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Allen & Heath iLive Series T112 mixing console
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Fire damage pushed the church to install all new technology designed to support a full, contemporary worship service. At the mix position, FBC Elkhart installed a QSC KLA line array loudspeaker system, an Allen & Heath iLive Series T112 mixing console, and Jands Vista software with a S1 Lighting Control Surface.
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Worship Pastor Matt Cox says the QSC Audio KLA line array system sounds fantastic and was very cost-effective. The new system includes 13 KLA12 two-way speakers arranged in three arrays— four in the left and right arrays, and five in the center array. Six KLA181 self-powered subwoofers offer low-end support.
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Even if the church couldn’t get all the equipment they needed with the help of insurance today, they could still set up the room to handle such improvements in the future.
Saturday, October 27, 2012, began like any weekend morning at First Baptist Church, with two volunteers preparing the 950-seat sanctuary for the church activities of the day. Then, the unthinkable happened.
A faulty lighting fixture on stage caused a fire that ripped through the stage area setting off sprinklers and generating enough smoke and flooding to destroy most of the stage, damage audio and lighting equipment, and ravage the auditorium—with Christmas just eight weeks away.
Thanks to the quick thinking of the First Baptist volunteers, no one was injured in the fire and the damage was contained, but the room most central to their worship was all but destroyed. Faced with the daunting task of rebuilding from the charred and smoke-damaged remains, Worship Pastor and Music Minister Matt Cox took the lead on the rebuilding effort.
“Nothing in my 17 years of leading worship prepared me to handle something like this,” says Cox. “Essentially, the fire forced us to make our five-year plan into a five-month plan.” So, Cox, whose team consists only of volunteers and a part-time technical director, began the task of rebuilding. With volunteers in place and ready to step up, Cox was going to need more technical help to keep the church going—while rebuilding the church's badly damaged sanctuary into a new worship center.
Opportunity in action
Shaun Miller, director of technical arts at Northview Church in Carmel, Ind., was one of the first to contact Cox after the fire to find out how he might help. Miller, a graduate of First Baptist's high school, gained much of his production experience as audio engineer and technical director in Nashville concert venues and with touring Christian music acts before returning to Indiana. He knew the enormity of what Cox was facing.
“We would, naturally, support them with prayer, but I wanted to know how else I could help,” Miller says. When he heard Cox say that the church was taking the disaster as a blessing in disguise and an opportunity to rebuild, he knew he wanted to be involved. Miller was engaged to act as an interim technical director for First Baptist and help Cox meet his first challenge of finding a way to continue worship. Services were moved to the only available space large enough to handle the 1,200-1,400 worshippers each weekend, an atrium area called “The Commons.”
Miller was able to help by designing temporary systems for audio and lighting from their working gear, plus some rented equipment. “It was just a basic portable rig of powered speakers mounted on stands with subs on the floor—just enough to get them by,” says Miller. A raised platform in back of the atrium provided an area for a temporary mixing console and a mezzanine area became the choir loft. Using folding chairs and minimal equipment, the church was able to continue Sunday services.
Miller and Cox both saw opportunities in their temporary space to prepare for their new design. Miller helped with training volunteers, starting with the process of splitting inputs to feed a monitor board and the church's Movek MyMix personal monitor mixers. This allowed the FOH engineer to concern himself solely with the sound in the room—and allowed other volunteers to mix for the musician's ears; a model the volunteers would use in the new room.
“Essentially, we were doing upgrades for First Baptist that were ultimately in the plan for them, just ahead of schedule.”
Robbie Starkey
AVL Systems Consultant, Custom Sound Designs (CSD Group Inc.), Fort Wayne, Ind.
In addition, being displaced to “The Commons” was a learning experience for both technical staff and congregation. As Miller was training volunteers, Cox observed that the closeness they found in their temporary worship space was very different from their former 950-seat auditorium. “We were all closer—physically and as a church,“ he says. To continue that feeling of community, Cox decided to design their stage to be closer to the congregation than it had been before the fire.
Facilitating change and growth
Another critical factor in designing the new worship center was how to address the changing style of worship at First Baptist, which had been steadily moving towards a more contemporary service. “A lot of what we had was not designed to support a contemporary service,” Cox says. Prior to the fire, the church had inadequate sound, no acoustical treatment, undersized and poorly located projection screens painted on the walls—screens that could never support IMAG. Cox made the decision that, even if the church couldn't get all the equipment they needed with the help of insurance today, they could still set up the room to handle such improvements in the future.
To help with the design and installation of the new systems to support both traditional and contemporary worship, Cox engaged AVL Systems Consultant Robbie Starkey from Custom Sound Designs (CSD Group Inc.) of Fort Wayne, Ind. “In terms of designs,” Starkey reports, “we looked at what the church had, and how to put that back; giving careful consideration to how to upgrade wherever possible. For example, moving from an analog to a new digital console. Essentially, we were doing upgrades for First Baptist that were ultimately in the plan for them, just ahead of schedule.”
