Portable and Touring A/V
Sound and video for when The Word hits the road
More and more congregations are becoming “portable” — meeting in schools, theaters, and other venues not permanently equipped for their sound and visual needs. But technology has enabled these groups to produce professional audio/visual at a price that fits even the smallest budget.
Portable church A/V represents a growing trend on the American scene and a number of forces drive this movement. The rising costs of real estate and construction present a challenge for new church plants while many established churches are striving to expand through temporary quarters. Contemporary churches with young congregations desire what they see as a more culturally relevant presence out in the community, and there are others breaking away from a larger church to go it on their own.
 |
Portable A/V gear needs minor adjustments to keep it road-worthy and durable. Speaker cones, for example, may avoid impact injury when moved about if metal grilles are installed. |
 |
Recessed handles can mean carrying comfort for portable churches. Churches going portable should mount separate units together in sturdy road rack cases with recessed handles, caster wheels, and metal-reinforced corners. |
 |
The use of rolling racks can help with quick portable set up. All the pieces mounted in one rack can be permanently connected. |
 |
A simple technique to aid setup is color coding connections and cables. Many mobile church crews, such as Duluth, Georgia’s The Bridge Church, also modify their sound mixers to accept multi-pin connections so that one connector takes all microphone cables to the correctly labeled input channels on the mixer. |
 |
In-line attenuator pads or “line-to-mic” pads are a wise choice to knock down a line sound signal to a level that a microphone input can handle. XLR turnarounds, also known as gender changers, should also find a place in the audio toolbox. |
 |
Manuals and setup diagrams should be readily available for portable church set ups. Inside the lids of road rack cases is a good place for laminated setup diagrams. |
Whatever the motive, a rising number of congregations are meeting in schools, movie theaters, bowling alleys, and other venues not permanently equipped to meet the sound and visual needs of the church. At the same time, advances in these technologies have enabled church groups with modest means the capability to produce professional sound experiences and even produce their own video for live Internet streaming, audio podcasting, or on-demand web video.
SOUND TIPS FOR SUCCESS
The more frequent the setups and the wider the variety of locations, the more essential it will be to know the tips for success in portable and touring church A/V equipment. After a careful analysis of the ministry’s goals, an estimate of the necessary degree of mobility, accounting for existing equipment in the venue(s) to be used and, of course, the budget, the basic points of a good technical experience can be applied. Bob Franquiz, founder and lead pastor for the Calvary Fellowship in Miami Lakes, Florida recommends careful consideration on portable A/V gear.
“We set up at a local movie theater and we do complete set up and tear down every Sunday,” says Franquiz. “You have to think through what you can realistically accomplish on a weekly basis. Anyone can get to your location really early once. But the question is, is this sustainable? If not, you will frustrate yourself, your volunteers, and those you are ministering to.”
Since most churches use volunteers who are long on enthusiasm but short on experience, the A/V system must be easy to set up. A key to this is having most of the smaller separate units mounted together in sturdy road rack cases with recessed handles, caster wheels, and metal-reinforced corners. All the pieces mounted in one rack can be permanently connected. It is easier for speaker cones to avoid impact injury if they have metal grilles installed, and one very simple but often overlooked technique to aid setup is to color code connections and cables. Many mobile church crews have modified their sound mixers to accept multi-pin connections so that one connector takes all microphone cables to the correctly labeled input channels on the mixer. This works for Scott Clark, technical coordinator for The Bridge Church in Duluth, Georgia, which meets at Peachtree Ridge High School.
“We use rolling racks and a mixer with multi-pin connectors,” says Clark, “with those, we set up speakers, plug in a few mics, and I’m up and running.” He also uses monitoring equipment connected by CAT-5 computer network cable stored on hose reels for rapid setup and strike.
Manuals and setup diagrams should be readily available and a good place to have laminated setup diagrams is inside the lids of the road rack cases. Analog mixers are usually the best bet where the level on each channel can be marked for a quick “in-the-ballpark” mix. In a service where a variety of events will take place one after the other, each requiring unique microphone settings, a digital mixer with scene storage may be necessary.
The sound system should also be expandable to accommodate both future needs and the occasional guest performer with additional instruments. Most portable churches have growing congregations.
Additional speaker outputs and space in the racks for future equipment will save time, trouble, and money later. The rule of thumb on this is, “Buy your second system now.” Additional mixing channels, presently unused, will save the price of a new mixer or the trouble of borrowing and connecting an additional one to handle a larger musical group or more praise team singers. Connections can also be saved by using speakers with integrated power amplifiers. Audio cables are run straight from the mixer to the speakers. Of course, the downside is that these are heavier and require AC power to be run to each speaker position.
