Contemporary Church Service - Sound system upgrades

[ThePoloHobo]

I've been charged with putting together a much needed overhaul of my church's sound system for the contemporary service. The service only started like 3 years ago and we've been using pretty much leftover gear. I'm up to about $8,000 worth of stuff on my list, most notably a Mackie DL32R wireless mixer, subwoofer, snakes, and a driveRack PA2. So I've got a few questions..

1) The room for the contemporary service is a large gym type thing with concrete floors ("Family Life Center"). We use dividers to make a sort of closed in space for the congregation in front of the stage, which helps with sound tremendously, but I'm curious how a subwoofer will behave in this sort of environment? Is it even necessary, or will it just be too boomy? Where should the sub sit?

2) Right now we're sticking with the powered monitors we have, using a return on the snakes for each one so we can keep the stage as clutter free (and safe) as possible. However, if in the future we wanted to upgrade to unpowered monitors, how best can we get the signal to them from a power amp? Would we then be forced to chain them? I'm assuming a speaker level signal cant be sent through a snake..

3) (Poll) I might have some bias on this, so I'd like to hear from other church players.. does your church provide a bass amp? It certainly would be nice to have so I don't have to find a certain place on stage to hear myself because of phase cancellation and such.. I just don't know if I should request one for our overhaul. I'll of course still be sending the DI out from the amp to the PA. Right now I'm considering an Ampeg PF-350 paired with a PF-210 or PF-115. It's $800, but saves $200 since a DI box wouldn't be needed.

Edit: Also considering a BA-210v2 at $400

Thank you in advance for your input!

 

[JohnMCA72]

I've been charged with putting together a much needed overhaul of my church's sound system for the contemporary service. The service only started like 3 years ago and we've been using pretty much leftover gear. I'm up to about $8,000 worth of stuff on my list, most notably a Mackie DL32R wireless mixer, subwoofer, snakes, and a driveRack PA2. So I've got a few questions..

1) The room for the contemporary service is a large gym type thing with concrete floors ("Family Life Center"). We use dividers to make a sort of closed in space for the congregation in front of the stage, which helps with sound tremendously, but I'm curious how a subwoofer will behave in this sort of environment? Is it even necessary, or will it just be too boomy? Where should the sub sit?

I think that one of the best, & mostly un-sung, values of subwoofers if for all that they allow to be taken out of the tops. There's a heck of a lot of energy in that low end & any other speaker(s) is going to sound & work a lot better without having to deal with it. The sub itself doesn't have to be boomy. You should have any number of ways to control it & balance it vs. the rest of the system.

I'd plunk it (them) on the floor, right in front of the center of the stage. If it's taller than the stage is high (or even if it isn't, but fairly close) just put a wedge on top of it & reclaim a couple square feet of stage space. Low-frequency sounds are pretty much omnidirectional, so there's no real need to aim it. Off to either side is going to give different sides of the room considerably different levels due to distance & probably produce some phasing issues relative to the tops in different parts of the room. Center, it'll cover the room more-or-less evenly & sound will appear to come from where the action is.

2) Right now we're sticking with the powered monitors we have, using a return on the snakes for each one so we can keep the stage as clutter free (and safe) as possible. However, if in the future we wanted to upgrade to unpowered monitors, how best can we get the signal to them from a power amp? Would we then be forced to chain them? I'm assuming a speaker level signal cant be sent through a snake..

Get your signals to the power amps' inputs the same way you do now. Power amps should be as close as possible to the speaker(s) they're driving. I'm not sure what you mean by "chaining". If you mean connecting multiple monitors in parallel to power amps' output, you'll need to be mindful of the impedance you're presenting to the amp(s) & what they can handle. Personally, I love powered speakers, especially for use as stage monitors. You can daisy-chain inputs indefinitely, the power amp is about as close to the speaker as it can possibly get, & you don't have to worry about matching impedance.

Don't even think about sending a speaker-level signal down a conventional audio snake.

3) (Poll) I might have some bias on this, so I'd like to hear from other church players.. does your church provide a bass amp? It certainly would be nice to have so I don't have to find a certain place on stage to hear myself because of phase cancellation and such.. I just don't know if I should request one for our overhaul. I'll of course still be sending the DI out from the amp to the PA. Right now I'm considering an Ampeg PF-350 paired with a PF-210 or PF-115. It's $800, but saves $200 since a DI box wouldn't be needed.

