When Winchester Family Churchtook over the Middle Brook centre adecade ago, the former Art-Decocinema and latterly, a Gala BingoHall, wasn’t the most prepossessingplace for a church. To begin with ithad bare brick walls, and a fairlybasic L-R sound system. However, allthat has now changed.

Around three years ago theChurch put in motion plans tocompletely renovate the building,which involved remodelling theinterior, adding more flexible spacesand making it more practical as aworship centre. The other side of theproject was of course a completeupgrade of the church’s AV system.

The AV and lighting project wasmanaged for the Church by TechnicalManager Will Bradshaw. "We wantedthe system design to provide aflexible solution for uses other thanworship. Whilst this is clearly theprimary function, we also intend torent the space out when it’s not inuse for services. The Middle BrookCentre is the largest single-seatvenue in Winchester, able to sit 785people at maximum capacity. Weintend to hire it out for corporateevents and conferences and it hasbeen equipped very much with thatin mind. The county council uses it already."

The main hall itself is a fairlyreverberant space when empty, but

with 500 people seated for a Sunday-morning service the sound is bright,without echoing.

At the early stages of the project,Bradshaw turned to an old friend,Paul Nicholson of audio installersMidas ProSound, for advice. Paulvisited the site, to listen to the oldsound system and to help developsome ideas going forward. Paul’ssuggested solution was based on L-Acoustics powered loudspeakers. Hemodelled the system using thecompany’s SoundVision software andcame up with a design intended togive maximum benefit to theWorship Band, good speechintelligibility for the preacher andthat would also be easy to use for theChurch’s technical team and outsideusers. Whilst the Church has threeprofessionals one with expertise ineach of lighting, sound and videosystems it also has six people whoare being cross-trained in all threedisciplines to allow the system to beoperated every week withoutworrying about who is or is notavailable.

Following a competitive tenderprocess of three bids, the Churchopted for Midas ProSound’s solution.

The system installed consists ofmultiple zones to serve the variousparts of the auditorium. Suspendedfrom the main truss above the stageis an L-C-R system, which serves the

ground floor area. A centre hung L-Acoustics 112P powered wedgeprovides voice reinforcement for the preacher, whilst left and righthung 108P boxes provide some side fill for the voice. The main left and right channels are a further two 112P units, these dealonly with the music. Beneath the stage are mounted a pair of SB15P subwoofers.

The second zone serves thebalcony area. A pair of 112Ps arecentrally mounted in the ceilingangled so as to give no downwardspill into the ground floor. They form a mono-sum of the main LCRsystem, reproducing both voice and music.

At the back of the church thereception / coffee area is divided bya set of movable partition walls. Ifthe church is at full capacity thensome or all be removed to makemore space for seating. In thissituation there is a need for balconyunderfills, which is met by up to fourmore 108P boxes. These were fittedwith a custom made bracket, whichfits into the ceiling track used by thepartition walls. When the speakersare required, they are hung in thetrack and hooked into the system viaceiling-installed connectors.

For FOH mixing the Churchselected a Yamaha M7D digitalconsole. Following some research

32 Nov 07 INAVATE

Winchester Family Church has recently completed a 1.2 million pound renovation of its MiddleBrook Centre, with a complete internal face-lift and a top of the line audiovisual system installedby Midas ProSound. Chris Fitzsimmons went along to take a look.

Winchester Family Church

Tech-SpecAudio

Ampetronic ILD9 Induction loop amplifier

Alesis ML-9600 hard disk recording system

ASL Intercomm system.

Aviom A16-II personal mixers

L-Acoustics 112P loudspeakers

L-Acoustics 108P loudspeakers

L-Acoustics SB15P self-powered subwoofers

Shure Wireless microphone system

Yamaha M7D digital mixing console

Technology for worship

The interior of the church has been completely renovated and been equipped with an AV system to make it as flexible as possible, including L-Acoustics audio and Barco projection.

