NASHVILLE – Cornerstone Church recently transformed a U.S. Postal Service sorting facility in Bowling Green, KY into a satellite sanctuary. The idea was to offer congregants a blend of live elements, including a band, with a videotaped sermon from the pastor at Cornerstone's Nashville home base. Nashville's Pro Audio Solutions prescribed and installed a sound system centered on Danley loudspeakers and subwoofers for the space, which was built from prefab metal walls and no concern for acoustics.
"Everything was working against us," said Scott Oliver, sound designer and installer with Pro Audio Solutions. "Metal pre-fab is the last thing you want, acoustically." Another challenge, he added, was that "we only had 10 feet above the floor to work with for a room that is 100 feet by 60 feet."
The stage was installed in the middle of one of the long walls, requiring that Oliver's reinforcement solution have greater horizontal distribution than depth. At the same time, Oliver had to prevent the system from unduly exciting the drywall-encrusted metal that formed the walls.
Oliver turned to Danley loudspeakers to offer the right pattern control. He distributed four SH-95 full-range boxes along the front wall, two above the sides of the stage and two more beyond those in either direction. The SH-95 delivers a 95- by 55-degree beam width and has the same tight, low-frequency pattern control of Danley's other Synergy Horn (SH) boxes.
"The SH-95 was perfect for this application," Oliver said. "It cuts up close to the ceiling without actually exciting the ceiling, and, using Danley's comprehensive and easy-to-manipulate mounting hardware, we were able to just hit the back row, avoiding the back wall and making acoustical treatment unnecessary."
Although Cornerstone can switch to mono if need be, Oliver gave the system a unique stereo configuration. The four SH-95s divide the room into three stereo fields. The center field is true to the left-right imaging of the stage, whereas the outside fields are flipped relative to the stage.
"I like to avoid mono like, …well, like mono," he laughed. "For this application, it's not like the stereo image actually tracks instruments or, like in a movie, a car driving from left to right. Rather, the stereo adds excitement and dimension to the sound – think of a fat stereo organ pad or stereo chorus on a guitar rig. With the Bowling Green configuration, no one misses out on stereo information, no matter where they sit."
The room's construction and its proximity to a nearby apartment complex placed considerable constraints on Oliver's low-end solution. The building's metal frame has a tendency to rattle, and its ceiling tile frame is very sympathetic to the low end of the frequency spectrum.
"Fortunately, the church wasn't banking on a sledgehammer low frequency response," he said. "They really just wanted something that would round out the low end in a musical way."
Oliver placed a Danley TH-MINI subwoofer on either side of the stage, delivering an appropriate amount of low end without getting out of control.
The system also includes an Allen & Heath iLive digital console. It provides a recall-able front end for the Cornerstone satellite, and also handles all of the modest back-end DSP requirements of the Danley loudspeakers and subs.
Crest CPX-series amplifiers power the system, and QSC K-series powered monitors deliver a mix to the stage. The video system centers on Kramer video control with Sanyo projectors and Da-Lite screens.
For more information, please visit www.danleysoundlabs.com.