Edit: Also considering a BA-210v2 at $400

Thank you in advance for your input!

Providing an amp on stage doesn't remove the need for a DI (or a mic). You'll still want to get the bass signal into the PA. If it were me, I'd provide an amp but not expect it to cover the whole house.

 

[praisegig]

My $.02 on your question #3. I would prefer to send bass input through a DI to FOH. Less stage volume to have bouncing around , creating mud. Then use that money for a good wireless IEM system, allowing you to move anywhere on stage.

I tried all kinds of combo of amps, speaker monitors (passive and powered), on stage mixer for hardwired IEM monitoring, nothing worked on our platform to have a solid bass volume that I could hear. Others instruments and voices always canceled out the bass. Since I don't move very far during service, I purchased a Rolls PM351 "more me box" and haven't looked back since.

 

[ThePoloHobo]

Providing an amp on stage doesn't remove the need for a DI (or a mic). You'll still want to get the bass signal into the PA. If it were me, I'd provide an amp but not expect it to cover the whole house.

My $.02 on your question #3. I would prefer to send bass input through a DI to FOH.

I'll of course still be sending the DI out from the amp to the PA.

 

[4Mal]

I would point you to the Presonus rm-32 rather than the Mackie DL. Same price point and offers you the possibility of a control surface later. I have Presonus SL mixers in my sound co and use a Mackie DL 1608 in my personal system. I like 'em both for different reasons. In your scenario, until Mackie has a control surface, Presonus get's the edge.

I have done plenty of ampless gig's with a QSC K12 monitor and a personal mix. Works fine up to a point volume wise. IMO for church that would be a valid approach. Use something like a Zoom B3 for color and a Radial Pro DI for $100

Passive monitors down the road... Not sure why you'd consider them an upgrade but if you have the sends, then hide a 4 channel amp like the DCM-2004 in a shallow rack on stage. Remember that you can use any unused mic chanel's in your signal snake as sends with a 'gender bender' adaptor. You can also and DMX down the snake as well.

You are correct - don't try to send speaker level down the signal snake. Bad stuff will happen...you want your amps close to the speakers anyway...

As far as the sub placement is concerned, that is too room specific to be answerable here. When it comes to your tops, Iwould have them off to the sides, tipped forward and toed into the middle. The ideas is to focus acoustic energy on the crowd and keep it off the side and back walls. How far you toe in depends on the horizontal dispersion of your speakers. If it were me I'd be using 60 by 40 or 75 degree conical spreads...

Gobo's behind the performers will help contain the bounce off the wall behind them. Nice colored burlap to fancy them up...

 

[Growlmonkee]

Most bass players have a bass amp, or preamp, suitable for the gigs they play, imo providing a good DI is a better idea. My opinion might be influenced by the fact that my church provided a large, high powered bass rig, that sounds terrible, where we play, (it's in a closet somewhere), My sound man, band, director, and myself prefer my gear, our 2 guitar players use their own gear, the only good thing is that they only wasted money on a bass rig, (didn't buy guitar rigs) . Of course you could surely choose a better setup than they did, chances are your bass player, or players, can come up with a suitable bass setup, (possibly just a good preamp) they will like better.

 

[Eric_71]

2) You will likely want a power amp either in a rack on the side of the stage or just off the stage. You can still send the feed through the snake return, just needs to go into that monitor power amp first.

3) Unless you are going to be using IEMs of some sort, I would probably prefer an amp for monitoring. I've had terrible luck with floor wedges, as a lot of them just don't do bass all that well at band volumes. If you are going silent stage eventually with IEMs, e-drums, etc. then a bass amp is unnecessary, but that's not the impression I got from your post.

 

[ThePoloHobo]

Yeah, we're not using IEM's. Thought about when looking into this upgrade, but with the ever changing size of the band and such, it would just be too expensive. Our church ain't loaded lol

I've been playing there a while and I want an amp there because I have to move around until I find a place on the stage where I can hear myself. Especially since I don't really have my own monitor.

 

[Barisaxman]

I've been charged with putting together a much needed overhaul of my church's sound system for the contemporary service. The service only started like 3 years ago and we've been using pretty much leftover gear. I'm up to about $8,000 worth of stuff on my list, most notably a Mackie DL32R wireless mixer, subwoofer, snakes, and a driveRack PA2. So I've got a few questions..

