: October 28, 2015, 05:00:40 PM »

Hi, hoping I can get a little advice for treating a chapel at my church to improve the live sound. We have decent sound reinforcement equipment, but it's limited in its effectiveness by the very live acoustics in the room. Looking at options to deaden it up a bit to improve intelligibility of speech and sung vocals and make it so that drums aren't completely washing everything out.

I've attached a couple of pictures of the space. Its dimensions are 71' L x 35' W x 17'10" H. As you can hopefully see, all the surfaces are hard, with a thin carpet floor.

My initial thoughts are to put as many broadband absorption panels as will fit (and we can afford) on the back wall (something like GIK 244, but maybe DIY), and side walls between the stained glass windows. Do you think that would make much of an improvement? I also thought about heavy theater type curtains on the side walls between the windows (but I know that would only affect high frequencies).

Thanks in advance for any help.
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Treatment Advice for Chapel
« Reply #1 on: October 28, 2015, 08:02:23 PM »

Treatment is a interesting thing in a Church.

It has a bit of "it depends" attached to it.

Sure, you can "kill the room" with treatment to help the live music.

HOWEVER-if you do to much, it can also kill congregational singing.

People will feel as if they are singing by themselves-so they sing quieter.

A dead room can also help to understand the Pastors voice better.

You do have a lot of "open wall" area.  So I would start with the back wall.

That could be the biggest problem, and won't affect the congregational singing much.

Maybe add some to the side walls later.

You could try a "trick" of alternating panels on opposite walls.  This can reduce the overall costs, and still maintain some "liveliness".

In other words One wall treatment in one place and the opposite wall is left untreated.

If you leave the spacing wide enough, you can always go back later and add more panels in between the first panels.

Also if you will use some 1x2" or 2x2" furring strips to "hold the panels off the wall", the effective freq they are helping will go down a good bit.  It is cheaper than using thicker material.
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Ivan Beaver
Danley Sound Labs

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Scott Carneval

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Treatment Advice for Chapel
« Reply #2 on: October 28, 2015, 08:23:50 PM »

The chairs are cushioned and upholstered, so you should be getting some absorption there. Of course that changes when someone is sitting in the chair, but then their body is also providing some absorption.

It looks like you have a second set of 'delay' speakers. Are you sure they're actually delayed to the first set?  Judging from the pics, it looks like there would be some seats directly underneath the 'delay' speakers where you're in the pattern of both speakers. This could definitely be causing some intelligibility issues in those seats even if they're 'properly' delayed.


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« Last Edit: October 28, 2015, 09:03:27 PM by Scott Carneval »
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g'bye, Dick Rees

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Re: Treatment Advice for Chapel
« Reply #3 on: October 28, 2015, 09:01:23 PM »

I'm going to be the "devils advocate" here and suggest that you learn how to use the room as is.  Get your musicians together and start gently at square one learning what you can do to play the room instead of spending a lot of time, money and effort.  You should be able to reach the same level of musical intensity and effectiveness without a bunch of amplification as with it.

It's all about cooperation and musicianship.  If making it loud and visceral is your aim, take your message to the club on the corner.
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Stephen Swaffer

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Re: Treatment Advice for Chapel
« Reply #4 on: October 28, 2015, 11:31:11 PM »

I find Dick's answering interesting and I would tend to agree. Our auditorium is similar in many respects and provides many challenges (very talented singers have reported finding themselves singing with the echo off the back wall, etc), but the rooms natural reverb (and the old timers used to either get very lucky or get it right quite often) creates a sound that results in many compliments in spite of almost zero use of electronic effects.  I guess I am old enough I find deadening a room, then adding reverb effects too artificial.

To Ivan's point, I occasionally visit a church that has a very similar music style to ours, but they have a modern auditorium with a sound system to die for in a very dead room.  I don't enjoy the congregational singing as much as at home because I feel like I am hearing about 20 people in a 3000 seat auditorium-and I feel self conscious that the person next to me is hearing me. 

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Steve Swaffer

Caleb Dueck

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Re: Treatment Advice for Chapel
« Reply #5 on: October 29, 2015, 12:05:26 AM »

Acoustics treatment should not simply mean putting up some flat, highs/mids absorption.  The common 1" fiberglass panels are awful.

