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First Baptist Church Roanoke, Roanoke, VA.
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Volunteers are used extensively at First Baptist Roanoke. "Our volunteers work in four different areas of media during the service and other events: sound, lighting, projection and video (camera operators, switcher and shader)," says Director of Media Tatiana Almeida.
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"Our [design] method was to look at every instrument on that stage and ask the question, ‘If we created the perfect sound system for that instrument, what would that system look like?’"—Reid Henion, President, Stage Sound, Roanoke, VA.
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"You don't want the choir to sound like the pastor—you want it to sound like they are in a three-second room. We can do this by matrix mixing in the Symetrix DSP…. " —Reid Henion, President, Stage Sound, Roanoke, VA.
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Tatiana Almeida is director of media at First Baptist Church Roanoke, Va. "I oversee all video production within the church as well as services and other live productions," she says. "I think my favorite part of my job is working with the volunteers."
Like many churches with a long history, the auditorium at First Baptist Church Roanoke in Roanoke, Va., pastored by Dr. Bryan Smith, was designed for a somewhat different musical style than what it now creates each Sunday. “The church was chartered in 1878,” says First Roanoke Minister of Music Marty Hamby. “This worship center was built in 1992, when the church had a very strong choral and orchestral program. It had a 200+ voice choir, 40-plus instrumentalists, and was consistent in this [format] for many years.”
“Like many other churches, we're trying to figure out what's going to work in today's world,” Hamby reports. “Our choir is smaller as people have aged out and not as many people are coming in behind them to take their place. However, I think all things tend to go through cycles. I expect choirs will come back into vogue, but it won't look like it did in years past. It'll be a more contemporary choir. There will always be a few of the younger folks with a musical need that will become a part of it, but it won't again attract the masses until it becomes more contemporary and a few more years go by to where it ‘becomes new' again.”
First Roanoke's music ministry now boasts a contemporary praise team with a full rhythm section that plays with the smaller orchestra and choir. Their original sound system, however, was not designed for contemporary sound reinforcement. “The sound system was very harsh sounding at contemporary music levels,” comments Hamby. “Intelligibility was compromised in the room. People thought it was too loud, but it really wasn't—it was the harshness.”
In addition, the church's small stage was becoming very crowded with both orchestra and praise team present—a situation made more critical because of its weekly television broadcast, since the church prefers a clean, uncluttered look behind the pastor for the video cameras.
Therefore, in 2012, a generous gift from Harold and Patricia Mathena, parents of First Roanoke's previous minister of music, Gary Mathena, enabled First Baptist Church Roanoke to undertake an audio system renovation to better support the church's current and future music ministry program, as well as work to reallocate platform and choir-loft real estate.
Stage Sound of Roanoke was chosen to design and install the new system, and was a logical choice because Reid Henion, president of Stage Sound, plays a leadership role on the church's technical production team.
Designing for Every Instrument
“Part of the charge in designing the system was to have as good a stereo sound system as one would expect in this type of church,” states Henion. “But more importantly, we wanted to amplify certain things without compromise. There are lots of ways to design a system, and all have flaws. Our method was to look at every instrument on that stage and ask the question, ‘If we created the perfect sound system for that instrument, what would that system look like?' We aggregated the information learned from this exercise and designed a system that accommodated it. That's the part of this that's unique, and especially when you consider it's a very wide room. Stereo typically doesn't work well in a wide room for those seated at the far edges.”
Henion arrived at a design that includes two Nexo line arrays (Geo S1210-PW and Geo S1230-PW cabinets) positioned at either side of the platform for primary stereo coverage. “Nexo has something that's almost unique,” says Henion. “The boxes we used have the option of an asymmetrical pattern. Most line arrays have a symmetrical horizontal pattern, but Nexo has a flange set that can be inserted into the cabinet that increases the stock 80-degree pattern to120 degrees and can be installed asymmetrically. This enables us to keep the speaker coverage off the near walls. This was a big selling point for us.”
However, the two line arrays alone would not provide the desired stereo imaging for the far left and right seating areas, so the system design uses the outfill elements of the center speaker cluster to provide fill for the stereo line arrays. Using sophisticated DSP matrix mixing, Henion says the system provides time-aligned stereo fill for those seating areas. A signal that's panned hard left, for example, gets filled in for the right side of the seating area by the right speakers in the center speaker pod, maintaining a stereo image. “In a pop mix,” Henion adds, “we can pan with impunity which you can't normally do in a wide room.”
The main center cluster uses another long line of Nexo Geo S modules with four Electro-Voice EVH1152D boxes providing the coverage to seating areas off to the far sides. The center speaker cluster is designed to keep energy off the walls to maintain high intelligibility, a key goal in the sound system upgrade. This system typically is used more for speech, vocals, kick, snare, and bass, whereas the left and right arrays are most helpful for orchestral instruments and choir.
For low-end energy, two different subwoofer configurations are employed. “There are Nexo subs in with the cluster for low-end musical content,” Henion says. “Putting the subs up with the main speaker cabinets helps keep the signal time-aligned with the rest of the sound. However, we also have another set of four Meyer Sound X-800 THX-rated subs on the floor against the walls for low-frequency energy for when you're looking for maximum visceral impact. These are used primarily for video playback.” A key component in the new audio system is the DSP that is utilized. Symetrix Edge DSP processors provide all processing for the speaker systems, but the use goes well beyond dealing with the normal left-center-right (L-C-R) feed from front-of-house. “With up to 64 Dante paths into the DSP, we were able to route different instruments to different parts of the system in differing proportions, based on each instrument's unique sonic signature, location on the stage, and its need for reinforcement,” Henion states.