What is your FOH speaker set up currently? I'm wondering if a driverack is a waste of cash but can't tell without some detail on the other components.

1) Subs - for contemporary, certainly. As has been mentioned, center is best for placement. The "boominess" of the subs are going to be a direct result of the "room" and how you have them EQ'd. It's really a matter of EQ'ing them to work with the room and the frequencies you are sending to them. Put them on aux send so you can tailor the content and the EQ for just the subs, and then it's a matter of tuning them to your space.

2) I wouldn't seek to "upgrade" to unpowered/passive monitors. There's plenty of outstanding options at all price points that I don't think there's a great reason to go passive unless it's what you already have or you already have a significant investment in power amps for monitors that you want to re-purpose, which it would seem you do not.

3) Given well-implemented subs, a nice DI is just fine. You can probably get enough in the monitors (in-ears makes all of this easier) to suffice. If you do wish to provide an amp, I'd look at something just big enough to be a personal monitor and not intended to cover the whole space. Side wash it if you want everyone on stage to hear bass without it being in the monitors. If no in-ears are in play, first priority is get it pointed at the bass player's ears via an amp stand or other method so that excessive volume isn't needed. That will make your FOH person's job much easier. The team I play on is all in-ears, so I generally just plug into the DI provided, or use my pedal board and preamp (with DI). In-ears makes it all easy but is also an uncomfortable change for a lot of players.

 

[ThePoloHobo]

Well, like I said, we're using leftover gear, which consists of an old Yamaha 12 channel powered mixer (which isn't enough channels.. two signals have to be combined ), sitting in the front of the stage so it's accessible for the praise team leader, and so everything reaches it. 15" mains, and some powered monitors. And yes, the amp choices are modest. I was looking at an ampeg BA115 or 210.

 

[ThePoloHobo]

The problem with the powered monitors is there's not power boxes on the stage because whoever designed it had no idea what was needed. There's not even crawl space access, we'll have to cut one to run the snakes.

 

[Barisaxman]

The problem with the powered monitors is there's not power boxes on the stage because whoever designed it had no idea what was needed. There's not even crawl space access, we'll have to cut one to run the snakes.

Definitely could be a recipe for passive, then since power distribution can be a pain. Could look into siamese power/signal cables if your power distribution will be in one place, but they are a bit pricey.

Pro Co EC9-25 Siamese Twin XLRF-XLRM Audio Cable + IEC Power Cable - 25'

Since you are mostly "mobile" in that you probably have full setup/strike of equipment for each service, being able to locate power amps in a rack with your mixer may allow you to simply roll out one case, run speaker cable, and be done with FOH setup. Passive could be slightly more desirable in not having to run as much power cable, unless you use something like the above to make it essentially one "run".

 

[michael_t]

I'd like to hear from other church players.. does your church provide a bass amp? It certainly would be nice to have so I don't have to find a certain place on stage to hear myself because of phase cancellation and such.. I just don't know if I should request one for our overhaul. I'll of course still be sending the DI out from the amp to the PA. Right now I'm considering an Ampeg PF-350 paired with a PF-210 or PF-115.

My church has provided the SansAmp BDDI for the bass player and Aviom monitors for all the band members. In an effort to keep the stage volume to a minimum level, they've been dead against the idea of having a bass amp on stage. Our resident audio tech refused to even bring up the subject.

Meanwhile, I've been playing in church for a little over two years now and one thing I've always hated is the idea of having to be hooked up to the Aviom monitor via headphones/earbuds. I've always found it too restrictive and felt it isolated me too much from the live stage sound. So, I went on a personal campaign, trying to promote the idea of having a small bass amp for my personal monitor.

Since I've invested in a few pieces of "budget bass gear" for myself in the last few months, I finally managed to convince them it would be worth experimenting to see what would work and what wouldn't.

So, here I am with my VT Bass DI (going direct to FOH), while running the parallel output to my GK MB200 with a Peavey HL210, for the very first time in church just this past weekend... I was almost ecstatic when we learned this little setup caused absolutely no issues for the audio tech, or any other member of the band on stage, and I was able to hear myself clearly without the earbuds!

