ProSoundWeb Community
Church and H.O.W. – Forums for HOW Sound and AV - Your Displayed Name Must Be Your Real Full Name To Post In The Church and HOW Forums => Church Sound => Topic started by: DerekDemeter on April 14, 2014, 01:44:20 PM
-
Hello, this is my first post here and I'm looking for some feedback/advice. I am the sound team leader at my church and we are current in the process of moving into a new space. I am a volunteer and have a passion and about 12 years experience running basic audio systems, but no formal education or system design experience. Ultimately, I'm looking for some advice on speaker placement, but I should give you some background information to start:
Our church is about 5 years old. We were a church plant and started with about 16 people in a rented room in a local community center. We have been meeting there ever since and have grown to be about 125-150 on a given Sunday. Being a church plant, we had a very limited budget for AV equipment and considering that we had to set up/tear down every week, had to be very portable. What helps is that we also have a small, low key worship team, typically consisting of a lead singer/acoustic guitar player, a singer/keyboard player, and usually someone playing either a mic'ed bongo, djembe, or cajon. On occasion we may swap the piano for a second guitar player/singer.
Our AV gear consists of:
Yamaha MG166CX mixer
2 Yamaha MSR400 (12") powered main speakers
1 small Mackie SRM150 personal monitor
5 SM58 mics, (used as necessary)
2 AT wireless lavs
Fast forward to today, we've outgrown our rented space and have finally found a suitable permanent space, (via long-term lease). It is in a really cool 19th century mill building that we are retrofitting to function as a sanctuary. As always seems to be the case with young churches, again we essentially have no budget for AV equipment/design/setup as our already (stretched) budget is almost completely going to make the space usable for our services. I know it goes against all principles of proper AV design, but we effectively have to use our existing gear and make it work in the existing space. My goal is to make it work as best as we can in our space. While the pastor, lead designers, and (especially) I would love to hire a professional and design a proper system, we just unfortunately don't have the finances to do so right now. :-\
The space itself is approximately 70'x60', with 14' ceilings. The tough part is that there are 2 rows of wooden support columns that break up the space, (see attached pictures). We intend to fly the 2 main speakers, but given the columns, I'm having trouble trying to figure out where a suitable place would be for them. That is what I'd like to get some opinions on. With a room layout like this, where would you guys place the speakers? Thanks in advance for any advice you have.
See the 2 draft renderings. One is a top view and one is effectively the view from the sound booth (at the back of the room).
(http://i61.tinypic.com/11141f8.jpg)
(http://i62.tinypic.com/oavrsy.jpg)
-
An interesting problem.
I suggest trying to fly them as high as possible near or on the fist column from the front.
Test it out first as you might have to move downstage to get batter gain before feedback.
I can't quite tell where the ducting is crossing the room (front of stage?)but you would have to have the speaker below that.
Others may chime in with a better idea.
I can think of a great distributed system of smaller speakers but that is not what you asked.
-
Hello, this is my first post here and I'm looking for some feedback/advice. I am the sound team leader at my church and we are current in the process of moving into a new space. I am a volunteer and have a passion and about 12 years experience running basic audio systems, but no formal education or system design experience. Ultimately, I'm looking for some advice on speaker placement, but I should give you some background information to start:
Our church is about 5 years old. We were a church plant and started with about 16 people in a rented room in a local community center. We have been meeting there ever since and have grown to be about 125-150 on a given Sunday. Being a church plant, we had a very limited budget for AV equipment and considering that we had to set up/tear down every week, had to be very portable. What helps is that we also have a small, low key worship team, typically consisting of a lead singer/acoustic guitar player, a singer/keyboard player, and usually someone playing either a mic'ed bongo, djembe, or cajon. On occasion we may swap the piano for a second guitar player/singer.
