After outgrowing its previous worship facility of 10 years, New Life Community Church of Oxnard, CA has now moved into its new home – a renovated 50,000-square-foot industrial building.
To accommodate the sound reinforcement needs of the much larger space, New Life called upon Rutherford Design of nearby Northridge, which specified the installation of an L-Acoustics KARAi loudspeaker arrays.
As with most churches, the heart of New Life’s present facility is its sanctuary, which seats just under 1,000 people making it one of the city’s largest auditoriums. Arrays of four KARAi enclosures flown above the left and right sides of the wide stage deliver the primary house coverage with a single 12XTi per side to address the extreme left and right seating areas.
Four SB18i subwoofers built into the front of the stage provide the room’s low-frequency reinforcement. Each sub position is also equipped with a single 8XTi to bring the sound image down to the stage for the first few rows. All of the L-Acoustics loudspeakers are powered and processed by three LA8 and one LA4 amplified controllers housed in a 42-space rack at stage left.
“Although everyone loves music, the single most important element of a worship service is the spoken word,” says Rutherford Design VP Richard Rutherford, who notes that nearly two-thirds of his business comes from the HOW market. “When designing a sound system, I jokingly tell pastors that I’m not concerned about the people in the front seats because they’ll be here next week no matter what.
“My goal is to help the pastor deliver his message in an intimate way to what might normally be viewed as the worst seats in the house—the ones at the back and far sides—because those will usually be where first-time visitors will sit. The pastor has to be able to communicate to them as if they’re sitting on the front row; it has to be an excellent experience for them. The L-Acoustics KARAi system very effectively helps New Life achieve that intimacy.
“That being said, KARAi is also phenomenal for musical reinforcement. I’m a big believer in headroom; I’d rather provide 30 extra decibels that a church might never use instead of having them wish for six more they simply don’t have. On paper, a smaller system—such as L-Acoustics KIVA—could have done more than enough for the room, but the KARAi offered that extra 15 dB at the back of the room that filled the space with a much bigger, in-your-face sound should they ever need it. Having that level of impact and intelligibility be omnipresent throughout the entire room really draws people into the worship experience so much more.”
Collaboratively designed by Rutherford and Dan Palmer of L-Acoustics, the system’s integration was chiefly coordinated by Rutherford Design field technician Andrew Bacon and David Myers, director of installations for Rat Sound Systems, which also provided the sale of the system. Santa Clarita-based Focus Building Solutions served as the general contractor on the project.
