Shades Mountain Baptist Church in Birmingham, Ala., is now enjoying the fruits of an almost eight-month overhaul renovation of their worship center, which began in early 2019. Church leaders partnered with Morris Integration for design and build services on its worship center's video and lighting systems.
“With every project we do at Shades Mountain we look for more than just a vendor,” says Rob Searcy, director of technology at Shades Mountain. “We are looking for someone that understands what we do in ministry and is willing to provide more than just a design or some equipment.”
Specification and integration
For this project, the Morris team was confident that the Ross Video product line would give the church a solid foundation with numerous options to accomplish the task at hand. The Ultrix router platform was chosen to provide the church with significant expansion options in the future.
The Ultrix router platform was chosen to provide the church with significant expansion options in the future.
“It is important that a church of this size can continue to grow and optimize their AVL needs,” Russell explains. “This equipment offers them a great deal of flexibility in how to route things and what they need to do for their whole campus.”
The Ross Carbonite Ultra switcher was chosen as the heart of the video system, and Morris incorporated cameras that the church already owned into the design, sparing them a considerable expense.
The church and the Morris team came to the conclusion that the GrandMA3 lighting console gave them a high-end, professional platform to tackle all the current and future lighting needs. They report the touring-grade desk is allowing the Shades Mountain production team to do just about anything they can imagine.
Searcy considers the LED walls to be the most impactful new feature in the worship center. “Congregants are constantly complimenting the improved sightlines in the room and how the LED walls bring a new life to video content and a more personal connection to the live elements of the stage,” he says of the walls, which consist of 170 panels each with 2.8 million pixels per wall.
Lighting, Video & Distributed Audio Gear List:
LED Walls: SquareV Vi3 28’ x 16’ Walls
Video Switching and Routing: Ross Ultrix FR5 and Ross Carbonite Ultra 2ME
Lighting Console: GrandMA 3 Light
Hoist and Support Package: CM D8+ Hoists, Motion Labs installed hoist control, and custom Eurotruss and ModTruss trussing systems
