Having done work for the Spoken Word Fellowship Church, Longdale, Johannesburg, in the past, Audiotech was called back in to provide a solution for their newly acquired venue.

Spoken Word Fellowship Church had purchased a building as an empty shell and transformed it into a facility that would cater for many more people than it was originally designed for. It was to be a place of worship, celebration and entertainment.

A new stage was specified as well as a new gallery. In the gallery Audiotech housed their equipment, as well as the equipment from another supplier, that would stream the service live and cut it to Blu-ray.
Because of the charismatic nature of this church and its congregation, there was to be a live band playing on the stage. All the instruments and vocalists needed microphones and the pastor and translator required dedicated microphones mounted on the pulpit.

The video streaming supplier needed four different positions where they would mount their cameras. In addition, the HD video was to be routed through to the control room for processing and a dual display system was required with matrix switching capabilities. Finally, the control of the switching and displays was to be done from the control room and the pulpit.

Audio system

Due to the dominance of many hard surfaces inside the venue, Audiotech decided to go with a Bose audio solution, using two Bose Panaray 802III loudspeakers suspended above the pulpit.

The loudspeakers were stacked to give an even coverage throughout the lower level of the church as well as provide uncompromised audio to the gallery. Utilising eight full range 4.5 inch drivers per enclosure, they preclude the need for a crossover point in the middle of the vocal range, providing excellent tonal consistency and warmth in the mid frequencies. They perform well in the low frequency area too – right down to 50Hz. With a dispersion of 120 degrees, they provide excellent off-axis response without pronounced on-axis directionality.

Audiotech supplemented the 802IIIs with a pair of Bose MB12 compact subwoofers, comprising one 12 inch driver per cabinet, for additional low frequency extension right down to 40Hz. The MB12s were positioned under the stage in purpose-built cavities. The result is an effective yet unobtrusive front of house sound system for sermons and live performances. Finally a pair of Bose 310Ms were positioned on the stage to meet the band’s monitoring requirements.

Bittner Basic 1 200 and 200 power amplifiers, with their market-leading damping factor specifications, bring out the best of this Bose loudspeaker combination. Bose loudspeakers love to be given plenty of power, so the Bose and Bittner combination is the perfect team.

A Biamp Nexia SP DSP digital signal processor provides microphone management and all-system processing – including auto microphone mixing, Bose speaker equalisation and all necessary delay and limiting – making the system extremely flexible yet simple to operate. Biamp’s Da Vinci software provides a customisable graphic user interface with live VU meters to allow our technicians to monitor system levels via the GUI.

A Soundcraft GB4 24 channel analogue mixer was used to mix the many microphones and feed out to the amplifiers. The purpose of the analogue mixing desk is to allow the customer to control the volume, gain and inputs of the microphones to the amplifiers. The purpose of the Biamp digital DSP is to equalise the programme material and eliminate feedback. Audiotech decided to limit the users’ interaction with the DSP and only give them access to the mixing desk to prevent user mistakes. Finally, Beyerdynamic gooseneck, handheld, and lapel microphones were employed throughout the church.

Video routing

The video routing included converting the camera’s HDMI outputs to CAT5 and running them back to the rack. There the signal is converted back to HDMI, switched via 8×8 HDMI matrix switcher, and then routed back to the display devices via CAT5 before being converted once again to HDMI.

The display devices installed include dual NEC U250X projector systems on the front wall along with two Elite fixed frame screens and Samsung HDMI LED screens mounted throughout the church and adjacent rooms. The purpose of the LED screens is firstly as a reference for the pastor when delivering his sermon, and then for overflow into the adjacent rooms as well as outside in the courtyard. Audio from the service obviously accompanies the video to its destination.


Control system

The control of this venue was designed to be functional and give the control room technician overall control. The pastor or other users have limited control from the front of the church.

For budget purposes and to avoid complexity, Audiotech decided to use a BitWize receiver and the free iPad/Android application, downloadable from iTunes and Google’s market. They configured the customer’s iPad using the GUI connected to the pre-configured WiFi router and immediately began switching images to display devices. The BitWize solution is very simple to configure and the customer was very happy with its functionality.

Challenges

The power in the church was unstable to start with, experiencing regular outages, spikes and dips. Audiotech was concerned that a surge may damage the routing and switching equipment.
As with any HDMI routing and switch solution there is a degree of apprehension when firing the system up for the first time; particularly when the site is full of other contractors pulling and squashing cables under their ladders and scaffolding.

However, as Audiotech used “best of breed’ equipment and shielded, cabling and connectors, the synchronisation and flow of HD content was not interrupted.
One thing that did pose a problem, however, was interfacing with the HD streaming system due to incompatibility between the two solutions. Using an EDID emulator Audiotech solved the problem elegantly.