“As an example, let's take the choir,” he explains. “You don't want the choir to sound like the pastor—you want it to sound like they are in a three-second room. Using matrix mixing in the Symetrix DSP, we can take a L-C-R mix of the choir from the choir console and send it directly into the DSP, bypassing the matrixing that happens when processing the praise band.”
Henion also desired to use a Dante digital signal backbone for the system, which ruled out several other DSP brands. Two Yamaha CL5 digital audio consoles serve at FOH, with one console serving choir and orchestra inputs, and the other the praise band, vocalists and all speech mics. An iMac located at FOH can capture anywhere from a two-track mix to a multi-track recording of the service when desired. For monitoring, an Aviom system feeds the praise band, with Rolls personal monitor mixers for members of the orchestra that need them. Some Renkus-Heinz wedge monitors and Shure 900-series in-ear monitors are also utilized.
Stage Restructuring
To de-clutter the main platform, string instruments and woodwinds were moved up to unused space to the upper left and right of the choir loft. This created some sightline and hearing challenges for those orchestra members, however, which needed to be addressed for it to work.
“Normally all members of the orchestra are laid out such that they can see the conductor over the tops of their music stands in order to get timing cues from their peripheral vision while staying focused on their music,” Hamby says. “And that configuration also enables them to hear each other well. With this new configuration, we were breaking that.”
To address these issues, Henion needed to add both audio and video monitors for those members of the orchestra. “We placed small video monitors between each pair of music stands,” Henion reports. “Two small consumer-grade SD video cameras are placed to either side of the conductor and sent to the video monitors on that side. That way, when the conductor looks to his right, those musicians in the upper right wings of the choir loft see him looking at them on their monitors. Likewise for those on the left.” A small shotgun mic aimed at the conductor is fed to the audio monitors for those musicians as well, and the Rolls personal monitor stations let them adjust the general orchestra mix sent from FOH, the conductor's mic, and their own instrument level separately from each other.
Video Use
First Baptist Church Roanoke also has a vibrant television ministry that is managed and produced by Almeida, director of media at the church. “I went to school at Liberty University for journalism with a minor in government. I'm passionate about storytelling and using media and communications to foster organizations' messages. At First Roanoke, my role is strongly centered in producing content, especially for the television broadcast,” Almeida says.
First Roanoke broadcasts its service live Sunday mornings at 11 a.m. on WSLS, the local NBC affiliate, and then it is rebroadcast twice during the week on the local community access channel. “As time went by,” Almeida continues, “different needs in the communications department emerged and I received more responsibilities. I oversee all video production within the church as well as services and other live productions. I think my favorite part of my job is working with the volunteers. They are such a crucial part of what we do, and are truly an outstanding group of people.”
Volunteers are used extensively at First Roanoke, and Almeida handles the scheduling and coordination of all tech activities at the church. “Our volunteers work in four different areas of media during the service and other events: sound, lighting, projection and video (camera operators, switcher and shader),” describes Almeida. “In special cases, I will also have volunteers take photos and film footage at events. According to expertise and experience, we place the volunteers in positions [where] they feel comfortable and where they show an interest. I also try to encourage people to learn new skills, supporting them to the best of my ability. I see my role as helping volunteers feel confident in their tasks by allowing them to learn and by giving them the tools to succeed.”
Most of the in-house video production work is done using a Canon T3i DSLR camera. “We were able to acquire several prime lenses that took our video production to the next level,” Almeida adds. “It is so fun to be able to use those little cameras to produce good quality videos for an incredibly low cost.” ProPresenter from Renewed Vision is used for multimedia support during services and events across the church facility. For the video broadcast, a variety of Panasonic AG HPX 500 video cameras, some manned and some PTZ-controlled, are used to capture the service, and a Panasonic AV-HS400A live switcher is used to select camera shots for the broadcast.
“Another tool we use that I really like is a software program called TeamViewer,” says Almeida. “It allows us to access computers remotely, do work on them and exchange files between computers. This saves a lot of time, especially in a large campus like ours.”
Lighting Transition
“When we first started doing the television broadcast,” comments Henion, “We updated the lighting system to better support video. We don't do a lot with lighting—very few transitions and we primarily maintain a consistent look for video purposes. We have mostly conventional lighting fixtures, and are slowly upgrading them all to ETC Source Fours. A few 5K Fresnel fixtures are also used to help produce an even lighting field for television. Our original dimming system is from Strand, and we have an Avolites Expert Pro for a lighting console.” The church has used Avolites consoles for years, and with volunteers comfortable with the operation, they were happy to stay with the Avolites brand.
“I did have some inexpensive Chinese LED fixtures around the rental shop that I no longer had use for,” comments Henion, “and brought them in to add color to the rear walls. It adds a nice look to the platform.”
“We'd like to do more in the lighting area,” adds Hamby. “We can't do much for creative lighting. We recognize that lighting is critical, however—the worship environment is just as important as the sound of the music. Therefore we hope to add to our lighting system over time to get to where we have more creative options.
“We love the new system,” wraps-up Hamby. “It's easy to listen to and has full-range fidelity. It sounds like we're listening to natural sound, just louder, as opposed to sound through a PA system.”
