New Life Community Church turns to DAS for acoustic solution
Published: WORSHIP
US: A Variant loudspeaker system from DAS Audio has been chosen to solve the ‘very challenging’ acoustic problems faced within the Midway Campus sanctuary of Chicago’s New Life Community Church.
Boasting 14 campuses in and around the city of Chicago and 25 weekend worship services each Sunday, the US-based non-denominational New Life Community Church is among the largest in its area. Until recently, however, its Midway Campus suffered from a number of speech intelligibility and related challenges with its sound reinforcement system.
Troubadour Solutions, a church-focused A/V installer based in West Chester, Ohio, was contacted to help resolve the issues with an entirely new sound reinforcement installation. Dr Scott Weaver, the company’s owner and chief designer, led the project, and explained his choice of 14 Variant loudspeakers to correct the problems.
‘The Midway Campus sanctuary is a very challenging space,’ Dr Weaver explained. ‘This is a very wide, but shallow room. The sanctuary measures roughly 39m wide by 25m deep with a 6.7m ceiling. The space uses moveable seating for approximately 700 worshippers. While there is some acoustical treatment on the walls as well as some baffles in the ceiling area, this is a rather live environment due to the ceramic tile floor.’
He continued: ‘The stage/altar area is positioned along the width of the room and, hence, the loudspeaker system needed to provide broad horizontal coverage, but with very controlled throw to minimise the chance of acoustic reflections coming off the rear wall. After evaluating a number of systems, we determined that Variant 25A powered mid-high line array elements were the right tool for the job.’
The chosen solution comprises three L-C-R line arrays flown at maximum height and spaced far apart to ensure coverage throughout the very wide space. Each array boasts four Variant 25A elements, though due to the location of the FOH mix position, which is located in the rear left (as one faces the altar) and up high, very close to the ceiling, the loudspeaker cluster on the left is augmented by two additional Variant 25A enclosures – one functional and one that serves as a visual ‘filler’.
‘The mix position is in a rather awkward location,’ Dr Weaver reported. ‘The situation was compounded by the fact that there is a false ceiling area that serves as the platform for the sound booth. In order to effectively reach the FOH mix position, we placed the dummy enclosure above the four primary enclosures of the left array and then positioned the remaining functional enclosure on the very top, aimed directly at FOH. This was the only way we could provide suitable coverage for the mix engineer. The non-functional enclosure eliminates the visual distraction of having a ‘hole’ in the loudspeaker cluster.’
As for the choice of Variant, Dr Weaver was full of praise for the completed system. ‘The Variant enclosures enabled us to control the relatively short throw characteristics to avoid reflections off the rear wall while providing a very controllable splay.’
The Midway Campus installation took place in early February and was placed into service immediately afterward. According to Dr Weaver, the reaction was soon apparent. ‘After the opening weekend, I received a text message from the church’s director that said “Thank you, thank you, thank you”,’ he enthused. ‘You couldn’t ask for a better compliment than that.’