Is the issue too-long diffuse reverb, or reflections, or both?  What frequencies?

Diffusion is your friend, as is using absorption that addresses lows as well as mids/highs.   Its important to raise intelligibility, while keeping the congregation singing in tact. 

Aesthetics and budget need to be sorted first, as they tend to trump acoustic performance to those holding the purse strings. 

I haven't found the perfect diffusion/absorption product yet, that has an easily palatable price tag.  If used well, the Perdue EconoMaxWedge and a few diffusers with hard shell and good low frequency absorption can get you most of the way there. 
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Treatment Advice for Chapel
« Reply #6 on: October 29, 2015, 09:05:47 AM »

Acoustics treatment should not simply mean putting up some flat, highs/mids absorption.  The common 1" fiberglass panels are awful.


It is amazing to me that people even use 1" panels.

The fire retardant cloth cover it costs more than the panel.  So going to a 2" panel will lower the freq an octave at a minimal cost increase.

1" is pretty much a waste of money.  Considering the labor to install is the same.

What I also find funny is when people put the panels at the top of the walls "to get them out of the way".

Yes it might help a little bit in the traditional Sabine equations of reverb, but does nothing for any flutter or reflections-WHICH ARE THE BIGGEST problems.

Yes reverb can hurt-but not as much as reflections.

Fuzz is cheaper-but often diffusion can be a better way to go.

But you have to "sell it" to the Church people.
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Ivan Beaver
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Ivan Beaver

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Re: Treatment Advice for Chapel
« Reply #7 on: October 29, 2015, 09:11:19 AM »



To Ivan's point, I occasionally visit a church that has a very similar music style to ours, but they have a modern auditorium with a sound system to die for in a very dead room.  I don't enjoy the congregational singing as much as at home because I feel like I am hearing about 20 people in a 3000 seat auditorium-and I feel self conscious that the person next to me is hearing me.
It is easy to have good congregational singing in a dead room.

However you need to add a LARES (or similar) system.

http://www.lares-lexicon.com/welcome.html

They work QUITE WELL

But that will add a couple of "zeros" to the budget-so that is not for everybody.
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A complex question is easily answered by a simple-easy to understand WRONG answer!

Ivan Beaver
Danley Sound Labs

PHYSICS- NOT FADS!

Jamin Lynch

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Re: Treatment Advice for Chapel
« Reply #8 on: October 29, 2015, 09:26:16 AM »

We do a lot of acoustical treatment with Perdue Acoustics panels.

Often times the side walls are more of a problem than the back wall.

1" flat panels are pretty much useless. The same with foam or fiberglass panels. Waste of time and money.

PLEASE no DIY panels. Haven't seen one yet that does any good.

Perdue has several style panels that can work for just about any application. We have had great success with the Wedge panels.

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Stephen Bolech

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Re: Treatment Advice for Chapel
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2015, 09:40:33 AM »

Thanks for everybody's input. Just to give a little more information...

I have no desire or even think it's feasible to make the room "dead", just want it a little deader. In fact, if I went too far, some of the other stuff that goes on in that room would suffer, like the un-amplified children's choir concerts... The room was renovated a few years ago, and I'm certain no thought was put into the acoustics of the space, only the aesthetics. I really just want to do something that probably should have been done when the room was renovated.

The college group that meets in there is starting to use a full band, and the liveness of the room has become a real challenge. A drummer can use brushes and play very lightly, but as soon as a cymbal is struck that's about all you can hear. With all the hard surfaces, it's hardly a surprise. I was asked about getting a drum shield for the room, but I know that will do little to fix the actual problem.

The DIY solution I'm currently considering will use 3" panels set off of the wall about an inch, with Owens Corning 703 or something similar, so I'm definitely looking at a more broadband solution than 1" panels.

As I was writing this I see someone said they've never seen DIY panels that do any good, so... I don't really see how just the fact that it's DIY would make it less effective, when it's the same materials that are used in commercial products.
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ProSoundWeb Community

Re: Treatment Advice for Chapel
« Reply #9 on: October 29, 2015, 09:40:33 AM »


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