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Crossroads Church, Lithopolis, Ohio
Young contemporary church with progressive rock style moves into abandoned Methodist church finding acoustical nightmare
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Having previously operated out of a leased store-front location, Crossroads Church recently moved into an old Methodist church building. While the new location was a God-send in many ways, the location was full of technical challenges. Nine foot ceilings at the side-walls of the main room proved to be difficult for the front-of-house sound system to reach the back of the room. (All photos courtesy Crossroads Church)
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Lighting at Crossroads Church is controlled by a combination of Martin’s Light Jockey, a software-based control system, and an Elation Scene Setter conventional lighting board. Lighting fixtures are primarily LED-based products from Chauvet and Elation. LED fixtures were chosen in part to cut down on heat generation.
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The church chose Peavey’s Versarray loudspeakers for the clarity and smooth response generated by the ribbon drivers. Electro-Voice QRx Series subwoofers supplement the bottom end. The entire system is controlled by an existing Allen&Heath GL2800 fed to a dbx Driverack and then a combination of QSC and Crown amplifiers.
While just a toddler in human terms, Lithopolis, Ohio's Crossroads Church has seen significant change in its six years of existence. One of its most recent changes was moving out of a leased store-front meeting space into an abandoned Methodist church building.
"The building came with 21 acres on a highly travelled road. This was a total God thing because at the time, we averaged about 85 people [in attendance] and the possibility of buying such a large piece of land with a completely furnished building seemed impossible," states Bobby Sykes, creative arts director for Crossroads Church.
With the 21 acres and building came some challenges, however. Built in the 1970s, the building had not been updated since. "It even had an eight-track tape player in the closed off balcony sound booth," Sykes recalls. The existing sound system was torn out, and Crossroads' system from their previous store-front space was brought in. It was a better system than what came with the building, but it brought to light some other problems.
"The facility we purchased was a sound nightmare," exclaims Joe Miller, worship pastor at Crossroads Church. "Not only were the mid-range frequencies reflective and ugly, but it was a room that also hated the 100-125 Hz frequency range. We put sound dampeners on the walls and it helped control the mids, but the lows were brutal. So much so, that we actually could not use a kick drum mic."
"We also found that the system we had, though it worked well in our old facility, was incredibly inefficient in the new, larger space," Miller continues. "Coupled with the fact that the main cabinets were almost 48 inches tall and we have a low ceiling, we were unable to get the sound above people's heads. This resulted in slamming the people in the front row at about 105 dB just to get 89 dB in the back row."
With the sound challenges as severe as they were, it wasn't long before Crossroads began exploring a solution to their problems. And choosing the right person to guide them on this journey was a straightforward process.
"[Matt Price, owner and head consultant of Sound Inspiration LLC in Columbus, Ohio] helped us early on in many ways," says Miller, "whether it was consulting in small gear purchases or contracting him to run our special live events. When it came time to make a huge design change and gear overhaul, Matt was an easy call to make."
The new audio system needed to handle Crossroad's progressive rock music style, but needed to be compact to deal with the facility's low ceiling heights. It also needed to provide even sound coverage throughout the room.
Price, specializing in the design of sound reinforcement systems for houses of worship, brought his passion for helping churches to bear on Crossroads' problems. With a ceiling height at the outer walls being around nine feet, loudspeaker cabinet size and configuration would be a limiting factor.
For their audio needs, Price and the church turned to Peavey and their Versarray line array solution. One of the features of the Versarray loudspeakers that the church was attracted to is the use of ribbon drivers to handle the high end, instead of the usual compression drivers found in most speaker cabinets.
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Jim Kumorek is the owner of Spreading Flames Media, providing video/media production and writing services to the A/V/L, technology, architectural and hospitality industries. He has led audio, video and lighting teams in churches as both staff and a volunteer for over 10 years. He can be contacted at james@spreadingflamesmedia.com.
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