Our AV gear consists of:
Yamaha MG166CX mixer
2 Yamaha MSR400 (12") powered main speakers
1 small Mackie SRM150 personal monitor
5 SM58 mics, (used as necessary)
2 AT wireless lavs
Fast forward to today, we've outgrown our rented space and have finally found a suitable permanent space, (via long-term lease). It is in a really cool 19th century mill building that we are retrofitting to function as a sanctuary. As always seems to be the case with young churches, again we essentially have no budget for AV equipment/design/setup as our already (stretched) budget is almost completely going to make the space usable for our services. I know it goes against all principles of proper AV design, but we effectively have to use our existing gear and make it work in the existing space. My goal is to make it work as best as we can in our space. While the pastor, lead designers, and (especially) I would love to hire a professional and design a proper system, we just unfortunately don't have the finances to do so right now. :-\
The space itself is approximately 70'x60', with 14' ceilings. The tough part is that there are 2 rows of wooden support columns that break up the space, (see attached pictures). We intend to fly the 2 main speakers, but given the columns, I'm having trouble trying to figure out where a suitable place would be for them. That is what I'd like to get some opinions on. With a room layout like this, where would you guys place the speakers? Thanks in advance for any advice you have.
See the 2 draft renderings. One is a top view and one is effectively the view from the sound booth (at the back of the room).
(http://i61.tinypic.com/11141f8.jpg)
(http://i62.tinypic.com/oavrsy.jpg)
hanging cabs is a risky job insurance/safety wise not reccomended.
no fly points on these . 90x40 yamahas, tough room,
Up on stands high (to lower the blast level for the folks close),
left and right corners just past the front of the stage directing the horns each side about 2/3 towards the back center of each side of each section. left toward that side ,right toward that side.
realistically these speakers do not have the capabilities to cover the room effectively.
some times you have play the cards you have
Blessings my brother
-
I think Keith and Lindsay have the right idea, but it will probably take some trial and error to figure out what works best since there's a lot going on in that room and you can't have a pro come tune it for you. If you have bare concrete floors you'll probably need some traps to help settle down all the reverb that room will have. I've been in a few untreated sanctuaries like that and got the "icepick" effect almost immediately when people started speaking.
That being said, gotta play the hand you're dealt and it seems you're ok with that. Something you might look into is getting a cheap measurement rig to do some room research of your own. I've heard of people using Room EQ Wizard (free software) to tune larger rooms like this with decent results, though it does require a bit of knowledge about how acoustics work in the first place.
-
hanging cabs is a risky job insurance/safety wise not reccomended.
no fly points on these . 90x40 yamahas, tough room,
Up on stands high (to lower the blast level for the folks close),
left and right corners just past the front of the stage directing the horns each side about 2/3 towards the back center of each side of each section. left toward that side ,right toward that side.
realistically these speakers do not have the capabilities to cover the room effectively.
some times you have play the cards you have
Blessings my brother
Thanks for the feedback. I was wondering the same thing about the Yamahas, actually. According to the specs on their website, they are indeed flyable via optional top-mounted eyebolts designed for the MSR speaker line. I can see your point about the safety risk of doing so, so I'd definitely have the safety and feasibility of it researched by the engineers and designers before we did anything like that. We've been running the speakers on stands in our current space and my biggest problem with that is just what you said, regarding the blast level for people in the front rows. Given our limitations with the speakers, that is the main reason we'd like to hang them, to have more even sound distribution across the entire sanctuary area. That, and my SECOND biggest concern, being the 75+ young children that we have in our church that run around and play after the service each week. My worst nightmare has been having one of them trip and fall and knock over one of the stands, seriously hurting themselves and/or others. Assuming that we'd be able to safely and securely get the speakers up off the ground, at least we wouldn't have to worry about that anymore.
Taylor - We will have untreated concrete floors. I have thought about the use of sound traps, as excessive reverb has been one of my biggest concerns, given that the entire space is hard, untreated surfaces, (brick, concrete, wood). Will have to look into it a bit more as renovation work on the space progresses. Thanks for the tip about Room EQ Wizard. I have also wondered if we could do something like that to help tame the sound. I'd enlist the assistance of some trained, local church sound engineers to assist in something like that though.
