Oak Hills Church has seen remarkable growth in San Antonio. A recent building addition to the church’s Crownridge campus has added much needed space, including a 2,600-seat worship center with remarkable technology to support contemporary worship. While the worship space needed to be large enough to provide relief for a campus running at or near capacity for some time, AV Systems Director Steven Cobb and his team took an active role in designing technology that would make worship more intimate and engaging. Cobb believes in the power of the “smaller,” more personal aspects of the church. He has found ways, both as a technology director and worship leader, to bring the engagement of a more intimate worship experience to a large audience. At the same time, organizational concepts have developed a supportive environment for Crownridge volunteers. “
Embracing a smaller culture can apply to any sized church,” says Cobb. “That is how we can be the place that connects with people.” - Steven Cobb, AV Systems Director, Oak Hills Church, San Antonio, TX.
Making big feel small
It’s likely that Cobb’s personal experience with intimate worship has been a factor in both the technology design and the organizational concepts that unite and inspire the technology teams at Crownridge. While still in high school, Cobb ran audio for his 80-member congregation in rural Indiana. He remembers enjoying the blessings of worship in this minimalistic and simple setting. As he grew, Cobb found that in addition to supporting others, he could lead worship. Cobb had already been working with modern church music when camp ministry provided him the opportunity to experience worship that he describes as pure and stripped down from technology. “It was the place where I grew to understand the power of music,” he recalls. “Music has the ability to change lives through God’s spirit, which does not rely on equipment.” A church where he was serving tasked him with transitioning the church from traditional to modern music. This separation of traditional and modern provided Cobb with a great lesson in church unity. “The traditional leader would lead traditional songs and I would lead the modern songs.” Cobb found ways of leading people together.
“To transition, we did not start with the why of uniting people around new songs, but rather started with the how,” he says.Cobb continued to serve in small churches of less than 100 members, leading worship, guiding volunteers, and enjoying the closeness. But, 10 years ago, he recalls the feeling that there was something more waiting for him. A road trip to meet up with friends led Cobb to San Antonio where friends introduced him to Oak Ridge Church. It felt right and he was pleased to be offered a part-time AV position. He would be on staff full-time, and he met his wife shortly thereafter. “It was all confirmation about where I should be,” he says. With time, he began to see opportunities to bring aspects of his small church experience to this larger setting. Soon, his technology team was developing a culture of its own within the larger body of the church. Working on the Crownridge technology team, volunteers not only contribute their technical skills to serve the church, but they also develop spiritually and benefit personally. In particular, the team’s use of a “plumb line” metaphor aids members in accomplishing their goals. The same simple principle that builders employ to keep structures in alignment is used by the team. At a short devotional meeting each week, the group explores a plumb line taken from scripture, moving to a new plumb line each month. “This devotional time gives team members the opportunity to push back, learn and profit from different perspectives,” he says.
Project Partners
Planning for the Crownridge addition took just over a year, with the building design created by the local architecture firm RVK Architects of San Antonio, with Texas-based construction firm, SpawGlass, handling the construction. Project management expertise was provided by Project Control Texas of San Antonio.Cobb’s teams have a strong commitment to education and actively participated in the technology designs. In fact, at the time of the install there were three staff members holding InfoComm certifications: One a Certified Technology Specialist (CTS), another holding the Certified Technology Specialist-Installation (CTS-I) certification, and Cobb himself, who is dual certified, holding a CTS-I designation as well as a Certified Technology Specialist-Design (CTS-D) certificate. Cobb feels that InfoComm certifications are invaluable in providing the expertise his team needs to contribute in major projects like the new addition.
Other team members are Cisco CCNA-certified (IT networking), CCDA-certified (network design), and Extron ECP-certified (control systems). In many ways, having such a well-qualified client helped to drive the technology design, but it also presented some challenges for the original designer. When the original AV designer stepped away from the project, SpawGlass leadership highly recommended All Pro Sound of Pensacola, Fla., to complete the project. According to Jon Giles, director of sales at All Pro Sound, the company has never been involved with a church with such an experienced, educated technical staff. “Working with the Crownridge staff, made the job more efficient,” he states.
All Pro assigned David Brown and Jacob Robinson to manage the project, while veteran designer Brock Stapper, CTS, was tasked with reviewing and completing the audio, video and lighting designs for Crownridge.
Sound for Every Seat
According to Stapper’s modified audio design, the All Pro team implemented a stereo audio configuration with Meyer Leopard arrays, each array having seven loudspeakers and flown at the left and right of the stage.
