|
|
 |
|
The Refinery at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, Calif. Adds New Sound System Offering Power, Quality and Flexibility
Opened a year ago as a multipurpose worship and performance center for young people at Saddleback Church in Lake Forest, CA, The Refinery is a 600-seat, 90-degree-wide performance venue. The new facility derives its distinctive name from the church's avowed aim to "Refine young children into adulthood." Reported budget for the recently-added audio, video and lighting system was close $2 million.
Working with a comprehensive AVL system design from Acoustic Dimensions, The Refinery's audio and video installation was completed by CCI Solutions based in Olympia, Wash. "We installed three Lab.gruppen C16:4, three C28:4 and three C68:4 four-channel amplifiers to power the JBL PD Series loudspeakers and VerTec subwoofers, in addition to JBL AM Series plus EAW JFX88 front- and side-fill cabinets," explains CCI Solutions' Senior Systems Consultant Mark Pearson, who oversaw the project.
For the gymnasium, which features a full basketball court and moveable seating during use as a multipurpose room, CCI Solutions installed two C28.4 and a pair of C68.4 four-channel amplifiers to power the area's JBL PD Series loudspeakers. "While the C68.4 amplifiers drive the subwoofers in the auditorium," Pearson continues, "for the gym we used a pair of FP7000 models for the EAW LF315 subs, which need additional power."
The choice of Lab.gruppen amplifiers was a joint decision between Acoustic Dimensions and CCI Solutions, with input from Saddleback Church's former technical director, Steve Powers. "While the choice of loudspeakers went through several iterations," Pearson recalls. "The Lab.gruppen amplifiers remained the team's number one choice for the Saddleback installation; they are great sounding and totally reliable. C Series models offer plenty of headroom, but can take their available power right to the edge. And C Series amplifiers do not run out of performance on the low-end; the C68.4s we used to power the various JBL and EAW cabinets keep up with their low-end requirements." "We have had very good success with the Lab.gruppen products, and they served this project very well," confirms Ryan Knox, Acoustic Dimensions' senior consultant.
"Lab.gruppen's C Series amplifiers offer definite space-saving advantages for installations like this," Pearson advises. "We were able to mount all the LG amplifiers within the three racks we had available, in addition to The Refinery's high-definition video systems. That combination of an outstanding power-to-size ratio and a high channel density, coupled with superb sound quality, proven reliability and a comprehensive six-year warranty makes C Series our go-to amplification solution."
The various C-Series amplifiers are interconnected via Lab.gruppen NLB 60E Bridge/Network Controllers for each area, using built-in NomadLink CAT5-capable networking for remote monitoring and control. BSS London BLU Series processors handle system EQ and signal distribution. "We also added several C Series C16:4 four-channel and C10:8 eight-channel amplifiers for The Refinery's background-music and paging systems," adds Pearson.
A pair of Yamaha M7CL digital consoles – a 32-channel version for the gymnasium, and a 48-channel version for the auditorium – handles mixing assignments. "We mounted the smaller Yamaha console on a rolling cart with multipin connectors so that it could be moved easily into the outdoor amphitheater," Pearson recalls, "and used to mix sound for outdoor events," via an array of JBL AM Series loudspeakers.
"CCI Solutions is a great company to deal with and we are glad that we followed their recommendations for the new Refinery Auditorium and Gymnasium project," Technical Director Baker adds. "We use the systems every day for various church events and conferences. The sound system has never let us down; the clarity and reliability are a big plus for Saddleback Valley Community Church."
For more information, visit www.saddleback.com/refinery, www.acousticdimensions.com www.ccisolutions.com, www.labgruppen.com, www.yamahaca.com, www.jblprofessional.com, www.eaw.com, www.bssaudio.com.
|
|
STUFF YOU MIGHT WANT TO KNOW ...
Litepanels Receives First-Ever Emmy Statue for Lighting Equipment Technology
 Litepanels, Inc., a worldwide leader in LED (light emitting diode) television and motion picture lighting equipment, was awarded a Technology & Engineering Emmy Award from the Academy of Television Arts and Sciences, for its proprietary lighting systems. According to Reuters news agency, the Emmy statue is the first in the Academy's 61 year history to be awarded for television lighting technology.
Litepanels fixtures are used on a variety of network television productions including such high profile programs as Desperate Housewives, Fox's 24, and Without a Trace.