It will definitely be a challenge to optimize what we have in the space. Our leadership team is definitely aware of our limitations, but when all is said and done, it's such a huge step and answer to prayer for us to be able to move into our own space. We know this is what we have to work with for now, but anything will be an initial improvement over our current perpetually-temporary setup from week-to-week, (which I'm sure all of the setup/tear down volunteers will agree with!). Thanks for all of your advice.
-
Hello, this is my first post here and I'm looking for some feedback/advice. I am the sound team leader at my church and we are current in the process of moving into a new space. I am a volunteer and have a passion and about 12 years experience running basic audio systems, but no formal education or system design experience. Ultimately, I'm looking for some advice on speaker placement, but I should give you some background information to start:
Our church is about 5 years old. We were a church plant and started with about 16 people in a rented room in a local community center. We have been meeting there ever since and have grown to be about 125-150 on a given Sunday. Being a church plant, we had a very limited budget for AV equipment and considering that we had to set up/tear down every week, had to be very portable. What helps is that we also have a small, low key worship team, typically consisting of a lead singer/acoustic guitar player, a singer/keyboard player, and usually someone playing either a mic'ed bongo, djembe, or cajon. On occasion we may swap the piano for a second guitar player/singer.
Our AV gear consists of:
Yamaha MG166CX mixer
2 Yamaha MSR400 (12") powered main speakers
1 small Mackie SRM150 personal monitor
5 SM58 mics, (used as necessary)
2 AT wireless lavs
Fast forward to today, we've outgrown our rented space and have finally found a suitable permanent space, (via long-term lease). It is in a really cool 19th century mill building that we are retrofitting to function as a sanctuary. As always seems to be the case with young churches, again we essentially have no budget for AV equipment/design/setup as our already (stretched) budget is almost completely going to make the space usable for our services. I know it goes against all principles of proper AV design, but we effectively have to use our existing gear and make it work in the existing space. My goal is to make it work as best as we can in our space. While the pastor, lead designers, and (especially) I would love to hire a professional and design a proper system, we just unfortunately don't have the finances to do so right now. :-\
The space itself is approximately 70'x60', with 14' ceilings. The tough part is that there are 2 rows of wooden support columns that break up the space, (see attached pictures). We intend to fly the 2 main speakers, but given the columns, I'm having trouble trying to figure out where a suitable place would be for them. That is what I'd like to get some opinions on. With a room layout like this, where would you guys place the speakers? Thanks in advance for any advice you have.
See the 2 draft renderings. One is a top view and one is effectively the view from the sound booth (at the back of the room).
(http://i61.tinypic.com/11141f8.jpg)
(http://i62.tinypic.com/oavrsy.jpg)
if you decide to fly its quite a low area , there will be some nondirect coverage areas
and db drops . I would fly from the same places in the room as the stands would be from the ceiling, keep 1/2 area covered by one speaker keep the energy on the seating areas only. have someone pace each area to do the best you can at aiming.
and since they are not arrayable the center will suffer and some of the close wall areas
Yamaha MSR100 $300.00 could cover the center front few rows but would take some tweaking.
you want just enought volume to cover that small area
again its not optimal but usable.
-
You have made it very clear that there is no budget. I understand that this is the case. But I see no way for those loudspeakers to cover well in this space and with that layout. I see a lot of time spent to attempt to do this (time is something you have) but that does not over-rule the physics of what is going on.
Somehow there is a budget for seating, for construction materials, for electrical, plumbing, office equipment, for a projection screen (it appears) and not to mention legal expenses, permits, etc.
Without what most of us would consider to be a small budget for barely acceptable loudspeakers for this space you will, at best, have a system that makes noise and possibly is intelligible for 1/3 or perhaps 1/2 the seats. But there will be feedback and if you attempt to reinforce musical instruments at a "decent" level you will end up with blown loudspeakers.
Often, the hardest thing to do is to say "it just cannot be done".
