When we built our first worship space in 1951 it was designed to be a chapel, with plans in the near future to build a large church sanctuary,” says Deanna Gaunt, ministry coordinator at Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd in Reno, Nev. “Several additions and remodels happened over the past 60 years but none addressed the need for a larger worship space.” After many years of hoping and praying for a new worship center to allow for more space and varied music styles, Good Shepherd's patience has been rewarded with the opening of a new worship center.
The church's former worship space could not accommodate more than 125 people, but the new worship center doubles the seating to 250 (and up to 400 with overflow seating). In addition, the new space has a sound system capable of supporting more contemporary worship styles.
“We embrace our deep Lutheran heritage and challenge ourselves to be as relevant as we can,” Gaunt states. “We offer both contemporary and traditional worship and are blessed with fabulous lay leaders and staff.”
Yet, in the church's former space, staff found it a struggle to accommodate the growing music ministry. “In our old sanctuary everything was makeshift,” Gaunt continues. “When the band played we needed to augment our sound with sub-mixers, speakers and amps to accommodate the musicians. We had an LCD projector but it was positioned on a music stand in row three of the pews. It was a hand-me-down and the quality was not great, but it was better than [the] transparencies we were using before. We used a computer to run the projector and a mixer to sub mix the band, but those people had to sit in the first pew to run it. We had a million cords going everywhere—a nightmare, but we knew that soon we would be building the new worship center and we could finally get it right—and get what we needed.”
Without highly experienced technical staff, the church relied fully on the consultants contracted to design the audio, video and lighting systems. Lee Harris, owner of Light+Space (and a member of Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd) took on the task of creating the lighting design for the new worship space. To handle the video and audio aspects, the church interviewed four potential companies for the project. “Scott Schmidt of JC Pro Inc. [of Reno, Nev.,] came in with a fantastic presentation of the churches he has designed systems for in our area. Scott believes it is his calling to minister to people through his expertise in sound and audio. His presentation was significantly better than any other we heard,” Harris says.
Audio system design
The sound of the new room was especially important to the church. “We wanted our space to be versatile,” Gaunt says. “We did everything we could to provide options for those who may use it 20 years down the line. We felt the speaker choice was crucial. Every worshipper needs to hear what is being said and presented.”
JC Pro assessed the needs of the church and was given four primary requirements for the new audio system by the AV committee of church members Ken Narducy, Jack Ericson, Mel Cone and Deanna Gaunt. “We needed to provide even coverage throughout the seating areas,” states Schmidt. “For architectural considerations, speakers needed to be mounted on the walls instead of suspended from the ceiling. The sub-woofer needed to be hidden from view, and the church wanted the space to have a live feeling to it; therefore, acoustical treatments to dampen the room were not to be installed.”
With a preference for no acoustical treatments, pattern control of the loudspeaker system was important to reduce unwanted reflections off the walls and ceiling. Renkus-Heinz Iconyx IC line array speakers were installed for their ability to digitally steer the coverage pattern onto the seating area, the sonic quality, and because they blended in well with the architecture. “Renkus engineers always provide us the support we need early in the game so our projects consistently turn out great. Jonas Domkus at Renkus and Greg Spydell at Faultline (Renkus' rep firm) are always a huge help,” Gaunt adds.
One challenge faced in the audio system installation was that the wall on which the speakers were to be mounted was designed with a five-degree slope for architectural and acoustic reasons. JC Pro designed and fabricated custom brackets to facilitate proper speaker installation.
With three services of differing musical styles on Sunday mornings, flexibility in mixing was of top importance. “The first service is more traditional with organ,” describes Schmidt. “The second service is more contemporary with a complete worship band including drums, bass, guitar and keyboards. The third service is traditional and includes a choir.”
Schmidt selected a PreSonus Studio Live 24.4.2 digital 24-channel mixer for the room. “It's simple to use,” explains Schmidt, “has great sonic quality, includes multi-track recording, presets, easy integration with the myMix personal monitor system, and is controllable from an iPad.” With remote control through WiFi via iPad, the sound engineer is freed from being in front of the console and can roam the room, adjusting the mix from the iPad. A Mac mini is used to run the StudioLive 2 recording system, and Ultrasone headphones round out the front-of-house (FOH) gear.
To enable the band members to hear themselves, a myMix personal monitor mixing system was installed that lets every band member adjust their own mix. “The myMix is simple to use, has better sonic fidelity than other solutions, and integrates easily with the PreSonus mixer,” says Schmidt. Bose ear buds are used with the myMix stations for stage-volume-free monitoring.
