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[Steve Wahl]

I attend a mid size church in a Minneapolis, MN suburb.  We built our building around 20 years ago.  I don't immediately have dimensions on our sanctuary space, but it is approximately the size of a single basketball court gymnasium, high ceilings, a complete rectangular prism. Back then, as a growing church in a growing community, somebody convinced us to build the gym first and build the real sanctuary later.  Today it's obvious that's never going to happen.

We use the space in the wide direction, altar area in the center of the longer walls, with the right front corner being the choir / praise band area, and the right rear corner the location of the sound desk.  There are two sets of two speakers, one above the altar area, one above the band area.  I wasn't involved at the time, but I believe this is one of the areas they chose to cut costs.  My complaints about the current system include that it's very prone to feedback (only two speakers = pushed back to cover wider area, so they're not in front of those with mics on), and the frequency response is highly varied across the seating positions in the sanctuary, I can't mix a praise band so the vocals can be well understood from all areas.  It could be my lack of experience, but I think it's more of a coverage problem.

As far as equipment goes, we have a Panasonic DA-7 feeding the music speakers, and a Mackie 1642 feeding the center speakers, with an auto mixer feeding it.  Anyway, the main output on the Mackie died the other day, leading to deciding to update some of the system.  If it were up to me, we'd replace the mackie and the panasonic with a Midas M32 + stage box, and then replace the speakers (and amps if necessary).  If need be, I would back down to a Behringer X32 and shift that money towards the speakers, as the mixer is easy to replace.

I think that's enough background that you get the picture.

I've read the document on prosoundweb about why you should hire an integrator.  The question is, how do we find one in our area?

And how do we find out if hiring one is within our budget? 

Thanks for your time.

[Erik Jerde]

I attend a mid size church in a Minneapolis, MN suburb.  We built our building around 20 years ago.  I don't immediately have dimensions on our sanctuary space, but it is approximately the size of a single basketball court gymnasium, high ceilings, a complete rectangular prism. Back then, as a growing church in a growing community, somebody convinced us to build the gym first and build the real sanctuary later.  Today it's obvious that's never going to happen.

We use the space in the wide direction, altar area in the center of the longer walls, with the right front corner being the choir / praise band area, and the right rear corner the location of the sound desk.  There are two sets of two speakers, one above the altar area, one above the band area.  I wasn't involved at the time, but I believe this is one of the areas they chose to cut costs.  My complaints about the current system include that it's very prone to feedback (only two speakers = pushed back to cover wider area, so they're not in front of those with mics on), and the frequency response is highly varied across the seating positions in the sanctuary, I can't mix a praise band so the vocals can be well understood from all areas.  It could be my lack of experience, but I think it's more of a coverage problem.

As far as equipment goes, we have a Panasonic DA-7 feeding the music speakers, and a Mackie 1642 feeding the center speakers, with an auto mixer feeding it.  Anyway, the main output on the Mackie died the other day, leading to deciding to update some of the system.  If it were up to me, we'd replace the mackie and the panasonic with a Midas M32 + stage box, and then replace the speakers (and amps if necessary).  If need be, I would back down to a Behringer X32 and shift that money towards the speakers, as the mixer is easy to replace.

I think that's enough background that you get the picture.

I've read the document on prosoundweb about why you should hire an integrator.  The question is, how do we find one in our area?

And how do we find out if hiring one is within our budget? 

Thanks for your time.

There are a few good integrators in the MSP area.  You don’t necessarily need to limit yourself to someone local though.

Before getting into specific recommendations or process I think it’s worth knowing if this is something that your church is actually looking to do, has leadership support, and they’re actually ready to spend money?  From what you wrote it sounds more like something you want to do.  If leadership isn’t onboard then you shouldn’t waste the time of integrators till you resolve that.

[Mike Caldwell]

I was not expecting you to say you have a DA7 in the system.

From your description it sounds like your system has/had a strange maybe overly complex  set up configuration, is it actually two independent PA systems with one optimized for speech and the other
for music? Or maybe they were never optimized!

Could you post a couple pictures of the room and system.

Are there any acoustic treatments to the room or is it still a raw gymnasium, loud stage volume in a gym type of room would be a challenge to deal with.

[Steve Wahl]

Thanks, both of you.  I'll add more detail later when I have more time.  But for now: pretty much two independent sound systems, one for speech, one for music is accurate, and never optimized probably is too.  And staff has come to me for opinions, ready to spend money, but low 5 figures is the budget and I'm worried that level might be in the exact wrong place.

[Mike Caldwell]

Thanks, both of you.  I'll add more detail later when I have more time.  But for now: pretty much two independent sound systems, one for speech, one for music is accurate, and never optimized probably is too.  And staff has come to me for opinions, ready to spend money, but low 5 figures is the budget and I'm worried that level might be in the exact wrong place.

In the mean time could you post a link to a live stream video recording.

[Steve Wahl]

A few pictures:

https://imgur.com/a/PqdTOGp

Livestream... er, last weeks got overmodulated horribly.   Lemme look.  How about this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFbEHA-EFIs

[Scott Holtzman]

A few pictures:

https://imgur.com/a/PqdTOGp

Livestream... er, last weeks got overmodulated horribly.   Lemme look.  How about this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFbEHA-EFIs

EQ class might be a good place to start.  Holy smokes.  One is just acting as a pad the other has everything scooped out but boom and his. 

