Where praise really Worx
Published: WORSHIP
US: With a faith-based outreach that serves people of all races, creeds, and religions, Columbia Road Church of God – led by senior pastor Bishop L Keith Vaughn – has responded to the ever-expanding size of the congregation and the desire of church management to incorporate a vibrant musical programme into its services by installing a new sound reinforcement system in the main sanctuary.
Recognising that both music reproduction and speech intelligibility were critical to the effectiveness of its services, the church recently upgraded its audio capabilities with a system drawn from the catalogue of Greensboro, North Carolina-based WorxAudio Technologies.
Orangeburg, South Carolina-based Templeton Sound Systems, specialising in sound, video recording-projection and stage lighting for the church market, was contracted to revitalise Columbia Road’s sound system. Michael W Templeton, president of Templeton Sound Systems, discussed the challenges of the project and his decision to deploy WorxAudio Technologies’ TrueLine system.
‘The congregation seating area at Columbia Road Church of God measures roughly 27m deep by 15m wide,’ Mr Templeton explained, ‘with fixed seating for approximately 400 to 500 people. The real challenge in this space stemmed from the nature of the high ceiling, which is made from wood and has exposed beams. This extreme depth of the seating area made it very challenging for the previous sound system to achieve even coverage from front to rear. As a result, those seated in the front of the congregation were getting blasted while the people in the back of the room could barely understand what was taking place up front. Because of this, I wanted a line array system that delivers clear, penetrating high frequencies over a predictable and controlled coverage area and this prerequisite led me to the WorxAudio X5i-P installation line array.’
With a sizeable praise band, a choir and a praise team, music plays a vital role in Columbia Road Church of God’s services. Here, too, the X5i-P delivers solid music reproduction characteristics. Mounted to the rear of the X5i-P is the WorxAudio X1i-P compact line array system. Similar in overall design to the X5i-P, the X1i-P incorporates a single module with the same basic transducer complement. This loudspeaker system serves as a downfill monitor for the choir and others on stage, providing a dispersion pattern of 160-degrees horizontal by 10-degrees vertical.
With the new system up and running since the beginning of August, Mr Templeton said that compliments for a job well done are flowing. ‘We’ve had wonderful responses from church management, the pastor, musicians, vocalists and the congregation. For the first time ever, sound coverage is consistent throughout the house and the audio level up front is no longer painful. The music has a pleasing, supportive quality to it and people can understand what’s being said from wherever they happen to be seated. Make no mistake: the new WorxAudio sound system goes a long way toward making the church’s services more relevant than ever.’