21st century sound at Neabsco Baptist
21st century sound at Neabsco Baptist
USA:
Neabsco Baptist Church was founded during the late 19th century. During its more than 100 years of existence, it has relied heavily on music to invoke passion in its congregation and as an expression of faith. The 20th century having come and gone, and the world now in the midst of the 21st, the church recently expanded to a new 500-seat sanctuary in its home state of Virginia and updating to a state-of-the art sound system was high on the list of requirements presented to architecture firm Loveless and Porter.
The architects approached Genesis Technology to design the audio solution, providing the systems integrator with a thorough review of the site plans. ‘This church has an amazing choir, but they also wanted to add some contemporary music into their services,’ remembers Michael Yoo, senior system engineer at Genesis Technology. ‘We needed to accommodate a full band, including bass, drums, guitars, as well as three keyboards and a Leslie organ. In short, the sound system needed to handle everything from rock to gospel, as well as traditional worship selections.’
Being involved with the architects during a sanctuary’s building phase proves beneficial to system integrators; however, a last-minute budgetary concern resulted in a lower ceiling than anticipated for the new church building. This meant that the Genesis team had to adjust accordingly.
‘Overall it’s a pretty straightforward space – just a rectangular box with relatively clear sight lines,’ explains Mr Yoo. ‘We initially planned to install Vue Audiotechnik’s al-4 subcompact line array, because we knew the beryllium high frequency would provide plenty of headroom and fidelity. But when the ceiling was lowered, it was obvious that even the compact al-4 would be too disruptive visually.’
Neabsco Baptist had deemed beryllium a must-have feature by the time the ceiling height had wreaked havoc on Genesis’ initial plans. Therefore, Vue’s h-Class System was identified as an alternative.
‘We also had to convince the Church’s audio engineer who wasn’t terribly familiar with Vue,’ recalls Mr Yoo. ‘We arranged a demo at our Auburn facility, and he was instantly impressed with the vocals and top end of the h-Class, which was no surprise since those models benefit from the beryllium high frequency.’
With full approval to go ahead with the h-Class solutions, a total of four h-12w cabinets were installed, minus their usually built-in VueDrive, leaving the enclosures set up passively. Instead, a pair of rack-mounted V-4 VueDrive systems provide the power and processing needed. The h-12w enclosures were ordered directly from the manufacturer and custom-painted white to fit with the décor. Colour-matched mounting yokes were also supplied.
The sanctuary layout sees 12 rows of pews divided into four columns. To ensure coverage throughout the seating area, two of the h-12w speakers were flown above the stage, while the other two were deployed as delays halfway down the church.
‘Coverage was pretty much spot-on with little more than basic visual aiming,’ Mr Yoo notes. ‘One of the things we love about the Vue speakers is how accurate they are. Plus, their output provides more than enough headroom to deal with whatever the church throws at them.’
www.genesistek.net
www.neabscobaptist.org
www.vueaudio.com
The architects approached Genesis Technology to design the audio solution, providing the systems integrator with a thorough review of the site plans. ‘This church has an amazing choir, but they also wanted to add some contemporary music into their services,’ remembers Michael Yoo, senior system engineer at Genesis Technology. ‘We needed to accommodate a full band, including bass, drums, guitars, as well as three keyboards and a Leslie organ. In short, the sound system needed to handle everything from rock to gospel, as well as traditional worship selections.’
Being involved with the architects during a sanctuary’s building phase proves beneficial to system integrators; however, a last-minute budgetary concern resulted in a lower ceiling than anticipated for the new church building. This meant that the Genesis team had to adjust accordingly.
‘Overall it’s a pretty straightforward space – just a rectangular box with relatively clear sight lines,’ explains Mr Yoo. ‘We initially planned to install Vue Audiotechnik’s al-4 subcompact line array, because we knew the beryllium high frequency would provide plenty of headroom and fidelity. But when the ceiling was lowered, it was obvious that even the compact al-4 would be too disruptive visually.’
Neabsco Baptist had deemed beryllium a must-have feature by the time the ceiling height had wreaked havoc on Genesis’ initial plans. Therefore, Vue’s h-Class System was identified as an alternative.
‘We also had to convince the Church’s audio engineer who wasn’t terribly familiar with Vue,’ recalls Mr Yoo. ‘We arranged a demo at our Auburn facility, and he was instantly impressed with the vocals and top end of the h-Class, which was no surprise since those models benefit from the beryllium high frequency.’
With full approval to go ahead with the h-Class solutions, a total of four h-12w cabinets were installed, minus their usually built-in VueDrive, leaving the enclosures set up passively. Instead, a pair of rack-mounted V-4 VueDrive systems provide the power and processing needed. The h-12w enclosures were ordered directly from the manufacturer and custom-painted white to fit with the décor. Colour-matched mounting yokes were also supplied.
The sanctuary layout sees 12 rows of pews divided into four columns. To ensure coverage throughout the seating area, two of the h-12w speakers were flown above the stage, while the other two were deployed as delays halfway down the church.
‘Coverage was pretty much spot-on with little more than basic visual aiming,’ Mr Yoo notes. ‘One of the things we love about the Vue speakers is how accurate they are. Plus, their output provides more than enough headroom to deal with whatever the church throws at them.’
www.genesistek.net
www.neabscobaptist.org
www.vueaudio.com