San Jose, CA (February 2008): Because Family Community Church’s years of explosive growth eventually made their building unworkably small, the leadership made plans to move the church into a massive Silicon Valley tilt-up structure available nearby that gave them enough space to meet the needs of the congregation as well as a new worship space. “The facility is massive,” said Matthew Dow, Zamar Media Project Manager, “and includes classrooms, a café, other large meeting spaces in addition to the new worship center, a backstage scene shop, even a recording studio. Our challenge was to help the church envision its options for the long, wide, relatively low-ceilinged worship space, and then listen to their wants and needs in order to zero in on a final design. The next phase, obviously, was the installation itself, which Zamar also did.”
“A number of the guys on the sound team had some studio experience, so they were eager, to say the least, to create a reference-quality sound system that would render everything in exquisite detail,” continues Dow. “The church has a large worship band that includes half a dozen singers, a horn section, and occasionally multiple keyboard players – there’s a lot going on. And then, because the space is so large, the audio system was going to be a key component in reclaiming some feeling of intimacy. The pastor had to sound close, warm, and real from every seat in the house, or else he’d seem remote and people at the back would disengage.”
SLS’s T3R-H speakers were chosen to meet the demanding requirements. “SLS is known for studio monitors offering extremely detailed sound that’s also pleasing to the ear,” Dow says. “We felt the ‘SLS sound’ would transmit definition and clarity with all the instruments playing, and its excellent vocal clarity would make sure that the singers could be blended or differentiated depending on what the mix called for. The SLS’s high level of sonic detail also made sure that the people in the farthest corners got the feeling that the pastor was close to them.”
With outstanding support from SLS, who prepared EASE plots of the worship center so all involved could see and hear an approximation of the final results while Zamar was still installing infrastructure and working in concert with the general contractor, Zamar designed and installed a deployment of six T3R-H’s in a L/R/L configuration across the front and in mono across the rear. Four SLS FF2605’s were employed on the stage edge “to help localize the sound properly for the first couple of rows, so it sounded less like it was all coming from overhead,” Dow explains. Those band members not using the installation’s Aviom and Digidesign PQ monitoring systems enjoy four SLS 112RM-PXO wedges.
“We were really pleased with the throw, coverage, and ‘edge blending’ of the six T3R-H’s. The sound from them is extremely consistent no matter which of the 1400 or so seats you’re sitting in,” Dow says.
Upstream of the SLS speakers, every other component was chosen with the same ultra hi-fi goal in mind. A Digidesign VENUE console feeds a BSS Soundweb London, and Lab.gruppen C68-4 amplifiers muscle up the signals from there, providing tons of clean headroom.
Zamar also specified and installed the worship center’s Perform Acoustics treatments, a modest total of 40 panels to control problematic reflections but avoid the oppressive “dead” sound of over-treated spaces.
“We were very satisfied with the result of the integrated designs,” states Dow, “and the studio-minded fellas have been like kids in a candy store. They love that they can make small adjustments to some boutique plug-in on the VENUE and actually hear the change clearly in the house. They love that they have the capability to either blend or differentiate the many instruments and singers. They love that the pastor can whisper or shout and each person in the huge auditorium can hear it all with total clarity. SLS was fantastic in their support before, during, and after the installation. They’ve been very responsive through design assistance, technical support, and with tweaks and adjustments after the installation.”
Zamar Media Solutions and SLS helped Family Community Church create an intimate, connected feeling in a space that, owing to its size and dimensions, could easily have instead become a place where congregants felt anonymous and isolated. Getting involved early in the build-out and working with the client to meet specific goals and accommodate specific desires made all the difference.