A New Church and its' FOH

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 8:55 am

Hi there.
I posted a question in the "Live Sound" forum regarding church design and the placement of the mix position. I got some real interesting replies, mostly horror stories, that pretty much reflected my past experiences in this line of work. I'm trying to avoid these pitfalls as much as possible.

I am currently dealing with a church that's building a new facility. The current facility is a schools' "caffetorium". The new facility will seat about 300 members. Both traditional (Methodist) and contemporary services are supported. The church is supported predominantly by residents from neighboring golf communities in NE Florida, so the budget isn't really such an issue as it is for some other churches.

My problem is with the architects and their plans to place the FOH mixing and lighting booth in the back of the room, between the 2 main aisles of entryways. This puts the FOH under what will initially be a row of upstairs classrooms/offices. Later, this upstairs area will be converted into a large balcony area to expand the seating capacity to an extra 300. In any case, this means that there will only be a total floor-to-ceiling clearance at the FOH of about 10 feet. The music minister and I are pushing to place the FOH in the balcony when it is built, and we are planning to have the proper cable troughs and coduit run to facilitate this while the building is under construction.

My question is this: Can anyone here steer me to some research material
that will aid in my communicating with the architects just how and why we need to place the FOH in the right location? I mean, I have photos from various PSW and associated periodicals, but there's got to be more out there.
Thanks for your input.

Posted: Fri Jan 18, 2008 9:20 pm

moonbaby wrote:

Hi there.
I posted a question in the "Live Sound" forum regarding church design and the placement of the mix position. I got some real interesting replies, mostly horror stories, that pretty much reflected my past experiences in this line of work. I'm trying to avoid these pitfalls as much as possible.

I am currently dealing with a church that's building a new facility. The current facility is a schools' "caffetorium". The new facility will seat about 300 members. Both traditional (Methodist) and contemporary services are supported. The church is supported predominantly by residents from neighboring golf communities in NE Florida, so the budget isn't really such an issue as it is for some other churches.

My problem is with the architects and their plans to place the FOH mixing and lighting booth in the back of the room, between the 2 main aisles of entryways. This puts the FOH under what will initially be a row of upstairs classrooms/offices. Later, this upstairs area will be converted into a large balcony area to expand the seating capacity to an extra 300. In any case, this means that there will only be a total floor-to-ceiling clearance at the FOH of about 10 feet. The music minister and I are pushing to place the FOH in the balcony when it is built, and we are planning to have the proper cable troughs and coduit run to facilitate this while the building is under construction.

My question is this: Can anyone here steer me to some research material
that will aid in my communicating with the architects just how and why we need to place the FOH in the right location? I mean, I have photos from various PSW and associated periodicals, but there's got to be more out there.
Thanks for your input.

Moon,

I deal with issue like this every day (almost anyway) and I make it simple to the architect -

"you work for us - this is what we desire put it into place - NOW - we aren't asking - we are telling (somewhere he obviously missunderstood)."

It doesn't fail and it saves the Bulls**t along the way.........

You eally don't need any more than that.........

I doubt very much if you will find anything definitive on church acoustic design - otherwise there would/t be so many (and by many I mean the vast majority)_ bad sounding churches.........

Sincerely,

Rod

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 12:18 am

Wow, what an opportunity to prevent an acoustic disaster. Rod wrote one way to go. Another option if budget is not a restriction is to to pay for an acoustic consultant. People are are much less likely to ignore the advice that that they have paid for.

BTW, in my spare time I do sound for Centenary United Church in Hamilton, a 1,200 seat church.

Spiritually,
Andre

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 6:30 am

Well, thanks to both of you. I have asked for a consultant to be budgeted in, that remains to be seen. That would make it almost too easy, wouldn't it? Hey, Rod, do you ever visit Florida....during those cold winter days?

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 10:14 am

moonbaby wrote:

Well, thanks to both of you. I have asked for a consultant to be budgeted in, that remains to be seen. That would make it almost too easy, wouldn't it? Hey, Rod, do you ever visit Florida....during those cold winter days?

No I don't get away too often =- BUT - I do perform design review as a part of the services I offer - and if you want to forward me a copy of the drawings I woul be happy to review the design and report back to you if you would like.

Seeing as it is for a church I can do it for free.

Rod

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 3:52 pm

How can I refuse an offer like that? I'll PM you for the contact info next week. Thank you.

Posted: Sat Jan 19, 2008 4:21 pm

moon,

See?!?!? I told you it'd be a good idea to get up here and check in!

Rod's definitely one super generous (and knowledgeable) engineer to have look over the drawings... IMHO, you can't get any better!

Posted: Tue Feb 05, 2008 10:00 pm

1) I agree with ROD, tell the architect what you want. period. or hire someone who knows about that subject to convince the architect.

2) while concert hall acoustics is a well known and discussed subject when it comes to churches it is a lot different. First because you have different kinds of churches: romanic, gothic, modern bla bla bla... and for each type you can define a bunch of parameters (RT60, EDT, D50 ,C50/80) regarding speech and music goals. Second because you have to decide sometimes if you want to prevail speech (and use more absorption typically to achive RT60 of 1.5 s or even 1 s and below but lacking music support unless using artifical reverb) or music (use more diffusion elements to maintain an higher RT60 but free of strong echoes and you would still need a directional sound system).

For Avare and ROD...

Have a look at this link to get the idea of the difference between american and european churches (check Fig. 1)

http://repositorio.up.pt/dspace/bitstream/10216/435/2/Analysis%20of%20reverberation%20time%20values%20in%20churches%20according%20to%20country%20and%20architectural%20style.pdf

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 11:13 am

andrebrito wrote:

).

For Avare and ROD...

Have a look at this link to get the idea of the difference between american and european churches (check Fig. 1)

Very interesting paper. Thank you.

I found the of conclusions about American churches very misleading with so few churches. The USA is similar to Canada. Thinking about the churches within a kilometre of me, there are 8 churches ranging in seating from 150 to 1200 people. Ages of range from 160 to 40 years old. They are of 7 different denominations. And no, the two of the same denomination are not Catholic. Only two of them have anything that could be considered a similar style. Cool

Any conclusions about hamilton's churches drawn from those 8 would be valid only as a mathematical exercise. The data would be so widespread that no central tendencies could be inferred from it.

Andre

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 1:17 pm

Read this thread

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:39 pm

Avare is it common for churches in Canada or the US to have RT60 of > 3 s or 4 s ?

Posted: Thu Feb 07, 2008 3:57 pm

this would be a interesting topic to discuss. Most music played in Europe in churches I believe to be liturgic or organ music requiring high RT60s and probably requiring a good integibility speech system (line array based)

In the US/Canada the music played in church seems more gospel/funk orientated so requiring lower RT60...

I must admit I get a bit horrified when I see pictures of churches filled with absorption panels. lol ! I can't imagine a church organ having any inpact and playing Bach's Tocatta and Fugue in D Minor in such spaces Smile

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