Baroque space tamed by Renkus-Heinz
Published: WORSHIP
GERMANY: Hamburg’s iconic St Michaelis church has been equipped with one of Europe’s largest Iconyx digital beam steering systems, the high-tech loudspeaker solution marketed by California-based pioneer Renkus-Heinz.
Originally built in 1750, the interior of the church is in the particularly ornate Baroque style. Destroyed by fire in 1906, then rebuilt virtually brick for brick, it has an important role in German culture including regularly televised services.
The building’s acoustic issues have now been addressed by the new Iconyx system, accompanied by a variety of Sennheiser wireless and Neumann wired microphones. The open central hall is surrounded by acoustically complex areas including tall, deep balconies that recede into semicircular cupolas, in some areas out of direct sight of the pulpit. A cupola on the north side houses an electronic organ and tiered choir stalls. Across the hall tiered balcony seating rakes back some 15m. Sermon intelligibility in these areas, and in the deep under-balcony areas, was poor.
The Hamburg branch of ASC (Amptown System Company) handled the installation, with sales and marketing manager Dierk Elwart and project managers Rüdiger Aue and Jörn Wehmeyer in charge.
‘We demonstrated Iconyx loudspeakers in the church, and the effectiveness of the digital beam steering convinced the church community,’ said Mr Elwart. ‘It's ideal for this huge, complex room shape with recesses and balconies and a very long reverberation time, because you need to focus the sound very exactly into each area. This solution provided that focusing ability, and delivers high power from architecturally discrete and colour-matched loudspeakers.’
A total of 17 Iconyx columns was installed, with a pair of IC16s either side on the ground floor level with the pulpit, a further pair of IC16s for the sides and a delay pair of IC8s, all digitally steerable. Upstairs, digitally steerable IC24s flank the archway of the altar, forming the main balcony system, supplemented by a mechanically steerable IC7 stack either side for the rear balcony, a further pair of IC7s for the balconies’ outer areas, and finally two more IC7s on marble pillars to cover two upper level balconies.
Audio routing is handled by a BSS Soundweb London system with analogue audio distribution to the loudspeakers, while system control has been simplified to a basic, custom designed control panel for use by non-technical staff.