Litepanels innovative fixtures have become a widely used in television production because of their extreme versatility and characteristically soft, HD-friendly light, which can be infinitely dimmed with no noticeable shift in color temperature. Litepanels eco-friendly lighting equipment is also attractive to production studios because it draws less than 10-percent the amount of power necessary for traditional lighting fixtures, and generates practically no heat.
Litepanels' list of customers extends beyond television and feature production, and includes the Whitehouse and Pentagon Briefing Rooms, the International Space Station, CNN's Election Bus, news helicopters, and numerous TV news studios and ENG crews.
For more information, visit www.litepanels.com.
CAD and Astatic Re-Brand as CAD Audio
 CAD Professional Microphones and Astatic Commercial Audio Products are re-branding as CAD Audio to expand the company's product offerings across several markets, optimize the efficiencies of its sales and distribution channels, and streamline its marketing, PR and promotional efforts.
The company's original roots can be traced back to the Astatic Corporation, established in 1931 in Conneaut, Ohio by two radio engineers dedicated to the development of a static-free or "Astatic" microphone. The company evolved into Astatic Commercial Audio products, which offers a wide variety of microphones for industrial, commercial and installed sound applications. Recent innovations include Astatic's variable pattern microphones, culminating in the revolutionary 1600/1700VP remote control variable pattern mic. Read more about this mic here.
In 1988, CAD Professional Microphones was formed as a division of Astatic to design and build microphones for the recording and live sound markets. Among many visionary products, CAD developed the cost-effective high performance Equitek Series microphones that largely defined the project studio revolution in the late eighties and nineties. Today, CAD is distinguishing itself with innovative, high quality American-designed and manufactured microphones such as the E100S condenser mic.
The company was reorganized as Omnitronics, LLC in 2000. And now CAD, Astatic and Omnitronics will be known as CAD Audio as of September 1, 2009.
Under the new CAD Audio brand, there will be four series of products: Recording, Live Performance, Astatic Commercial and Personal Audio. These new organizational changes will be reflected on the company's new website, cadaudio.com and in all product, sales and promotional materials in the future.
Commenting on the rebranding, Vice President, Sales and Marketing Tony O'Keefe said, "The CAD Audio brand simplifies and maximizes the effectiveness of our sales, distribution and marketing. It also emphasizes the wide range of microphones and related equipment we have to offer while freeing us up to develop a broader array of audio products in the years to come. We're very excited about the unlimited potential of this new company."
For more information, visit www.cadaudio.com.
Iconyx Technology Helps Revitalize Historic St Patrick's Cathedral
Another historic and famous house of worship is benefitting from improved audio clarity and speech intelligibility to meet the demands of a modern-day audience. In this case, the Church of St Patrick in Toledo, Ohio, an acoustically challenging space built over 100 years ago has added Renkus-Heinz Iconyx Digitally Steerable Array technology installed by Torrence Sound Equipment Company of Perrysburg, Ohio.
 "The Historic Church of St. Patrick was originally built in 1892 so that workers on the Erie Canal could attend Mass on Sundays," explains Don Beyer of Torrence Sound Equipment Company, the firm responsible for transforming the church's audio presentation. "During the 1970s and 80s, like many other Midwest cities, Toledo lost a lot of manufacturing jobs, and the neighborhood suffered. But the building is a historic landmark, and the diocese decided to revitalize the church with an extensive outreach program to the Catholic community in greater Toledo. We were called in to upgrade the sound system."
Torrence Sound Equipment Company has a longstanding relationship with St. Patrick's, and had installed the previous system: "state of the art at the time," Beyer recalls. But with the newly-renovated cathedral drawing worshippers from affluent neighborhoods around Toledo, it was time to bring intelligibility and musicality up to a higher standard that would complement the meticulously restored interior, the new organ, and the dramatic exterior lighting that makes the cathedral a landmark on Interstate 75, the main highway through town.
As with many historic buildings, it's the architecture that makes St. Patrick's such an attractive place to worship. But in a neo-Gothic building with a capacity of 1,000, "the long reverb time made for very low intelligibility," Beyer points out.
Iconyx technology from Renkus-Heinz enabled Torrence Sound to provide enhanced intelligibility and musical support for the choir without compromising the historic interior of St. Patrick's "After drawing an EASE model of the church, we recommended two IC24 Digitally Steerable Arrays in order to deal with the very large interior volume – the building is 180 feet long, with 65 foot ceilings," Beyer reports. "These columnar arrays are almost 10 feet tall, but only six inches wide. The digital beam steering allows us to mount the arrays flush to the wall, but aim the acoustic output at the congregation and keep it off the walls and ceilings."
