Project Details
Sunrise was contacted by the Chambersburg Baptist Church to provide a new sound system and video presentation system for their new Sanctuary. They were in the process of moving and had just acquired a new building to house their growing Church. They had some specific needs for their praise band and worship services. They wanted the best quality sound for the money and a easy to use but responsive digital mixer to replace their aging analog mixer. They were also interested in video for power point presentations and movies to be played back for the congregation and also for the Choir to be able to see as well. Since they had a budget the first thing to find out was how much they wanted to spend. The Church was interested in doing QSC Line Arrays but that didn’t fit the budget. The mixing location was a little cramped
and in the back corner of the church so a full size digital mixer wasn’t a good option. So the choice of equipment was made to meet the budget needs as well as the space needs too.
We discussed the equipment in depth and then started working on a proposal to meet all the needs. We had initially looked at QSC KLA Line Arrays, which we love the sound of. But they didn’t meet the budget so we recommended the K12.2’s. These are our go to speakers because they just sound absolutely great. They fit all types of environments and genres of music from live bands to speech in a Church and have plenty of wattage to fill most any room. They have been a popular choice of bands for years. To complement the bottom end, we recommended the B1500XP Behringer subwoofers. These speakers offer a lot of punch for the money and don’t take up a huge amount of space on the floor. We like the paring of the QSC subs with the QSC top end, but we wanted to keep the Church in their budget and decided this would be a good compromise over the 18” QSC subs.
We usually recommend the Behringer X32 digital mixer for a couple of reasons. This has been hands down, the most popular mixer not only for us to install but a very popular mixer around the world. Because of it’s popularity there are tons of how to videos on youtube. This makes training easy and means that there are loads of information out there on this mixer. There are better mixers out there but we’d argue that the quality differences would be miner it the price range of the X32. Since we were dealing with limited space we picked the X32 Compact. Not only is this model less expensive, but it contains all the features of the X32 in a smaller package that fit perfectly on the desk the Church was using. We chose a Behringer SD16 up front for stage miss and used the 16 channel on board mic preamps on the X32 Compact for wireless miss and Aux sources from CD players and Computers. Everything ran through a Behringer Shield Cat 5e digital snake. No more two in diameter analog snakes, just a small Cat 5e cable to carry all 16 channels back to the mixer. An Apple iPad was added to allow the sound engineer to move around the Sanctuary or even sit with their family and mix the service.
This pretty much finished the Front of House system and we then turned out attention to monitors. The stage is pretty tight, but the musicians weren’t ready for in the ear monitors. They wanted to be able to hear their own mixes but with out earphones this is hard to do and keep audio from bleeding to other musicians mixes. We compromised the space requirements and the needs for individual mixes by giving them Behringer B205D personal near field speakers. These are powerful monitors, 150 watts each, and are designed to sit with in arms reach of the musician. They can even run their own vocal mic into and out of the speaker so they can have personal control of their vocal volume. A pair of QSC CP8 1000 watt speakers were also set up for monitors for the pastor and Choir. This gave them six separate monitors. Plenty to keep any sound engineer hopping.
All of this equipment was wired to Furman power sequencing line conditioners. A push of a button back at the mixer will start the sequence of turning everything on and then a push again sequence the power back down. All in the proper order with not pops. We had some issues with new and old wiring. This can sometimes be a problem. AC wiring should be properly grounded and for a sound system to work with out noise, it’s a must.
To top off the system we installed some Shure wireless microphones and an antenna distribution system. With out the antenna distribution system we were experiencing dropouts and audio problems. When installing a wireless microphone system of two or more we really recommend have a distribution system to keep RF multipathing and interference down. They can be expensive but well worth it in the end.
Lastly was the install for the video system. The Church had already purchased the TV’s but wanted us to wire everything and mount them. We choose a Startech ST124HDBT multi port extender system that uses Cat 5e to extend the HDMI cables to the TV’s. A Startech VS721MULTI Video and HDMI switch and scaler was used to switch DVD’s, Computers, whatever video source they wanted to use, and display them on two TV’s in the front and one TV in the rear for the Choir to see. With the prices of HiDef TV’s coming down and the improved brightness and clarity, we are installing more of them than the standard projectors and screens. Churches that have beautiful stained windows and bright lights will not have the screen wash out on a LCD TV making them much easier to read than a projector. If you need a 100” screen or larger, well then it’s still a projector and screen. At least for now.
Here’s a break down of all the equipment we used.
Behringer X32 Compact
Apple 32GB iPad
Behringer SD16
Behringer NCAT5E50M
QSC K12.2
Behringer B1500XP
QSC CP8
Furman M08S
Furman CN-15MP
Furman PS-REL
Furman M-8X2
Williams Sound FM457
Shure BLX14RMX53
Shure BLX24R/SM58
Shure UA844+SWB
Startech VS721Mulit
Sony DVPSR510H
Startech ST124HDBT
Tripp-Lite DWTSC3780MUL
Rapco Cables and Connectors