1046 - 'InAV' Nov07 Edn:Layout 1 16/11/07 12:01 Page 32

Tech-SpecVideo

Barco R10 Projector

Denon DN-V100 DVD-Player

Panasonic AG-MX70 Digital video mixer

Scion Technology Pro-9000 Cat5 distributionsystem

Sony EV1-D70P video camera

INAVATE Sept 07 33

Bradshaw found that it wascommonly used in houses of worshipin the USA, he also liked thesimplicity of its interface, which wasgoing to be important for theuntrained operators. 48 channelsallow the desk to be used for boththe mix and the 12 channelmonitoring system. The desk’s in-built matrix sends 12 channels ofmonitoring back to the stage, wherethe musicians can each control theirown monitor mix using Aviom’sPro16 II personal mixers and an in-

ear monitoring system. "Thepersonal mixers and in-earmonitoring have been a real bonus tothe worship groups," said Bradwell."In-ear monitors have solved a lot ofthe problems we’d had previouslywith stage monitor reflections fromthe back wall affecting the sound,and also helped them to tighten upperformance in general. Using the personal mixerstakes the pressure of the FOH desk to mix each individualmusician’s monitor."

A wireless microphone systemwas also installed. Two aerials aremounted on the front of the balconyand form part of a Shure solutionincluding label and handheld

microphones as well as a pair ofShure UC diversity receivers and aUR4S. For the hard of hearing MidasProSound also installed anAmpetronic ILD9 induction loopamplifier and a perimeter loopsystem, which runs around both the main floor and the balcony.Digital inputs for the loop systemmake for much better sound qualitythan normal.

Finally the audio from any servicecan be recorded on the AlesisMasterlink HD recorder and CD

burner, which allows the church to host it on its web site or corporateclients to take away recordings of conferences.

Winchester Family Church alsoinvested in a high-end video system.They wanted a high-brightnessprojection system that could copewith ambient light and are currentlyshooting out between a Barco R10+and R12+ projector. The 10,000lumen R10+ is the preferred choicebecause it is based around newertechnology, but they may have toeventually go with the slightly olderR12 for reasons of brightness. Thejury is still out. Vision mixing comesfrom a Panasonic AG-MX70, whichtakes feed from a Sony EVI-D70P

motorised camera, a DVD player orthe PC positioned behind the desk.The projector will be used for hymns,notes from the sermon orpresentations as well as giving aclose up view of the speaker forpeople seated in the gallery.

Bradshaw was also very forwardlooking when it came to theinfrastructure for the newly outfittedchurch. A comprehensive Cat5enetwork was installed for the AVsystem with access pointsthroughout the building in thesecondary rooms. A second ITnetwork was also installed usingCat6 cabling providing a future proofand fully redundant infrastructure.All the cables, both network andaudio, were supplied by VDC andinstalled by Midas Prosound.

Paul Nicholson concluded: "We’rereally happy with the solution we’ve arrived at here. The soundwe’ve achieved is clean and suitsboth the need for speechintelligibility and music. The combination of the L-Acousticsspeakers, Yamaha digital desk andAviom monitoring is a strong onethanks to its flexibility and ease of use. We have given the Church thebest available solution whilst futureproofing the infrastructure as best we can. We’re hopeful thatwe can apply this design to other similar venues."

Winchester Family Church

More info from:

Installed by: Midas ProSound

www.midasprosound.com

www.alesis.com

www.ampetronic.co.uk

www.asl-inter.com

www.aviom.com

www.barco.com

www.dmipro-eu.com

www.l-acoustics.com

www.panasonic.com

www.sciontech.com

www.shure.com

www.yamahacommercialaudio.com

D. Most of the AV system is mounted in the truss-work. Pictured here are the ROBE moving heads and L-Acoustics 112P active louspeakers.

E. Mission control, a Panasonic AG-MX70 video mixer controls theprojection system.

F. Left to right – Will Bradwell, PaulNicholson and Andy Reeves.

E

FD

“We wanted the system design to provide a flexiblesolution for other uses than worship.” Will Bradshaw

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