One of six North Point Ministries churches in the Atlanta area, Gwinnett Church recently completed construction and outfitting for a new worship center on its campus with Martin Audio loudspeakers.
The center’s main sanctuary, named the Theater, is a rectangular 1300-seat auditorium that features audio, video and lighting technology to provide a complete worship experience. Installed by Clark of Atlanta, Dallas, Austin and Los Angeles, a key component of this technology is a Martin Audio MLA Compact loudspeaker system that provides uniform coverage for every member of the congregation inside while controlling noise overspill outside the building, which is located a few hundred feet from a residential neighborhood.
Asked to describe a typical Sunday service, Gwinnett technical director Adrian Varner says, “We usually start with an announcement video about the service and upcoming events, not all communications from the stage are verbal. Sometimes we’ll have a music video as a fun attention grabber, before moving into one of three songs and a transition before the sermon.
“Because we are a North Point Ministries Church, we’ll have lead pastor Andy Stanley speak to us on video via fiber. He generally speaks 40 to 42 Sundays a year with Gwinnett pastor Jeff Henderson speaking to the audience live on other Sundays.”
A five piece electric band (two guitars, bass, keyboards, drums) with two to four worship leaders who also handle vocals provides “rock and roll style” music for the contemporary praise worship services. The audio, video and lighting systems are intended “to break down the wall between the stage and audience and bring that stage experience directly out into the audience,” according to Varner.
“With the style of worship that we’re doing, I’m trying to have an experience that really surrounds you. It doesn’t just feel like it’s coming at you from the stage, but you feel really absorbed in it as it happens all around you.”
A big part of this experience depends on the sound, which explains the choice of a Martin Audio MLA Compact system with eight enclosures a side, four DD12 for outfills and eight DD6s for front fill.
“We have a DD12 outside of each hang for front of congregation and one DD12 a side for the back of the hall,” Adrian adds. “The eight DD6s are mounted on the subs under the stage.
“Our room is 150 ft. wide by 75 ft. deep and, as a rectangle, it can be hard to provide uniform coverage to the far extremes. We’ve been able to achieve that coverage extremely well. The system has exceptional clarity for speech and we needed a system for music reproduction that could comfortably hit 100dB (A-weighted) or greater with enough headroom, which MLA does easily.”
The audio system also includes DiGiCo SD10 consoles for FOH and Monitors, a Neve 5045 Portico Source Enhancer and a selection of Shure, Sennheiser, Royer and Radial wireless and wired microphones.
Gwinnett’s video system is based on Digital Projection Titan projectors for side and center, with Panasonic AK-HC931 and HPX-10 cameras; a Ross Carbonite 2ME production switcher; Harris 96×96 router; Clear-Com Matrix for communications; Harmonic message playback, and a Renewed Vision Pro Video Server and Pro Presenter.
The lighting system includes a Jands Vista L5 console; Arkoas MediaMaster media server; ETC Source Four (zoom, ellipsoidal, and parnels) and ETC Sensor 3 for key lighting; Martin MAC Aura and MAC Viper lights; Chauvet Tri Tour and Epix Strip 2.0 LED lights; a Pathport Octo for distribution, and a ChromaQ Inspire 2 for house lighting.
In addition to providing coverage for every congregant, the MLA system also solves a noise overspill problem for the church. There is a residential subdivision located 300 feet behind the back wall of the auditorium and building.
Knowing this would present a problem given the high decibel audio for early morning sound checks and services, the church specified walls with three inches of concrete, two inches of Styrofoam, and three inches of concrete, with four inches of lightweight poured concrete on the roof. Although this “does a good job of keeping the sound inside, some still leaks out a bit, especially during soundcheck at 6am on Sunday when it’s pretty quiet outside,” according to Adrian.
Summing up the Church’s reaction to the MLA Compact system, Varner concludes, “Everyone that’s heard MLA has been incredibly pleased with it. Our music director brings in music directors from other campuses, and he’ll always ask me to turn on the sound system and show them what it can do.”