Free upgrade

Located in the Bukit Panjang district of Singapore, Covenant Evangelical Free Church (CEFC) is affiliated to a sister church in Woodlands. Its busy weekend services in English, Mandarin, Hokkien and Cantonese provide a contemporary worship experience relying heavily on live music and visuals. Having installed an HD, digital A/V set-up in Woodlands in 2008, the church committee approved a similar upgrade for the second venue.

Following a meeting of the committee, it was agreed that the existing speaker system should be phased out on the grounds that it was deteriorating and had been incorrectly positioned. The committee members agreed that the 850-seat sanctuary required a point source speaker system to be best suited to its needs, as the rear wall is only 20m from the front of the stage. The loudspeaker and projector/camera blind evaluations were conducted in August 2009, contested between several established suppliers.

JBL Precision Directivity speakers secured the most votes and, as Harman Pro distributor Electronics & Engineering (E&E) had previously supplied Woodlands CEFC with a Soundcraft Vi4 console, the decision was made easier for the committee – as church audio consultant Collin Toh admitted: ‘We’d commissioned E&E to supply a Vi4 console at Woodlands, and so it made sense to acquire the same console here at Bukit Panjang. It’s a pretty straightforward board, and our volunteers found it easy to use following some technical training. As we swap volunteers between the two centres, it would make life a lot easier as there wouldn’t be a learning curve to overcome. The Vi4 was our first foray into the digital domain and so we didn’t want to worry our operators with an interface that was unfriendly. That was our prime consideration and that’s why we chose the Vi4 on account of its ease of use and analogue friendly interface. In addition, the board sounds great coupled with cool BSS signal processors and quiet operation of the Studer faders. The eight banks of Lexicon FX are also very neat.’ The Vi4 offers access to 72 inputs on 24 faders, with a total of 24 output buses on eight faders available for use as masters, groups, auxes or matrices.

While PAVE Systems Pte Ltd was contracted by SV-Pro to install the video equipment, and Desisti Pte Ltd to supply the lighting infrastructure, Richt Teo from SV Pro Pte Ltd was drafted in to integrate the new sound and lighting systems into CEFC during the hectic run-up to the Christmas period. ‘We had to erect scaffold towers in order to dismantle the old system and install the new one,’ he explains. ‘I was well aware that weekend services were coming, and the clock was ticking. We had to leave the sanctuary in the same state as we found it, which meant spending half-a-day dismantling and clearing up on Friday. This was conducted in the same manner over a three-week period and each time you had to ensure that the sound reinforcement system would operate for the services.’

The three-way JBL ceiling-suspended LR clusters comprise two dual 12-inch PD5322/64 (60° x 40°) trapezoidal cabinets with two PD5122 low-frequency cabinets mounted directly below the PD5322 mid frequency waveguide. This matching pair of low-frequency devices produces a spaced-source LF array extending the low-frequency pattern control to 160Hz. Each cluster also has a single AM6200/95 speaker serving as down fill. Proposed and designed by Collin Toh, Richt Teo and Gary Goh in Ease 4.2, the combination of cabinets ensures consistently high output, excellent pattern control and low frequency extension to 40Hz. In addition, the low frequencies are extended down to 29Hz with the addition of two centrally ceiling hung VT4880 dual 18-inch subwoofers. Some 9m below, front fill is provided by four JBL AC25 speakers positioned on the lip of the stage. Finally, some of the rear seats are assisted by pre existing OAP NF80 fill speakers, as a cry rooms are located above them blocking coverage from the main PA system. The entire speaker system is powered by six Crown Macrotech 3600vz (lows and subs) and four 2402 amplifiers (mids and highs), which are connected to two BSS London Blu-160 processors via AES-EBU offering DSP monitoring, management and control to the JBL speaker via Soundweb software. Hence, a digital signal path has been created from the mic preamps on the Vi4 console to the Crown amplifiers.

E&E also supplied five sets of Shure UR4D wireless receivers with KSM9, Beta 87A and Beta 58 handheld transmitters and UR1 bodypacks. Headset microphones were supplied by Intricon Pte Ltd. While the musicians prefer to take their personal monitor mix from Aviom A-16 II units, the singers share eight Shure PSM 600 personal monitoring systems. The drum kit combines Shure KSM81 for overheads, SM81s on hi-hat, a Beta 91 on the kick drum, SM57 on the snare and three Sennheiser e604s on the toms. Two Shure KSM32 and two Audix M1255B microphones take care of the 40-strong choir. Three ETA Systems EPD420VS power conditioners protect the racked equipment from power surges and spikes.

The front-of-house production area measures almost 20-sq-m, with the audio production team taking the front area and video, lighting and content operators (headed by Mike Wong) working from the two-level rear section. A grandMA lighting console, a PC with PowerPoint presentations and an AMX 8-inch portable screen are located downstairs. The AMX NI-3100 system provides system set-up and operates all the visual aspects of the service in addition to external plasma screens located throughout CEFC outside the main sanctuary. Further, a Midas Venice 160 located upstairs can take the feed from the Vi4 and mix it before broadcasting the service elsewhere in the church, such as the cry room, lobby or overspill areas. Content such as song lyrics and religious images are created or loaded onto a Mac installed with Final Cut Pro software, which is then displayed through the three ceiling-suspended Christie Digital projectors onto static 16:9 format screens located above and to the left and right of the stage. A Panasonic multi format live switcher, Extron Crosspoint 450 16x16 matrix switcher and a Kramer VP719 presentation scaler/switcher are used to process and convert the content to the HD projectors.

Three Panasonic P2HD cameras each outfitted with Fujinon lenses and tripods have been set up in dedicated areas on platforms and linked to the main control room with Telex BP2002 comms. For training purposes, many of the services are recorded for both the leaders and youths. The upcoming Intentional Disciple Making Conference will be staged in the Woodlands CEFC, but with the new A/V set-up now fully operational, Bukit Panjang will be able to have it broadcast live. For church members such as audio ministry leader Teik Meng, it’s almost a full time career managing such a set-up. But such work can be a pleasure when provided with digital audio and HD visual systems now in situ.

www.cefc.org.sg

www.sv-pro.sg

www.enepl.com.sg

Published in Worship AVL Asia Spring 2010