The most impressive structure in Ocean Grove, NJ, and the center of the community’s activity is the Great Auditorium.
Described by many as an “upside down version of Noah’s Ark,” the Great Auditorium at the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association features an elaborate wood finished, arched ceiling and stunning wood work throughout.
Built in 1894 by shipbuilders, the Great Auditorium is roughly the size of a football field and seats 6,500 people. During the summer season, the facility performs double duty – serving both as a concert venue and as the worship center for the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association’s Sunday worship services.
The ministry organization’s mission is to provide opportunities for spiritual birth, growth, and renewal in a Christian seaside setting, with the Great Auditorium inspiring in and of itself.
Egg Harbor Township, NJ-based ACIR Professional, a full service production company handling audio, video, lighting, staging, backline, and sound system consultation and design services for the concert and special events markets, was contracted to design and deploy the Great Auditorium’s sound system for the 2009 summer season.
Ed DiBona, who along with partners John Grasso and Tom Young operates ACIR, discussed the challenges of the project.
“Inside, the Great Auditorium is almost as wide as it is deep,” stated DiBona. “The main floor features theater-style seating that slopes up toward the side walls.
“There is also a large wraparound, U-shaped balcony that extends from one side of the stage/altar area all the way around the room’s perimeter to the opposite side of the stage. Interior dimensions are 173 feet long by 160 feet wide with a ceiling height of about 50 feet.”
“As a house of worship,” DiBona continued, “room aesthetics were extremely important, so church management wanted a very clean sound system setup that did not interfere with the line of sight to the altar. At the same time, we needed to install a system that could serve double duty for both concerts and worship services.
“As a result, the ability to change the room over from a Saturday evening concert venue to a Sunday worship center added to the complexity of the project. Further, all that wood, the hard, reflective surfaces throughout the space, required serious room tuning and time alignment of the sound system. Without this, we knew that a loud concert could get pretty ugly – quickly.”
Mains & Delay
The sound system employed two sets of line arrays, one for the left-right mains and another for left-right delay. The primary system consisted of self-powered TrueLine models from WorxAudio Technologies.
Both left-right main arrays included a single TrueLine 215ST-P powered subwoofer at the top followed by seven TrueLine V8T-PMD1 full-range elements. These clusters were positioned about 8 feet out from the front left and right edges of the stage and flown at a height of 37 ft. to the bumper (top).
The V8T-PMD1 is an ultra-compact, two-way line array loudspeaker, while the 215ST-P is a compact sub bass system utilizing dual direct radiating 15-inch, 2,400-watt cone drivers in a tuned enclosure.
For front fill, the ACIR crew deployed two WorxAudio TrueLine V8T-PMD1 elements at the left and right front edges of the stage and placed one of the company’s new, compact X1M-P line array loudspeaker modules in the front center. The X1M-P offers a unique angle design, featuring one side that is flat with a 90-degree angle to the floor – facing directly out at the audience. Combined with 10-degree vertical dispersion and unusually broad 160-degree horizontal pattern, it is a solid choice for use as a front fill.
ACIR also placed several proprietary, in-house branded enclosures at the Great Auditorium, including six double 18-inch subwoofers for low-frequency support. These were arranged three cabinets per side and ground stacked on the main floor adjacent to the edge of the stage.
For stage monitors, ACIR used 20 of its model 152 enclosures - two for choir fills, another two for outfills plus an additional 16 available as required for both concerts and worship services. Power for these systems was provided by a combination of Crown Audio Macro-Tech MA-3600VZ and d&b audiotechnik D12 amplifiers. There were no sidefills due to line of sight considerations.
The delay system, with both left-right arrays positioned three-quarters of the way back into the room and flown 27 feet above the main floor, focused on the balcony areas.
For this application, the ACIR crew flew WorxAudio Technologies X3-P self-powered line arrays. These “all-in-one” compact enclosures incorporate three modules, each with a medium format, 1-inch exit compression driver paired with dual 8-inch cone transducers.
Tannoy V12 installation loudspeakers provided the under-balcony fills. A total of six enclosures – two to each zone – were split among three zones.