-
The space is tough to work in. Anytime seating extends around the stage or performance area coverage and site lines become difficult. You can probably get the speakers to work well in the far back corners and utilize boundary loading. The boundary loading yields some undesired effects that can be worked through, but can at least allow coverage over you whole listening area and be off the stage area enough to reduce problems there. Then again perhaps not? In this case it is usually desirable to get the speakers into the thirds of the room. Basically in line with the columns that are in the aisle's. But that interferes with site lines and coverage for the seats on the side of the stage are reduced. Placing the speakers on the columns that are actually on the stage would be the best compromise between the two. You are going to have to experiment, but I would bet that you are going to find it difficult with what you have to work with?
-
Have you considered a center cluster? It would be your best bet to me for the equipment you have IMHO.
The space looks really cool however the camera position in the rendering implies that a great many people will not be able to see or read the projection screens. I'm not sure how less than a three screen solution will work.
-
Have you considered a center cluster? It would be your best bet to me for the equipment you have IMHO.
The space looks really cool however the camera position in the rendering implies that a great many people will not be able to see or read the projection screens. I'm not sure how less than a three screen solution will work.
If you cross your eyes far enough, the left eye will pick up the right screen and the right eye will pick up the left screen so you'll get a complete image. :o
I, too, am thinking a center cluster plus a couple of delayed clusters. 14' isn't enough height to get sufficient coverage in the rear without blasting the front rows and inviting feedback and detrimental reverberation.
Why is the sound system always the last item on the budget list?
-
Thanks for the comments and feedback everyone. I think it will take a lot of trial and error to see what works best. On the up side, some contacts from another local church put us in touch with an AV engineering company that has worked with a lot of area churches, so that will be a great help. We still face a lot of challenges, but that should get us started on the right foot.
-
Thanks for the comments and feedback everyone. I think it will take a lot of trial and error to see what works best. On the up side, some contacts from another local church put us in touch with an AV engineering company that has worked with a lot of area churches, so that will be a great help. We still face a lot of challenges, but that should get us started on the right foot.
"Trial and error" is likely the most expensive way to do it.
Find a reputable, experienced desgn/install outfit and find the $$$ to pay ONCE for a workable system.
Or buy gear according to your "best guess"...three or four different times. In the meantime you'll have the use of marginally functional stuff and a whole lot of frustrated people.
-
"Trial and error" is likely the most expensive way to do it.
Find a reputable, experienced desgn/install outfit and find the $$$ to pay ONCE for a workable system.
Or buy gear according to your "best guess"...three or four different times. In the meantime you'll have the use of marginally functional stuff and a whole lot of frustrated people.
Hi Dick. I didn't mean trial and error on purchasing equipment. I just meant it in regards to "best" placement for the re-use of our existing equipment for the time being.
-
Where are you located?
-
Hi Dick. I didn't mean trial and error on purchasing equipment. I just meant it in regards to "best" placement for the re-use of our existing equipment for the time being.
Trial and error is a great way to learn - especially if there is lots of error.
Getting something right straight away is no good as you don't learn what doesn't work.
Steve.
-
I feel the pain of the OP problem. I am from a small church as well - under 100 people - and when we got into our current building they had NO thoughts towards a sound system. They were used to setting the levels ONCE and the mixer was on the stage. I wasn't there during the planning and when I finally had some say it as too late. We are currently using a system that isn't optimum for the room at all, but it does work and the Pastor and leaders know we need a new system. There isn't anything we can do to fix the issues right now and our current underperforming system is filling the position the best it can. What we did is "mock" flying of the speakers to find a good spot for them. Get the stand setup as high as you can (even placing the stands on a platform if possible) and move them around. To get SOME downward angle, just put something under one of the legs. It really narrowed down our position. Yes, there are spots where there is a bit of phasing, there are pockets in the room with more low end than is desirable, but a "perk" is I can tell volume complainers where to sit to have a little less mids/highs so it isn't as harsh and it keeps everyone happy. :)