Along with a new room design that would be acoustically better with a more intimate stage, the most dramatic improvement to First Baptist's worship center was the new audio system. Miller had recently installed a QSC line array system for his church a few hours south in Carmel, Ind. So he recommended a similar system for Cox and his volunteers. After auditioning several systems, Cox was sold on the KLA line array speakers from QSC. According to Cox, “The KLA speakers sound fantastic and were very cost-effective. That fit our scenario perfectly.” Starkey worked with QSC engineers to create a design for the new room, including some unique modifications.
“We are very much a design and build company,” says Starkey. “We learn how a church works and design a system that works with that plan.” True to form, Starkey studied the church's plan and added additional speakers to the QSC design to get a more balanced sound in the close front rows. He also moved some of the subwoofers off the floor. “By flying some of the subs, we were able to provide a system that would have both full-range sound for traditional services, but that had additional subs to add for a more aggressive contemporary worship and performances,” Starkey adds. The result was the versatile system that gave Cox the sound quality he was after, and a system that was easier for the volunteers operate.
Sound specifics
First Baptist's QSC KLA Active Line Array Loudspeaker System features 13 model KLA12 12-inch, two-way speakers with 1.75-inch compression drivers and a 90 x 18-degree nominal coverage angle in a left/center/right configuration (four boxes at left and right plus five in a center cluster). In addition, a pair of KLA181 18-inch subwoofers was flown to provide bottom end with four additional KW181 self-powered 18-inch subs on the floor to provide more punch, when needed, for First Baptist's contemporary service. A pair of QSC model K8 self-powered active speakers with one eight-inch woofer, 1.75-inch compression driver and 105-degree conical waveguide were installed on the floor as front fills. The speaker systems are powered using a Furman Powerlink Remote Power Sequence Controller and Furman MP-20Q power relays.
Starkey appreciated the compact design and great sound of the KLA12s. In addition, QSC's easy-to-use, self-contained rigging hardware reduced the time and cost of the installation. To additionally offset the cost of upgrades, church volunteers provided most of the labor, pulling and terminating cabling and helping with installation work.
At the heart of the new audio system is an Allen and Heath iLive Series T112 mixing console with an iDR64 mixing rack that provides processing and mixing for 64 channels and 32 configurable mix buses, as well as eight stereo effects engines. The T112 mixing surface offers an intuitive layout with instantly accessible analog-style rotary controls and switches and other colorful features designed to help users make an easy transition from analog to digital. Miller says this of the setup: “The T112 sounds good and, at its price point, it's incredibly flexible. I love that all the dynamics, EQ, gates, and other controls are laid out in an easy-to-use fashion. For a church that relies on volunteer mixers, the ability to save presets and recall them is a must.” He also found the ability to color code channels of like instruments to be a plus for volunteers.
Lighting details
Much of First Baptist's lighting was already in reasonably good shape, and the fact that it was supported above the sprinkler heads means there was minimal damage from the fire. As a result, many of 90 lights, including 16 Aurorae LED PAR Can Slims and 30 ellipsoidals and wash lights, were able to be reclaimed along with the dimmer racks, but Cox was able to stretch the budget to improve lighting with the addition of two Elation Lighting Platinum Spot 5R Pros; four Chauvet Q-Spot 560 LED 4 Packs; three Elation Power Spot 575 DMX moving head fixtures and 16 Chauvet COLORpalette LED fixtures. For lighting control, Jands Vista software with an S1 Lighting Control Surface were installed. “We find that the Jands Vista software really helps us create great lighting,” Cox says, “and it's easy to operate by our volunteers.”
Video maneuvers
Worship and performances at First Baptist are now projected onto two 126- x 222-inch Da-Lite Custom Perm-Wall HDTV screens at either side of the stage by Panasonic PT-D5700/PT-DW5100/PT-D4000 Series Projectors equipped with Power Zoom lens (2.4-3.7:1). A full complement of professional video equipment engages the congregation in worship with three Panasonic model AG-AC160APJ camcorders outfitted with seven-inch HDMI monitors and Varizoom (VZ Pro-PZFI) remote controllers. Cameras are set on Daiwa/Slik DST-43 professional broadcast tripods with fluid heads.
Behind the cameras, a V-800HD 1 Roland live HD video switcher was added. With its dedicated broadcast-quality scaler on each input, this multi-format Roland video mixer efficiently matches input sources to a chosen output resolution. Kramer Electronics model VS-88HD 8x8 HD-SDI matrix switcher with a Kramer HDMI over Cat6 receiver and transmitter, haul the signal along with a Kramer VM-8H 1x8 HDMI distribution amplifier.
“This was certainly not your typical install,” says Cox. “Shaun Miller and Robbie Starkey walked us through every aspect of the install and never left our side. As a result, we have technology that puts us in a better position to reach more people of all generations. That's exciting.”
The fire, water and smoke damage didn't leave First Baptist with a lot but, according to Cox, they found all they needed to rebuild their worship center. “What we had,” he says, “was God's wisdom and strength along with an amazing church that prayed for and supported us. Because of the fire, we found a new spirit with the people and we don't want to lose that. God gave us an opportunity from which we could learn and grow—all because of one faulty light.”
