This year’s Capture Summit, the church filmmaking and video production educational conference, takes place July 25-27 at The John Maxwell Leadership Center at Atlanta’s 12Stone Church. One of our new Capture sponsors is Soundproof Windows of Reno, Nevada, a company that specializes in windows, sliding doors and interior door panels acoustically engineered to act as a sound barrier. We asked Soundproof Windows National Sales Director for the eastern US, Jeff Zola, about the company’s involvement with churches interior and exterior.
Capture: What does your company do in the church market?
Zola: We make a window that’s designed specifically for the purpose of stopping noise and vibration. Churches have a number of different applications, like a cry room for example. Stained glass windows don’t normally stop vibration and noise very well and we’ve done projects where we covered them with our residential/commercial products. Our product is designed to be a secondary layer, we don’t attach to, or replace the existing window, we put another layer over the top of what is already there to make it soundproof.
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Meet the Soundproof Windows team at Capture Summit 2022, along with over 500+ of your fellow church filmmakers, techs and creatives. This transformative three-day conference is designed to elevate your team’s game, from filmmaking and streaming to IMAG and video production.
Capture: Does Soundproof Windows apply to the AVL aspect of church?
Zola: Yes, we make recording studios windows and doors. We did a large project for the Catholic diocese in New York, some smaller churches and their radio stations, the Lutheran ministries doing broadcast and needed help to keep it quiet, and a full-blown church commercial recording studio. Depending on the budget, we can provide everything from one small window for a vocal booth to entry doors, Control Room/Live Room windows, etc.
Capture: Tell us about the company’s history. Was it founded with churches in mind?
Zola: I like our story as far as how we got here. What I haven’t mentioned is how long the company has been in existence. We celebrated its 25th anniversary last month. Randy Brown, our founder and CEO, chief engineer, invented all the products we manufacture and sell. He lived in the San Francisco Bay area and wanted to quiet the noise in his bedroom. So, he made the first Soundproof Windows, it worked, so he told a friend who said, “make me one.” The rest is history.
Capture: What makes Soundproof Windows unique?
Zola: Number one is Randy. He has some engineering degrees, worked in Silicon Valley before it was known by that name, HP computers was there at that time. He’s a pretty smart guy and he grew this industry that was self-created.
One thing we do that few, if any, companies do is independent acoustic laboratory, third-party testing. We’re always looking for ways to improve what we do. STC – sound transmission class, is a rating that defines the effectiveness of a barrier at stopping noise/vibration. Any company that claims to be able to stop noise should be able to show independent laboratory test results.
Capture: Tell us about a few of Soundproof Windows most memorable projects.
Zola: We did a project for a TV station. They wanted a 10-foot-tall, 22-foot-wide soundproof sliding glass door they could open and close. We’ve done quite a bit of this type of work, where the customer has a specific idea in mind, and we create it. We’re well known for sliding glass doors. Grand pianos are common issues in a studio environment. We can make a sliding glass door that’s 9’, 10’ or wider across and put the doors in telescoping mode to maneuver something like that in and out. Access to these types of booths takes special kind of creativity, and that’s what we do.
Most recently we had a company in New York that owns a glass company and has a customer rehabbing a large building in NYC. It’s a national registry building that they want to get soundproof without hurting the aesthetics of the building. We came up with a way to do it. We needed to make a custom extrusion for this. Randy designed them all. We have this kind of versatility; we can do things nobody else can.
Also, the old California State Capitol Building in Sacramento, California had a renovation a number of years ago, and they’ve got a lot of our windows for noise reduction that met the needs for the national registry aesthetics.
Capture: What products will you have on display at Capture Summit 2022?
Zola: We’ll have some visuals and details so people can get a feel for how they look and install.
Capture: What will Capture attendees learn by visiting Soundproof Windows’ booth?
Zola: Everything we make is a custom order made specifically for the job at hand. Made in America. Privately owned. We’ve got a pioneer spirit. Bring us a problem so we can figure out how to fix it. We have never found something we couldn’t create a solution for.