Whenever any piece of sound gear is powered from a different location in the venue than the rest and is connected to it with an audio cable, it is a potential source of ground hum and the way to tackle it is to isolate either its power or its audio connection. The best thing to use is an in-line audio isolation transformer with a ground-lift switch. There are also microphone splitters with transformerisolated splits and ground lift switches that work perfectly for this purpose, as well as for playing their splitter role. This is one of several inexpensive and essential tools for portable systems and temporary sound setups. In-line attenuator pads or “line-to-mic” pads are also a smart buy. These knock down a line sound signal to a level that a microphone input can handle. Shure Incorporated markets an entire line of these handy little gizmos. XLR turnarounds, also known as gender changers, should also have a hallowed place in the audio toolbox. Have at least half a dozen of them.
IT’S WIRELESS NOW
Virtually every church service now uses at least one or two wireless microphones and this is not the place to cut budget corners. There is nothing more useless and trouble-generating than a cheap, bargain basement wireless microphone system. Particularly in a mobile or touring environment, a good frequency-agile system with diversity reception and pilot tone muting is a must. Diversity reception will switch between antennas and select the one with the best signal as the microphone transmitter moves around. Pilot tone muting will prevent the receivers from picking up stray signals while the microphones are turned off or are carried out of range.
The increasingly crowded RF spectrum and looming encroachment of digital television transmissions are making it more likely that there will be interference in the system. If wireless microphones are going to be used, it pays to talk to anyone who has been using them in that location recently, determine what frequencies they use, and learn about any problems they have had. If the budget permits, a site survey with a spectrum analyzer is the best insurance against surprises in wireless microphones and instruments. The spectrum analyzer is set up in the venue, preferably at the same time and day of the week as the service, set to scan the band in which the wireless equipment will operate, and the display appears as a grassy lawn seen in cross-section. Where RF transmission is detected, spikes will appear. The widest gap between spikes is the best place for local wireless microphone frequencies to be set.
Another source for problems in use of wireless microphones arises with intermodulation interference. This frequently occurs when wireless mics of different makes and models are set up and used together. All of the wireless mic gear should be of the same brand and model, and this is another case where it’s wise to buy an extra system or two for backups and future expansion.
The receivers should have a balanced XLR output that is switchable between microphone and line levels and the receiver units should always be set up with a clear line of sight to the performance area. If this is not possible with the receivers themselves, a good investment would be made in a pair of remote antennas and some 50-ohm coax connecting cable. Half-wave UHF antennas may be removed from the receiver and stand-mounted for better reception but quarter-wave antennas must be mounted on the receiver because they use the metal chassis as a ground plane. Of course, one should never begin a service using anything but brand new batteries.
PROJECTION TO GO
A growing trend with churches is the use of large projection screens for graphics and video, and when a church goes mobile, leaving that communication tool behind is not considered an option. Projectors have shrunk in size and cost to allow churches with slim budgets to go high-tech with graphics and video.
Churches setting up such equipment in different venues have to stay flexible on the positioning of the projector and screen. One of the more innovative approaches has been to use lace-andgrommet screens. These are held within a surrounding frame made of aluminum, but some touring outfits have made their own screen frames and stands from PVC pipe. An example may be found on the web at www.pvcplans.com/screen.htm. The money saved on the frame might be applied to buying two types of screen material, one for front screen projection and the other for rear screen operation. A rear screen setup keeps the projector and its cables out of the congregation area while minimizing fan noise.
By far, the most frequent use of projection by mobile churches is in scripture display through PowerPoint slides. Valuable backups for this are extra VGA cables and spare projector lamps. The computer used for the projection source should be checked for operation with the actual projector to be used to verify that respec- tive resolution, display cloning, and other settings are in place.
Until recently, broadcasting a church service was a feature only the biggest churches could even contemplate, but advances in Internet streaming technology have allowed even small, mobile groups to put their services out for a worldwide audience. A number of companies now market podcast and webcast operations in a box so that an input and output connection is virtually all the onsite setup that is necessary for live streaming and sound or video on-demand from any location. ViewCast Corporation offers such a product in the Niagara GoStream Plus. About the size of a couple of loaves of bread, the unit will encode video and sound in several formats for live streaming or posting on a web site for on-demand viewing.
Modern sound and video technology can allow any church to take its message on the road and set up a service practically anywhere, but it pays to know portable and touring sound and video gear. This knowhow coupled with the right equipment for the job will ensure success on the road.
Quick Links
SHURE INC.
Pro audio accessories
(800) 257-4873 or (847) 600-2000
www.shure.com
VIEWCAST CORP.
Niagara GoStream Plus
(972) 488-7200 or (800) 540-4119
www.viewcast.com