The wide 140° horizontal coverage of the Iconyx arrays allows just two IC24s to cover the entire main seating area, providing sound coverage to all 1,000 members of St. Patrick's congregation.
Torrence Sound worked with the Church of St. Patrick to make the new system as cost-effective as possible. Some of the eight-inch two-way speakers from the previous installation were moved to cover the balcony and choir riser. The Crown amplifiers that power these speakers were also repurposed, along with a Crown UMS-810 processor and an eight-channel submixer that is used for the choir microphones.
On the podium, Torrence Sound installed three Electro-Voice PolarChoice microphones, and provided a Countryman E6 headworn mic with a Sennheiser EW100 wireless system so that celebrants can move around the alter while still being clearly heard and understood by the congregation.
The Historic Church of St. Patrick was fully restored in September 2007, when a "Sky-Breaking" ceremony was held to celebrate the completion of a new steeple. Restoring the profile of this church was the culmination of more than two decades of effort by the Society for the Preservation of the Historic Church of St. Patrick, founded in 1984 by the Reverend John A. Thomas, and by parish volunteers.
"With the new Iconyx system, St. Patrick's now sounds as good as it looks," says Don Beyer. "The congregation has grown enormously as a result of restoring the building and enhancing its functionality. They now average 800 people at Sunday services, which had fallen as low as 80 in the 1980's. In addition, St. Patrick's is one the most frequently rented churches in the Toledo area for weddings, baptisms and other family events."
For more information, visit www.renkus-heinz.com, www.torrencesound.com, www.crownaudio.com, www.electrovoice.com, www.countryman.com, www.sennheiserusa.com.
| NEW PRODUCTS |
| 01. |
Eartec PCx-1000 Full Duplex Wireless Intercom |
 |
The Eartec Company has introduced the PCx-1000, a double-channel, multi-station, full duplex wireless that allows up to six people to communicate simultaneously within a quarter-mile range. These radios are not voice activated so there is no delay when transmitting. To operate just turn the units "On" and talk through the headsets just like a regular telephone. The PCx-1000 System is an invaluable tool for applications where personnel need to work with their hands and communicate at the same time. An unlimited number of push-to-talk stations may also be added.
PCx radios are engineered with an innovative frequency-hopping architecture known as Spread Spectrum. In a spread-spectrum format all radios in a group occupy a specific frequency for a fraction of a second so that transmissions cannot be interrupted by any other wireless system. There is no base station or FCC license required.
A free color brochure is available upon request.
www.eartec.com |
| 02. |
Innovason Eclipse Audio Mixer/Recording Console |
 |
The Innovason Eclipse can live-mix up to 104 inputs simultaneously into 48 mix busses with the capacity to access up to 368 total inputs/outputs via up to five remote audio racks and its on-board mix rack. Standard configuration is 64 inputs x 24 outputs (+ 16x16 line I/O) with FX and remote rack all in flight cases. The control surface is furnished with 48 faders and a bank of 12 fully configurable rotary encoders called the SmartPanel taking Innovason's original SmartFAD concept to the next level. With all the same metering and function as a standard fader the SmartPanel concept accessed across four layers provides a combined 48 additional points on which to mix for a totality of 96 faders on the Eclipse. Like current Innovason technology all of these may be configured as any number of functions (Input, LCRM Masters, LCRM Auxiliaries and Groups, VCAs, Matrices, Monitors or Crossfader). Across the top of the standard faders is an additional row of 48 soft programmable knobs for user-definable utility control of many other parameters such as gain, pan, et cetera. The SmartGain feature allows multiple consoles independent trim control when sharing mic pres. Eclipse is truly a multipurpose console, equally at home at FOH, monitors, OB vans and a variety of audio production duties.
Eclipse remains true to Innovason's commitment of one-touch mixing and improves at-a-glance visibility of parameters. Harkening back to the simplicity of analog, the new Eclipse is equipped with an ID/value window at most physical points of adjustment. One may actually mix without mandatory view of the main mix screen. Furthermore, fader/encoder function is easily identified via color-code LED. Like the current 31-band Graphic EQ control, the internal effects adjustments may be deployed from keyboard-mouse to the control surface. Touch-sensitive faders increase user access to information. There is no endless scrolling through pages or function-changing encoders to get to the part of the mix or the function you need – everything is at your fingertips and can be seen instantaneously.
One of the key features of the Eclipse is the MARS (Multitrack Audio Recording System) option. A built-in digital 64-track recorder captures inputs and sends directly to an on-board hard disk module. Navigation controls and time code module are integrated onto the control surface for rapid access of recording and playback functions.
