When Pinelake Church first moved into a new building in Reservoir, Mississippi the church had just stopped using an orchestra and was moving more toward a worship band. More recently, the worship has become very contemporary using more guitars, but an older audio system was compromising the mix.
“The room is very wide and fan-shaped so the audience in the middle of the sanctuary can see and hear with accurate localization, but for audience members who are seated to the sides, the visual and the audio become disconnected,” states Nick Malgieri, Advanced Systems Specialist, d&b audiotechnik Americas. “So how do we reintroduce creativity and artistry into live sound at large events without burdening the engineer or the production? We also want the audience to listen in a more natural way. That’s the goal of Soundscape.”
Audio integrator Interise was hired to update the sound system and recommended a d&b Soundscape system. Phil Hagood, General Manager at Interise says, “Our goal was to focus on clear, transparent, distraction-free, communication of the message, d&b Soundscape really worked toward what we needed with an intuitive, graphical interface.”
“Before d&b Soundscape was installed, there were serious dead spots with the preevious system,” explains Kevin Hoober, Director of Worship Technology, Pinelake Church. “As you moved throughout the room, the mix changed at times dramatically.”
Malgieri says there are now 40 speaker positions, each having different signals sent based on where the sound object is located in the control software. “This allows people to become creative very quickly and very simply.”
“Behind the fader layer, as a technician you don’t feel that complication,” says Hoober. “It makes mixing easier, and frankly, more enjoyable. One of the unique challenges with this project was that the projection lines are very tight to the ceiling so long arrays could not be used.”
Malgieri notes that traditional PA systems with long line arrays have huge impact on sightlines. “Soundscape allows us to use a larger quantity of smaller loudspeaker systems that are totally invisible to the audience.”
Hoober says the whole room can now enjoy the mix of the system. “There’s not a cheap seat in the house anymore. We’ve created an environment to sing and to listen. Walking the room now with Soundscape, I’m standing in a place that was previously not covered and now I feel like ‘this is pretty rocking’, I can sit here. It’s about allowing the listeners to connect with every word that is being said. Our hope is that we will bring our vision, our mission by using Soundscape here to Rankin County, Mississippi.”