[Kevin Maxwell]

A few pictures:

https://imgur.com/a/PqdTOGp

Livestream... er, last weeks got overmodulated horribly.   Lemme look.  How about this one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFbEHA-EFIs

Just last Sunday a churches streaming had what sounded like over modulation and I was told that they determined that the Latency got changed somehow on the computer to 32bits and it was originally set to 1056bits and changing that back to the 1056bits fixed it. They basically mix in the Mac for the streaming feed running Ableton Live. I don't know if the terms they used to describe this to me (the Latency) is correct or not since I am not familiar with exactly what they are doing with the computer. They set that part up themselves.

[Scott Holtzman]

Just last Sunday a churches streaming had what sounded like over modulation and I was told that they determined that the Latency got changed somehow on the computer to 32bits and it was originally set to 1056bits and changing that back to the 1056bits fixed it. They basically mix in the Mac for the streaming feed running Ableton Live. I don't know if the terms they used to describe this to me (the Latency) is correct or not since I am not familiar with exactly what they are doing with the computer. They set that part up themselves.

Modulation is how carriers are placed on radio systems.  In audio we work with gain structure.  Clipping and distortion is the result of an overdriven input.  You know that though. 


You also have the layer of your streaming service too, they don't have excellent dynamic range so proper compression is a must.  What are you using as far as streaming service and encoding?

[Steve-White]

There are a few good integrators in the MSP area.  You don’t necessarily need to limit yourself to someone local though.

Before getting into specific recommendations or process I think it’s worth knowing if this is something that your church is actually looking to do, has leadership support, and they’re actually ready to spend money?  From what you wrote it sounds more like something you want to do.  If leadership isn’t onboard then you shouldn’t waste the time of integrators till you resolve that.

THIS:  Once this is on place, move forward - perhaps it already is, great!

[Mike Caldwell]

Those EQ's are a tell tail sign of way too many people trying to fix the problem, safe to say your systems are not optimized!

I'm guessing the church started with the central system controlled with the auto mixer and was more or less a set and forget system and over time it expanded with the addition of the band and someone just added a second system in the corner for the band with no thought of a full system integration upgrade.

Sometimes having the sound system in the location of the sound source works, it's done in theater lots of times, in your church not such a great idea.

See where the leader ship wants to go with this, maybe parts of the system couple be repurposed but it is in need of a make over.

[Steve-White]

Not to sound ugly or arrogant.

You don't have near enough sound hanging, and don't have near enough skill in the hands that have been on that eq.

That's a good decision to seek professional help - much respect there sir.

[Kevin Maxwell]

Modulation is how carriers are placed on radio systems.  In audio we work with gain structure.  Clipping and distortion is the result of an overdriven input.  You know that though. 


You also have the layer of your streaming service too, they don't have excellent dynamic range so proper compression is a must.  What are you using as far as streaming service and encoding?

I should have used quotes to indicate that I was repeating exactly what they said. I assume they had some sort of buffer setting on the computer that were change to the wrong settings. I suggested some test for them to run and they found the problem on their own.

The computer gets a USB feed pre everything from a WING which gets its inputs mainly from a Midas DL32 in the pit that also feeds an X32Rack for the IEMs. The computer is running Ableton live and they mix the streaming feed on that. The streaming device is a Boxcaster. It has no level indicators on it so it it a pain to set the proper level into it.

I hope this answers your questions.

[Scott Holtzman]

Those EQ's are a tell tail sign of way too many people trying to fix the problem, safe to say your systems are not optimized!

I'm guessing the church started with the central system controlled with the auto mixer and was more or less a set and forget system and over time it expanded with the addition of the band and someone just added a second system in the corner for the band with no thought of a full system integration upgrade.

Sometimes having the sound system in the location of the sound source works, it's done in theater lots of times, in your church not such a great idea.

See where the leader ship wants to go with this, maybe parts of the system couple be repurposed but it is in need of a make over.

If you were willing to fly me in and pay expenses and small fee I could bring in an X32. repatch and get this moved forward.  Give a great demonstration of how the money would be spent. 

[Steve Wahl]

Overmodulated: yes, I meant clipped.  I don't know where I pulled that from.

History: Actually, moved into this building in 2001, with the two separate systems from day 1.  I have no idea why we have the two separate systems for music and speech, except maybe because it matched the way we operated in the previous building. I wasn't involved at that point in time.  I started getting involved and learning just a bit after it was too late to have any influence.

The Mackie 1642 is actually the first mixer on the speech side, there was a Mackie 8-bus x 24 up front for the music side, mixing from the music area, that moved from the previous building.   Feedback -- mostly on the speech side -- was a problem in this new space.  Lavallier mics were quickly traded for earsets, and the auto mixer was added to reduce the number of open mics and reduce the reliance on having a sound guy there at all times.

The previous sound guy, more of an expert than me, at least at the time, donated the DA-7 which really helped in having the scene storage for different groups, and allowed the sound board to move to the back while allowing a little control from up front when there's no real sound guy in back (via a bcr2000).  He is the one who set the EQ in the speech rack.  He had some tools / equipment at the time to do it, that I don't have.  I had set the one on the music side with the ring-out-the-room method.  That EQ is not behind closed doors, so it is possible that it was messed with since then.

I've not touched either EQ because, believe it or not, the sound where speaker coverage is good is quite satisfactory.  But I've ordered a measurement mic from Parts Express and will get REW on my laptop and see what I can accomplish.  I've always wanted to try this anyway.  This probably won't happen until after Easter, though.

But like I said, the complaint is not that it doesn't sound good anywhere, but that some places it sounds fine, while other places it's hard to hear.  Are you (any of you) suggesting that correcting EQ could have an effect on this complaint?  I think it is more likely a function of the number of speakers and where they are placed, but I am willing to listen if you want to convince me otherwise.

[ProSoundWeb Community]