To accommodate a fan-shaped stage design, a Meyer UPQ-1P wide coverage loudspeaker was flown at center to provide additional coverage. With Meyer’s support, Stapper modified the original design to eliminate cross-firing fills and re-allocated those resources to provide an additional Leopard line array element for each of the main arrays. This enhanced coverage and provided increased response at lower frequencies. The mains were supplemented with a delay ring of six Meyer UPJ-1P loudspeakers, including the single, centrally located Meyer UPQ-1P. In addition, a ring of Meyer UP4-XP loudspeakers was installed behind grilles at the stage lip for front fill. The original audio design called for five Meyer 900-LFC low frequency control loudspeakers to be installed under the stage, but instead of using far left/right, or arrayed spacing, Stapper used a technique that clusters the subs in the center with discrete delays on the outside pairs. “When conditions allow, this configuration spreads the energy more evenly,” he notes, “avoiding the ‘power alley’ situation that frequently plagues traditional sub placements.” All Pro changed out the five 900-LFC units originally specified for three 1100-LFC units at central positions applying a three-millisecond delay to the outside pair providing a more satisfying result in the room. For ease of use and its great audio quality, All Pro Sound repurposed a Yamaha CL5 audio mixing console from the old sanctuary for use at FOH. The overall mix system utilizes a combination of new and existing Yamaha Rio I/O units and an additional CL5 for audio production and recording. Two Meyer Galileo Callisto units are fed via AES/EBU from the Yamaha Rio I/O, while QSC’s Q-SYS platform handles all other routing and processing. Bose PowerMatch amplifiers feed the 70-volt systems that provide sound to lobbies, corridors and back of house.All Pro Sound specified Shure ULXD4Q wireless microphone systems to tie into the audio system via the Yamaha CL5’s native Dante networking protocol. In addition, Dante provides 24 channels of monitoring to a wide range of destinations with Aviom D800-DANTE monitor hubs distributed through Cat6 patch bays.
“The lighting effects provided with the Elation SixBar 1000 fixtures have the effect of drawing the audience into the stage.” - Brock Stapper, CTS, Designer, All Pro Sound, Pensacola, FL.
Eight channels of wireless in-ear monitoring are also provided using Shure PSM900 transmitters. Audio from the main performance system is accessible to video production audio world with Focusrite Rednet D-16 AES units integrated with a Ross HD-SDI video production switching system.Dante-based audio networking allows for flexible routing to all areas of the Crownridge facility, including four independent stereo mixes from a separate broadcast audio mix room to four AJA Ki Pro Ultra video recorders with redundant SSD disks. Stapper finds the browser-based interface for these units to be particularly practical as it allows a real-time timeline and transport control from a browser anywhere on the network. Stapper and Cobb are pleased with the quality of the audio system. “Everyone that has heard the system has raved about the quality of the installation,” says Stapper. “I am quite proud and pleased with the results. All of the goals for the Crownridge system were met, plus we were able to make significant modifications that drastically improved the performance without impacting the budget.”
Innovative Video
The video camera system design presented specific requirements from the client in respect to performance and budget. Several manufacturers were considered, but one stood out. “Ikegami delivered a system that met budget requirements while providing the performance the client needed,” says Stapper, who was impressed with the company’s innovative quality of on-board digital features, display quality, and the system’s ability to utilize cost-saving standard lenses.
Three Ikegami camera systems with BSF-300 Camera Control Units (CCUs) and HC-HD300 camera heads were installed in the sanctuary, but All Pro provided five additional locations and patching to 25 more locations throughout the facility where video might be needed in the future. The video production system uses a distribution of OpticalCON DUO cabling to the multiple building locations that all return to a custom-manufactured OpticalCON DUO patch bay for flexible routing and camera placement. A Ross Carbonite 2M/E Production video system was installed to provide professional control and switching of 72 inputs and 80 outputs to and from various locations and devices throughout the facility, all clocked via Ensemble Designs Avenue Tri-Level Sync generation system. Video is displayed on a 29.5-foot-wide video wall at the back of the stage. Richard Hung of Aurora LED Systems worked with Stapper on a video wall composed of 180 Aurora LKFS-039IB LED panels that weighs 3,800 pounds and calls for 18 20-amp 120vac power circuits. Careful design and installation delivered a video wall that conforms closely to a practical 16:9 viewable aspect ratio and provides an impressive centerpiece to the stage. Further enhancing the already impressive LED video wall is a system of five stage-mounted Panasonic PT-EX800ZLU 7,500 lumen, XGA projectors equipped with Panasonic ET-ELW22 short-throw lenses. The edge-blended projectors, with signal from the outputs of a Mac Pro utilizing Atlona AT-UHD-EX-70C HD-BaseT transmitters and receivers, allow for additional video and effects along the section of wall below the video wall. Content for the environmental projection is generated via ProPresenter software output from a Mac Pro via HD-BaseT transmitters and receivers to the IP-controlled short-throw projectors mounted only six to seven feet from the projection surface. All Pro Sound’s video expert, Caylen Staub, applied his expert knowledge of edge-blended projection to commission the system.
