La Mesa provides acoustic design for new Pontianak church
Published: WORSHIP
INDONESIA: La Mesa took the role of acoustic and sound consultant for Gereja Kristen Kalimantan Barat’s GKKB newly built Pontianak city church. Following a three-month design and consultation period, AudioSen supplied a Yamaha LS9 digital console and Yamaha powered speakers for both main and delays.
Founding over 70 years ago, the church’s congregation has since reached over 10,000 – hence the new 2,000-capacity worship venue, which was completely renovated from the ground up. This process began in 2012, and the church originally planned to complete the work over a period of five years due to funding issues. However, after meticulous planning and calculations, the church decided to put its faith in its construction team and La Mesa and aimed to complete the project in just 18 months. This target was met, and the house of worship now features a main hall, three partition Sunday school rooms, a smaller wedding room, an office and parking facilities.
La Mesa needed to come up with a design solution that could reduce the main room’s reverb time to a maximum of two seconds. ‘Considering the ceiling height of 18m and a 2,000 congregation seating capacity, this reverb time looked ideal,’ said La Mesa’s Didi Kartanegara.
AudioSen’s Mr Sentosa was then contacted, at which point he and his team promptly supplied and installed three Yamaha DSR112 speakers in a left-centre-right configuration, whilst four additional speakers were used for delay in the balcony area. Four Yamaha 18-inch powered subwoofers were concealed underneath the main stage with two TC Electronic digital speaker management controllers.
At the heart of the system is the Yamaha LS9 digital console, which has 24 mic inputs for the stage and eight outputs. Four JZ Microphones BT 201 mics were used for the 80 choir members, while two JZ Vintage 11 mics were selected for the Yamaha grand piano. Preachers were equipped with Sanken COS-11D headworn mics with a MiPro wireless system.
‘Upon initial testing and fine tuning, the result is very satisfying,’ said Ms Kartanegara. ‘This fan shape main hall now has a reverb time of around 1.6 to 1.75 seconds and the sound system coverage is very good. Plus, 50 per cent of its power was more than enough to deliver the sermon,’ she enthused. ‘Even the piano tuner was very happy, and he commented that this church has the best acoustics and could be used for a proper concert.’
When discussing the challenges faced with this project, Ms Kartanegara offered: ‘The main challenge was to complete the construction within the 18 month period, and the client had to make sure that they had enough funds to continue. The church was inaugurated on December 12th, 2012 and was used for the Christmas celebration the following week.’