So, that's my personal story about how having a real bass amp as my stage monitor made the whole experience so much more enjoyable...at least for me.

This is why I do like your idea of having an Ampeg PF350 with a PF-210.

 

[s0c9]

My church has provided the SansAmp BDDI for the bass player and Aviom monitors for all the band members. In an effort to keep the stage volume to a minimum level, they've been dead against the idea of having a bass amp on stage. Our resident audio tech refused to even bring up the subject.

Same at our church.. I'm DI via the sansamp and monitor via Aviom and my own IEM buds.
Everybody but lead guitar goes direct and that is mic'ed off an amp, sitting off to the side of the stage - 'cuz you know guitar players.
Other than that, ampless on stage with a drum shield around the drums.

I mostly play bass there, but on occasion have played guitar and bright my AxeFx unit.. DI into House, no amp, monitor via Aviom.
Head tech loved it and asked why the heck others didn't bring something like that so there wasn't an amp blaring off the stage!

 

[Eric_71]

Same at our church.. I'm DI via the sansamp and monitor via Aviom and my own IEM buds.
Everybody but lead guitar goes direct and that is mic'ed off an amp, sitting off to the side of the stage - 'cuz you know guitar players.
Other than that, ampless on stage with a drum shield around the drums.

I mostly play bass there, but on occasion have played guitar and bright my AxeFx unit.. DI into House, no amp, monitor via Aviom.
Head tech loved it and asked why the heck others didn't bring something like that so there wasn't an amp blaring off the stage!

Yup. I use a Pod when I play guitar at church and wonder why people feel the need to mic their amps. It's not a bar gig -- churches are typically set up for the DI thing and it makes everything more simple.

However, for the OP since they are using stage wedges, it complicates things. I do agree with whoever said that he should look for something smaller rather than providing the bass reinforcement in the form of the amp. Depending on where the sub sits, that would also help as a monitor. At one place where I played, the sub was basically behind the drummer. There were crossover problems there with the sub, but when it did work it acted like a big monitor for me on bass.

 

[ThePoloHobo]

Definitely could be a recipe for passive, then since power distribution can be a pain. Could look into siamese power/signal cables if your power distribution will be in one place, but they are a bit pricey.

Pro Co EC9-25 Siamese Twin XLRF-XLRM Audio Cable + IEC Power Cable - 25'

Since you are mostly "mobile" in that you probably have full setup/strike of equipment for each service, being able to locate power amps in a rack with your mixer may allow you to simply roll out one case, run speaker cable, and be done with FOH setup. Passive could be slightly more desirable in not having to run as much power cable, unless you use something like the above to make it essentially one "run".

lol @ the over priced twin power cable/XLR... Couldn't the exact same thing be accomplished with a long power cord and zip ties or tape? But I hadn't thought of that before, so good you brought it up! I'm gonna try it.

And no, this system will stay set up more often than not. Pretty much only when there's some big youth event going on where they need the stage for a play or something and the bi-annual rummage sale that we have to clear the stage. The maintenance dude keeps it pretty locked up. I should also note that this church has a total of ~300 members, most of which are quite old and go to the traditional service for the Hymns and hand bells. Our contemporary service has an average congregation of around 40. The Life Center was built onto the church about 3 years ago. We stream the Pastor to us live. We're working on a DVR-type setup so we don't have to stop songs when the Pastor comes on, but the transition is usually pretty graceful, as we can see the feed while on stage and the camera man waves a paper over it as the choir is wrapping up.

My church has provided the SansAmp BDDI for the bass player and Aviom monitors for all the band members. In an effort to keep the stage volume to a minimum level, they've been dead against the idea of having a bass amp on stage. Our resident audio tech refused to even bring up the subject.

Meanwhile, I've been playing in church for a little over two years now and one thing I've always hated is the idea of having to be hooked up to the Aviom monitor via headphones/earbuds. I've always found it too restrictive and felt it isolated me too much from the live stage sound. So, I went on a personal campaign, trying to promote the idea of having a small bass amp for my personal monitor.
Since I've invested in a few pieces of "budget bass gear" for myself in the last few months, I finally managed to convince them it would be worth experimenting to see what would work and what wouldn't.

So, here I am with my VT Bass DI (going direct to FOH), while running the parallel output to my GK MB200 with a Peavey HL210, for the very first time in church just this past weekend... I was almost ecstatic when we learned this little setup caused absolutely no issues for the audio tech, or any other member of the band on stage, and I was able to hear myself clearly without the earbuds!