Other video distribution includes signal to three confidence monitors for broadcast production, observation monitors at front of house, fold-back video to camera positions and distributed television, as well as monitors available at 23 digital signage locations outfitted with BrightSign digital signage media players. Clear-Com’s production intercom system was installed utilizing the Clear-Com HMS system making it ideal for a multi-layered production environment like Crownridge.
Lighting the environment
A departure from the standard pipe grid lighting system design, the technology teams at Crownridge specified an array of lighting trusses that fan out and up from the back of the stage. Installed by Texas Scenic Co. of San Antonio, each “ray” of the system was provided with raceways for electric power and control wiring options including custom configured 20-foot strips from SSRC Theatrical Distribution Products. Each strip is populated with power, 5-pin XLR and RJ-45 jacks that streamline both installation and reconfiguration of lighting systems in the future.
Lighting control utilizes ArtNet, as well as traditional DMX control with extensions for Chroma-Q LED house lighting fixtures specified and programmed by All Pro Sound. “A combination of Chroma-Q Inspire and Inspire Mini RGBW fixtures were installed,” said Stapper, “that effectively become part of the performance system.” To control theatrical lighting, a Jands Lighting Vista L5 console was specified for its dependability and ease of use. CueServer Pro from Interactive Technologies is also used to capture default scenes for networked Interactive Technologies control hubs and push-button wall panels that provide easy access to recall complex scenes for architectural lighting.
“Many churches make the mistake of looking for people to work on tasks when they are missing opportunities for the tasks to work on people.” - Steven Cobb, AV Systems Director, Oak Hills Church, San Antonio, TX.
Lighting instruments for the project included 12 Altman LED work lights for the stage area and 24 Altman PHX2-5A spotlights. The moving heads of 10 Martin Mac Quantum Profile provide dramatic and versatile effects for lighting designs. 12 Martin Rush MH6 stage wash with a 10- to 60-degree zoom provide color effects along with 18 Martin Rush PAR2 RGBW Zooms. 54 Elation SIXBAR 1000 column lights are arranged in stage rigging and 15 are strategically placed on the floor at the stage lip and pointed back at the stage. “The lighting effects provided with the Elation 1000 fixtures have the effect of drawing the audience into the stage,” notes Stapper.Cobb and his team are well acquainted with IP network technology and insisted on a network design that supports audio and lighting routed through independent V-LANs on an integrated network. “We wanted a network where everything possible could be connected, but remain separate enough to be safe,” says Cobb. As a result, the Crownridge team designed their own flexible networks employing over 30 managed switches to support digital signage, lighting, multitracking with Dante, IP video and IP multicast. The team’s network designs required and received major trust from All-Pro installation team.
It’s About People
Lighting design that is intended to bring worshippers closer, high-quality audio that reaches every seat, and engaging video technology combine at the Crownridge campus to bring worshippers in this large venue closer. The designs of these systems and their weekly use by a team that is, itself, working to become closer, is something that Cobb is proud of. He recognizes that regular team devotionals and adherence to plumb lines have helped keep his teams on course, but he sees that other churches struggle. “Often it’s flipped,” he says. “Many churches make the mistake of looking for people to work on tasks when they are missing opportunities for the tasks to work on people.”
The technology teams at Crownridge are creative, supportive, and continue to pursue technical excellence—and that is evidence that Cobb’s church-within-a-church ideology is effective. As for Cobb himself, in addition to his work with technology, he still seeks out opportunities to lead worship. He has found that being on “both sides of the microphone” and maintaining a small church sensibility allows him a unique perspective on the use of technology and on team leadership. “It used to be more about music when I started,” he says. “Now, having that experience allows me to help technology people understand how musicians think.” Working on technology, music and worship in one place, he says, is his dream job.
