Full Danley system for One Lord Sunday
Published: WORSHIP
US: One Lord Sunday is an annual event held by the 20 churches of Wasilla, Alaska, where some 4,000 congregants and dignitaries come together to worship in the Wasilla Multi-Use Sports Complex. The event highlights the vast common ground that the denominations share through a mixed-style service that draws on the strengths of the participating churches.
The systems for this year’s event were supplied by Phil Ballard of local A/V firm Sound Decisions. Mr Ballard built the temporary sound system using Danley loudspeakers and subwoofers, as well as Danley’s newly-introduced amplifiers and DSPs. The main house system used four SH-50 full-range loudspeakers, two to a side flown 6-ft below the 31-ft ceiling, along with four TH-115 and two TH-212 subwoofers. Two SH-95s (smaller versions of the SH-50) were used for front fill and down fill.
In addition to these, One Lord Sunday provided one of the first on-the-ground trials of Danley’s new SM-60 F molded horn full-range loudspeakers for side fill. ‘Like the other Danley products, the SM-60 Fs were remarkably transparent,’ reported Mr Ballard. ‘For a fifty-pound box, it delivers sound with surprising ‘largeness’ and volume.’
Five Danley DSLA 6.5k amps each delivered two channels at 2.2kW (at 4Ω) to power the main SH-50s and subwoofers. Stewart power amps delivered the lower power requirements of the front-, down-, and side-fill speakers. Two Danley DSLP48 digital processors provided the DSP. Audix microphones with Joe Meek compression were also in use.
‘The Danley amps and processing gave the system a seamless and wonderfully-transparent sound that was remarkably easy to set up,’ said Mr Ballard. ‘My partner was able to walk the floor with an Apple laptop. We used a wireless Apple hub with a $29 switcher to flip between the two DSP units. Although we were ready to tackle anything, the transparent Danley loudspeakers didn’t need much. We pulled out 4dB at 200Hz and 2dB at 300Hz and that was it. The room didn’t like those frequencies and once we removed them, everything tightened up considerably. Start to finish, system tuning took all of 10 minutes.’
A temporary football pitch was in place during set-up, and the absorption provided by the turf was a good substitute for the absorption of the people that would fill the room on Sunday. At the FOH position, Mr Ballard adjusted overall system volume to rise slightly above the volume of the congregants singing along. ‘We were measuring 102dB,’ he said. ‘That seems loud, but we had to overcome the largeness of the room. It felt very natural, given the fidelity of the Danley loudspeakers. Because their beamwidth is so tight, even at very low frequencies, I was able to focus all of the energy on people. By keeping it off the concrete walls and metal ceiling, we reduced the reverb time from 5s in previous years with line arrays to just 2s!’
‘Apart from my own satisfaction,’ he continued, ‘I received a lot of compliments on the sound this year. That’s saying something, as the worship styles of these twenty churches are far-ranging. Some crank serious SPL with heavy drums and contemporary music, whereas others go a cappella with no sound system at all. The pastors all had great reviews and, more importantly, everyone in attendance was focused completely on the music and the message – not on trying to hear that music and that message!’