So, that's my personal story about how having a real bass amp as my stage monitor made the whole experience so much more enjoyable...at least for me.

This is why I do like your idea of having an Ampeg PF350 with a PF-210.

Yeah, IEM's are out of our budget. That's great that it didn't cause issues. I wasn't planning on running it any louder than it needs to be for me to hear myself, and use the DI out from the amp to send to FOH... Speaking of FOH, we don't really have one. All of this stuff will be rackmounted in the closet adjacent to the stage. Hence why we're going for one that's controlled via iPad.

Why the PF-350+PF-210? At $699 it's gonna be a harder sell.. but when we're already talking about $8k+, what's another $300 right? lol. The Portaflex stack would look quite classy compared to the $399 BA-210v2.

Same at our church.. I'm DI via the sansamp and monitor via Aviom and my own IEM buds.
Everybody but lead guitar goes direct and that is mic'ed off an amp, sitting off to the side of the stage - 'cuz you know guitar players.
Other than that, ampless on stage with a drum shield around the drums.

I mostly play bass there, but on occasion have played guitar and bright my AxeFx unit.. DI into House, no amp, monitor via Aviom.
Head tech loved it and asked why the heck others didn't bring something like that so there wasn't an amp blaring off the stage!

We can't afford an IEM system and a receiver for everyone at the moment. It will have to wait.

 

[Eric_71]

In terms of cheaper in-ear systems for monitoring, I will say that I have used a bunch of Rolls boxes before, and in particular if you are going to have a digital mixer, it's a good option. You can do a lot with all of those aux sends and headphone amps, but those have the added bonus of passthroughs for the user, so you can crank yourself and control the mix of everybody else. The other option I would consider is the Behringer P16. We use that at my current church and I like it quite a bit and it is considerably cheaper than Aviom. I know this is off the map at the moment -- just some ideas for the future. You could even buy some decent cans for those who don't have IEMs and share them between personnel since they're not so...personal.

Out of curiosity, what does your typical service look like in terms of people on stage? Are we talking like 5 or more like 10 (not even sure what setup would require 10 people, but Elevation and Hillsong seem to have 15-18, so whatever)? Are most of those people DI friendly outside of the drums? This a converted gym or something, right? Can you describe how you use the dividers you talk about?

 

[SwitchGear]

Be sure to include room acoustical treatment in the budget when installing a new sound system.

 

[ThePoloHobo]

I suppose using the term 'gym' was misleading, there's no permanent basketball goals or lines.

It was built to hold large/spacious church functions, and the contemporary service. Smooth concrete floors, walls carpeted up to 10' or so. Stage is carpeted.

The ceiling is probably 45' up.

Typical team lineup:

Lead Ac Gtr / Vocals
2x (sometimes more) backup vocalists
Drums
Percussionist (Cajon/Djembe)
Bass
Keys

Here's the layout of the facility. I whipped this up in Visio, but looks like pretty much every thing is proportional to me.

For scale, I'd say the stage is roughly 50' across the front.

 

[s0c9]

We can't afford an IEM system and a receiver for everyone at the moment. It will have to wait.

I wasn't suggesting anything wireless for IEM's..mostly advocating an Aviom system, which - when you factor in the cost of guitar/bass amps on stage, powered wedges (which you can sell to offset the cost, as you won't need them) and associated stage volumes - is a FAR better and usually cheaper solution than the path you appear to be going down.
The musicians can control their mix at their "station" and be "wired" from it to their ears. Don't need wireless. You can use whatever you want to monitor that mix, from noise-cancelling cans to regular headphones to iPhone (or equivalent) buds to custom mold IEM's... users CHOICE !!
There's a reason SO MANY churches use the Aviom-style system.
I highly recommend a SERIOUS look at them.. and not upgrading peripheral equipment.
For example: a standalone 16-channel Behringer system with 6 stations (matched to any console) runs around $1700 + cables.
Get an X32 console in the mix and that drops to $250 per station ($1500).. you can get a Behringer X32 Producer (or similar) console for around $1200.. so... $2700 for your COMPLETE monitor system, plus the cost of a few cat5 cables, and you get a digital mixer to boot!