First Presbyterian Church, Ocean Spring, Miss.
Part of the Ocean Springs, Miss., neighborhood since the late 19th century, First Presbyterian Church is a vital community fixture that braved Hurricane Katrina back in the day. Last year, the church’s sanctuary underwent a large renovation, including the addition of a balcony and extra seating, as well as a new AV system installed by Magnolia Music Center in Gulfport, Miss.
“Lots of columns and millwork were added as well as new LED lighting. The speakers needed to be the last thing your eyes were drawn to.” Rain Jaudon, System Installer and Master Designer, Magnolia Music Center, Gulfport, MS
“The church needed audio that reached every seat both on the floor and in the balcony, that also didn’t detract from the architectural design,” says Rain Jaudon, system installer and master designer for Magnolia Music Center. “Lots of columns and millwork were added as well as new LED lighting. The speakers needed to be the last thing your eyes were drawn to.”
Experience & solutions
Since the church needed to add additional seating, a balcony was installed and more pews were added below on the main floor. To blend in with the new architectural design, Jaudon reports, the chosen solution centered around a pair of Renkus-Heinz Iconyx IC24-RN digitally steered array loudspeakers.
“Renkus Heinz speakers have been our ‘go to’ boxes for many jobs [over] the past decade,” Jaudon notes. “They are solidly built, work nicely with the existing architecture and perform amazingly. You know the money is well spent by going with such a high-quality cabinet. Iconyx is a very common word with us when designing highly reverberant rooms. Being able to beam steer allows us to avoid the distributive systems of the past where a dozen scattered speakers are flown from the ceiling.”
“Being able to beam steer allows us to avoid the distributive systems of the past where a dozen scattered speakers are flown from the ceiling.” Rain Jaudon, System Installer and Master Designer, Magnolia Music Center, Gulfport, MS
Since the previous audio system was a dual hang of bulky line array speakers that required absorptive panels to be placed on nearly every wall surface and carpeting to be on the floor, it was somewhat an acoustically challenging space. Factors such as hardwood floors, flat walls, and high ceilings needed to be considered.
“The IC24 reproduced music wonderfully in the sanctuary,” Jaudon says. “There wasn’t a bad seat for listening to music. Once microphones were introduced, speech intelligibility decreased a bit due to the excessive reverb in the room. Absorptive panels were applied floor to ceiling on the entire south end of the sanctuary, including the balcony face. Future treatment will address projecting the choir from their space out into the sanctuary.”
Reverb issues
After removal of all acoustical treatment and installing hard wood floors, the biggest challenge was the now increased reverb time.
“Music track playback and pre-recorded speech sounded incredible, but once open microphones (combined with a congregational noise floor of shuffling feet, coughs, sneezes, rustling, etc.) were introduced, it quickly became harder to understand the spoken word sources,” Jaudon says. “Everything was competing for the same air space. After the acoustic treatment was added to the southern end of the sanctuary the sound tightened up again. Congregational singing is really the only source that excites the room these days.”
New gear meets old
Magnolia Music Center was able to incorporate some of the church’s existing equipment into the design to save the church a bit of money.
“We brought in a pair of custom painted IC24-RN speakers, a Midas Pro1 digital console and digital snake, Biamp Nexia digital signal processor, FSR floor pockets with custom Covid input/output plates, Tannoy ceiling speaker in the Cry Room, Audix micro booms and M1255 choir overhead microphones, and an assortment of Shure ear buds and AT headsets,” Jaudon reports.
From their existing gear, the company was able to reuse Countryman headsets, Shure wireless systems, Sennheiser IEM systems, Danley subwoofers and even one of their Bose PM8500 power amps for powering floor monitors and the subwoofers. Their Furman sequential power system was also kept in service.
“We also worked with their video system. We kept their existing Panasonic projectors in service but cleaned them up and replaced the lamps,” Jaudon says. “A Vaddio RoboSHOT 30 HDbaseT camera was installed with the AVbridge for recording, broadcast and local video feeds. Video lines to the projectors were updated to HDbaseT units from FSR, as well.”
A bit of advice
AVL designers and integrators who take on similar projects need to listen to the client when you are qualifying them, according to Jaudon.
“During the multiple interviews, be sure to speak to everyone who will be using the system, not just the project committee,” he says. “There are features that will easily be omitted if you forget this. A simple face-to-face walk thru of the site, overview of the plans or even a short questionnaire via email can save you lots of design time and prevent the client from spending unnecessary money on change orders.”
“During the multiple interviews, be sure to speak to everyone who will be using the system, not just the project committee.” Rain Jaudon, System Installer and Master Designer, Magnolia Music Center, Gulfport, MS
Moving forward
Magnolia Music Center is currently working on an AV design for the church’s fellowship hall.
“During construction, they had to hold services in the fellowship hall, so a riser stage was brought in, their HSA rolltop desks were brought over from the sanctuary, and monitors, mains and choir mics were all hooked up,” Jaudon says. “A pair of LCD TVs were installed and a temporary HD video distribution system was purchased from Altinex.”
Now that it’s going back to a fellowship hall, the church has decided to part with the old 32-channel analog board, external effects processors, EQs and tape decks and go with a Turbosound IP2000 portable system. Two XLR/quarter-inch combo jacks and a Bluetooth input will allow mixing to be done on the unit itself or via an iOS app.
“It’s a 12-inch subwoofer and a top mounted tower of drivers and a tweeter at the top. They will use this as the main public address system (and as a portable system around campus),” Jaudon says. “The TVs will be getting a matrix mixer [since] the room can be divided into classrooms as well as a large fellowship hall. Wireless video is probably going to be handed by an Infocus LiteShow 4.”