Eclipse is compatible with all existing Innovason audio I/O cards, effects/interface modules, audio racks and is supplied with on board dual-redundant power supply as standard. Many third party compatibilities and interfaces are supported and encouraged. All consoles come complete with the brand new NOVA software, which offers a modern and highly user-friendly graphic interface. The Innovason preamps are unchanged, so you can be sure that Eclipse sounds every bit as good as you have come to expect from any Innovason console.
www.innovason.com
|
| 03. |
QSC Audio Q-Sys DSP Audio Processing Infrastructure and Control System |
 |
QSC's new Q-Sys technology takes an evolutionary step forward within the realm of DSP and integration, providing digital audio signal routing and processing combined with complete system monitoring and control. Possessing exceptional power, speed, and versatility, Q-Sys is designed to meet the needs of a wide range of applications and allotted budgets.
“From concept to finished product, Q-Sys was developed every step of the way by some of the brightest minds in professional audio,” says QSC Director of Marketing Evan McKenzie. “Known for their development of CobraNet and other ground-breaking products and technologies, the team of engineers from Peak Audio in Boulder, Colorado joined QSC in 2006, and have been working since that time alongside engineers from QSC's System Development Group in Costa Mesa, California to re-architect system integration and bring Q-Sys to life.”
QSC's Q-Sys Product Manager Dale Sandberg Says, “Q-Sys provides an unrivaled amount of integration capability and processing power. A system of almost any size can be designed from microphone, line-level, or digital input all the way to amplifier or loudspeaker output without requiring any sub-segmentation due to processor constraints. While it supports the use of third-party control products, it is designed to enable whole-system control and monitoring without additional products or applications. At the same time, it's simpler and easier to use than any other audio package I've ever seen.”
Using premium converters and Gigabit Ethernet, the fundamental Q-Sys architecture produces a total system latency of less than 2.5 milliseconds between any input and output, with up to ten network switch hops and audiophile-quality processing throughout.
Central to the system's inner strength is the Q-Sys Core, a processing engine the company says is “so powerful it's unlikely that any application will unleash its full potential.” Available in three sizes ranging from 64 inputs x 64 outputs to 256 inputs x 256 outputs, the Q-Sys Core works in tandem with Q-Sys I/O Frames: 1 RU modules that accommodate up to 16 channels of audio using factory-configured, four-channel Q-Sys cards supplying a variety of input and output options. The use of AES cards can permit up to 32 channels of audio in a single Q-Sys Node. Just like the Q-Sys Core, I/O Frames are equipped with dual Ethernet ports to support network and system redundancy.
Select the appropriate output cards, and Q-Sys is compatible with any analog-input power amplifier or powered loudspeaker. However, the full power and potential of a Q-Sys system is best realized when QSC Dataport amplifiers and loudspeakers are inherent within the design. To use a QSC line array, for example, simply use the Q-Sys design GUI to virtually connect it to QSC amplifiers, and Q-Sys automatically provides the proper Intrinsic Correction tuning.
Since Q-Sys revolves around a centralized processing architecture, having all processing taking place in a single unit provides audio designers with greater flexibility. Any input can be routed to any output without the need for creating convoluted signal paths. The need for system segmentation due to processor constraint is completely eliminated as well, thereby letting the designer create a "natural" signal flow based on the job not the product.
From its inception, ease-of-use was an overriding Q-Sys design goal. With the aid of Q-Sys Designer---intuitive software that can be used online or offline---virtually any audio component or function is made available. Parameters including channel count, frequency bands, and much more can be easily scaled on the fly, while control panels can be built simply by dragging the controls and indicators from processing objects to a control panel editor. When completed, the Q-Sys Core will publish the control panels to any browser-capable device such as the 10-inch and six-inch color touchscreens from QSC. Q-Sys also supports the use of third-party control devices like those from AMX or Crestron using a TCP/IP-based control protocol.
As the industry has come to expect from everything in the QSC catalog, rugged reliability is a steadfast ingredient of the Q-Sys platform design. An audio system falling under Q-Sys guidance and monitoring additionally gains the benefit of a host of onboard test and measurement functions, and is quicker to setup and commission as well. In contrast to other patience-trying systems that load new configurations at a snail's pace, Q-Sys configurations can be compiled within seconds. Freed from these constraints of the past, audio designers can now readily optimize their systems in little to no time instead of the 10 to 30 minutes they used to know as the norm.
For more information please visit www.qscaudio.com. |
|
|
|
