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ERIE, PENNSYLVANIA - JUNE 2009: Built in grandeur amidst the economic tide of the Great Depression, First Presbyterian Church of the Covenant in Erie, Pennsylvania is a spiritual and architectural gem.
It is the only gothic
style church in Erie, boasting amazing stonework, Tiffany stained glass
windows, the largest pipe organ in northwestern Pennsylvania, and seating
for 800 parishioners. First Presbyterian's recently-completed $2 million
renovation returned the gleam to those aspects of the building that were
showing their age and, in addition, added an articulate sound system that
blends seamlessly into the impressive stone columns of the sanctuary. For
the first time in its eighty-year history, the church has a sound system
possessing intelligibility and musicality worthy of its magnificence and at
its heart lies a SymNet Express 4x12 Cobra with ARC-2i remote control
panels.
In many ways, First Presbyterian's cavernous stone interior complements the
traditional music of its services. The rich reverb accentuates both its
large standard choir and its celebrated children's choir. Local musicians
frequent the stage with acoustical instruments of every type. Of course, the
pipe organ builds much of its sound in sympathy with the structure of the
sanctuary. But sound reinforcement of the spoken word has always been a
challenge in this sanctuary. Separating the clarity from the muck with so
much natural reverberation is no small feat. And about that speech
intelligibility in the previous systems? To say it was passable would be
generous.
Dramatic events precipitated the $2 million renovation. "The ceiling was
literally falling down," deadpanned John Malek, co-designer and installer of
Michigan-based design/install firm with over thirty years of experience that
specializes in acoustical computer modeling and resolving speech
intelligibility problems in challenging acoustical spaces.
Dave Hosback of Riedel & Associates had developed the acoustical
specifications to support the pipe organ and updated their original sound
system design to include a 32-channel digital snake, 40-channel digital
mixer and the CobraNet DSP interconnection in collaboration with the A_
staff.
Malek continued, "The old acoustical panels in the ceiling were coming
unglued. It was messy. Since that work had to be done and would involve the
parishioner's relocating somewhere other than the sanctuary for a while
anyway, the church seized the opportunity to renovate a number of other
things as well." Over the course of a year, the First Presbyterian staff
coordinated getting all of the pews refurbished, repositioned the choir to
the chancel area, improved the choir's acoustical environment with custom
diffusers of stone and wood, reinstalled the refurbished pipe organ wind
chests, repaired and enhanced insulation to all of the stained glass
windows, repaired the massive amount of stonework and applied new coats of
paint and clear wood finishes where needed.
The church has had about five previous sound systems, none of which had
raised intelligibility beyond mediocre. "Until about ten years ago, the
digital technology to address the speech intelligibility requirements to
work with the spaces highly reverberant acoustic environment had not been
commercially affordable." said Malek. "Now we regularly use predicative
modeling software to model the acoustic space and the interaction of
steerable line arrays to control the sound coverage inside of each space.
Then we implement the DSP capabilities to finely tune the finished system
for both speech and music reproduction, as well as facilitating very
articulate, analog and digital music, including spoken word recordings."
Part of the challenge was an inability to move or install conduit, combined
with the church's request to run 32 channels of audio, both, to a recording
rig and to the house mixer location up in the balcony. Fortunately, digital
audio over CAT-5 cabling now has a proven track record and Malek and Hosback
were able to specify an Aviom digital snake system to transfer a large
number of mic and line channels through undersized or non-existent conduit.
All the analog wired and wireless mic signals go into the rack located in
the basement near the boiler room and through a Whirlwind mic 1 x 2
transformer splitter with one set of all inputs routed to a custom, back of
the chancel area, recording output panel. And the main splitter output feeds
the Aviom A to D mic preamps, and proceeds, digitally, up to the Yamaha M7
digital mixer in the balcony. There they are converted to a CobraNet
protocol via a Yamaha plug-in module and are routed back to the SymNet DSP
located in the basement rack. There they are then converted back to analog,
and on to the Crown amplifiers and self-powered Duran Audio Intellivox
DC-500s DC-180s steerable line arrays, and the fixed negative pitch steering
angle V-90s.
The SymNet Express 4x12 Cobra is combined with an ARC-2i remote control
panel for additional local control for the system. "Since First Presbyterian
is big on music and does a lot of archival and special program recording,
the fidelity of the DSP was critical," said Malek. "The SymNet processors
are sonically transparent. In addition, we were pleased by how easy the
SymNet ARC-2i user interface was to configure, install, and be used by the
facility's staff. Despite the signal complexity of all that the 4 x 12 DSP
is providing, the users simply have a modest handheld, programmable, remote
volume controller to assist in matching the needs of the service or
performance in the discreet areas of the narthex, transepts, choir area and
balcony speakers aside from the main sanctuary sound levels achieved at the
main Yamaha mixer."
When church officials first heard the new sound system, they were blown
away. "They had never heard that kind of sonic clarity before in that room," said Malek. "It was better than anyone had expected because the sheer
reverberation of the space seemed impossible to overcome. In addition,
architecturally it looks great. You have to get within a few feet of the
speakers to even realize that they're there!"
In the near future, Ann Arbor Audio will begin making adjustments to the
system in Erie, Pennsylvania from their offices in Brighton, Michigan using
SymNet's new SymVue technology and the Internet. Walking five seconds to a
computer across the room, rather than driving five hours across Ohio and
Michigan, will save time, money, and help reduce carbon emissions.