To simplify installation, JC Pro contracted with Whirlwind for a custom snake that provides all audio lines, intercom lines and tie lines. “Everything was pre-fabricated at the factory and built to the exact length we needed with the appropriate terminations at both ends,” says Schmidt. Mystery Electronics floor pockets provide access to mic inputs inset into the stage floor.
To ensure proper system power-on and power-off, a Furman power conditioner and sequencer was installed. This ensures that amplifiers, the mixer and any other audio/video gear are turned on and off in the proper order to ensure that transients don't damage a loudspeaker.
In addition, Listen Technologies listening system provides wireless in-ear hearing assistance for the hearing-impaired.
Lighting a traditional space
While Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd desired to upgrade to modern audio, video and lighting technologies, they also wanted to keep ties architecturally with their traditional roots. However, they also sought to avoid repeating some of the issues found in their old space. One of these was inadequate lighting, according to Harris.
“We [preferred] a light-filled space in the new sanctuary,” Harris states. “We also wanted to go more modern. We're using a lot of natural light through windows, but also have layers of lighting to augment that as needed, so there are options. All lighting is on Crestron dimmers and control. We can supplement daylight as needed, but also have lots of options for evenings.”
Pendant fixtures that spread light in all directions are used for house lighting, with down lighting used as accents. PAR fixtures help illuminate areas of the platform, and frosted glass panels are installed at an inward angle to sections of windows to diffuse sunlight. LED lighting is used to backlight the frosted glass for evenings, simulating light entering in from the windows.
Crestron control panels in the tech booth provide control over the lighting, and simple on-off buttons by the doors enable lighting activation without having to maneuver to the booth through a dark room. The Crestron system also provides touch-screen control in the booth, as well. “Now we have one button at the room's entry points to turn all the lights on—this is such a joy,” Gaunt exclaims. “From our AV booth, a control panel gives us lots of different options that suit what we need, but also gives us the flexibility to go deeper and set custom light levels.”
Gaunt continues, “Because Lee [Harris] is a both a lighting designer and [a] member of our church, the lighting design work was her gift. She worked closely with the architect. She knew what the concerns were in our old sanctuary—it was so dark. She knew all of the history. She did a fabulous job in designing a system that meets both our current and future needs. Lee would be an asset to any church that needs a lighting design for its facility.”
Video selectionsWhen it came to video, Good Shepherd needed to present lyrics, graphics, teaching notes and movies on a screen at the front of the church. “We wanted our video presentations to look polished, professional and we wanted it to ‘pop’ off the screen,” Gaunt says. “We did not want to scrimp on this.”
In addition, church staff wanted a confidence monitor at the back of the church to support the band and choir. Video playback from iPods, iPads and smartphones was needed, as well.
JC Pro selected a Da-Lite 16x9 motorized Tensioned Contour Electrol video screen placed strategically at the front of the room—so that ambient light from windows would be minimized. Also, the house lighting near the screen location was connected to its own dimmer channel so that spill from the incandescent lighting could be controlled. A Christie LCD HD projector running at full HD resolution (1920x1080 progressive) provides the image, and Extron video switching and distribution equipment handles the video selection and transmission.
Since a projector could not be installed at the back of the church to provide the confidence monitor, four NEC 52-inch LCD flat panel monitors were configured into a video wall on the back wall of the sanctuary. An Apple iMac is used for content creation and presentation.
Lots of singing, and no hummingTo ensure a hum-less audio and video system, all electrical circuits that would be used to power the audio and video equipment are connected to an isolated ground transformer from Jensen Electric. “This ensures we have proper isolated grounding for all of our AV equipment, with no buzzes and no noise,” states Schmidt.
For $200,000, Lutheran Church of the Good Shepherd received the sound, video and lighting systems—as well as the flexibility—staff had desired for years. “Much of the chancel area's platforms are removable,” Gaunt adds. “We could even worship ‘in the round' if we chose somewhere down the line. Even the digital organ was given a very long leash.”
He concludes, “We wanted our community to be able to utilize this space, as well. Already we have hosted a Lake Tahoe Symphony, two performances by an a capella singing group, a women's choir concert, ‘Bella Voce,' and soon we will host an evening with a world-class violinist. The natural sound in the room is amazing. Our architect, Tim Mattheis from WMB Architects, did a great job designing the room, and Scott and Lee were able to take that plan and build on it.”