Management, Consoles & Mics
At the conclusion of each Saturday evening concert, which included performances by the Oak Ridge Boys, The Music of Abba, contemporary Christian artist Steven Curtis Chapman, Air Supply, and others, the front extension to the stage/altar area needed to be pulled in order to prepare the venue for Sunday morning services.
Similarly, the front of house console was pulled and, in its place, the church sound crew placed its own mixing console. This situation required the ACIR crew to devise an effective means of swapping consoles while retaining the room tuning and delay settings of the loudspeaker systems.
“Hugh Sarvis of WorxAudio Technologies, Tom Young, and I spent considerable time adjusting the equalization and delay settings for this room,” explained DiBona. “The delay clusters, under-balcony fills – everything – were EQ’d precisely and time-aligned very carefully, measuring all the way back to where the pipe organ resides, since we figured this would typically be where the drum sets would be positioned for most shows.
“Hugh brought in his TEF analyzer and worked closely with Tom to utilize ETCs (energy time curves) to precisely set delay zones, while Tom programmed them into a Yamaha DME24N digital mixing engine, which served as the loudspeaker management system. The DME24N ensured the system’s sound quality remained consistent for both Sunday services and the concerts.”
“All the various loudspeaker zones were connected to this processor,” DiBona continued. “This was a good starting point for any engineer coming into this space, and the arrangement also enabled both ACIR and the church crew to maintain a consistent room sound from week to week. The front of house console could quickly be disconnected and the church’s sound crew then made a simple connection into the processor with their board. Everything else remained in place.”
Located approximately 130 feet out from the stage at the rear center of the hall and under the lip of the balcony, the house mix position housed a Yamaha PM5D-RH digital mixing console.
This console served as the main mixer for the Saturday evening concerts and was alternately manned by DiBona, Tom Young, and John Grasso, who frequently assisted the mix engineers that traveled with the performing artists. While channel counts varied from act to act, DiBona reports that 40 channels was an average channel count for these concerts.
For Sunday services, the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association’s own sound crew consisting of Fred Truntz and Fred Steelman manned the Front of House position. Once the Yamaha PM5D-RH was pulled, the church’s crew replaced it with a 24-channel Soundcraft Delta analog mixer.
“The guys at ACIR did a great job with the entire sound system,” said Truntz. “By setting up all the system EQ and delay with the Yamaha DME24N, all we had to do was patch the master outs from our board into the processor and we were ready to go. The sound quality was excellent and consistent from week to week.
“The entire ACIR crew was a pleasure to work with, and Ed DiBona was very thoughtful and helpful throughout the entire season. For that first Sunday service, Ed was there to ensure that our console was correctly patched into the house sound system. We were very pleased with the entire outcome of this endeavor.”
Another Yamaha PM5D-RH console resided at monitor world, which was positioned adjacent to stage right. Similarly, DiBona and Grasso shared mixing chores. Like the house console, the monitor console was pulled each Saturday evening. This was accomplished using a regular direct split, with the snake and stage boxes remaining with the installation, making it easy to re-patch the console into the system each week.
ACIR provided a variety of microphones. Eight channels of new Sennheiser Evolution G3 series wireless systems were made available, while cabled mics were chosen from a variety of equipment manufacturers, including Heil Sound, Shure, Audio-Technica, and Sennheiser, as specified by the various artist riders.
The Best Compliment
With the summer season at the Great Auditorium now complete, all reports indicate that ACIR’s handling of the sound system was a huge success. Jonathan Quitt, Technical Director for the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association, commented on the system’s performance. “This was the first year that ACIR Professional handled the sound reinforcement system for us,” Quitt said, “and I can honestly say everyone in our organization was very impressed.
“Sound quality was consistent throughout the hall – without any dropouts – and both speech intelligibility and music reproduction sounded very natural. Further, the entire ACIR staff was courteous and professional. As we move forward with subsequent seasons, I envision us working together for quite some time.”
R. Maxwell is a freelance technical audio writer.
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