BREA, CA – The Cause Community Church got its start in 2005 as an expansion of the Faith Community Church mega-church in West Covina. Members started meeting at a supportive Brea, Calif.-based movie complex.
Even though volunteers unloaded two trailers-worth of equipment to set up children's ministries, a youth room, a main service room and an overflow room in the movie complex without complaint, all involved were also eager to one day have a space they could call their own.
With a combination of fundraising and prayer, The Cause got the chance to buy a 27,000-square-foot warehouse facility at an attainable price. Through an initiative called "The Beacon Project," the warehouse was converted into a house of worship.
"It was nothing but an empty box," noted Phillip Kim, director of client relations for Platt Design Group. The Cause originally hired Platt Design in Sierra Madre, California as consultants for the acoustic design of the challenging space.
"We initially provided cost-effective solutions to deaden the walls and tighten up the low-end," Kim added. "But as things progressed, it became clear that they would need help with the audio and lighting as well. The real challenge was fulfilling their requirements on a tremendously tight budget. In fact, we built the system one piece at a time, as funds became available."
The Cause started with powered Mackie speakers that were holdovers from their days of theater crashing. Knowing that the system would grow, but also recognizing that the Mackie speakers needed some help, Platt Design recommended that the church start building their system with a SymNet Express 8×8 Cobra.
"We love the SymNet line of open-architecture DSP units for several reasons," said Kim. "First, they are ‘full-featured,' meaning that any processing block that an audio professional could want is available and fully implemented. Second, and this is critically important for The Cause, the SymNet units are affordable. Third, the SymNet DSP units interact seamlessly with SMAART software that we use to model acoustic spaces. Once we model a space, we can apply that data to the SymNet DSP to make necessary changes."
When the funds became available, The Cause was able to purchase seven Renkus Heinz PN-series loudspeakers and a pair of Meyer 700-HP subwoofers. They used the Mackie speakers for supplemental fill. It was a simple matter to reconfigure the SymNet DSP to optimize the new configuration.
Today, The Cause Community Church is about where they want to be. To the new loudspeakers, Platt Design sequentially added a 48-channel Yamaha M7CL digital mixer with an interface for six units of Aviom personal monitors. The church can now comfortably seat 900 members, and those faithful volunteers no longer have to set things up before a service, or tear things down afterwards.
For more information, please visit www.SymetrixAudio.com .
