Following a successful outfitting of another campus, StoneBridge Christian Church wasn’t expecting to update its Fremont, NE location for at least another year. But when an opportunity came up, they jumped on it, even though they knew the budget for the second space wouldn’t be as substantial as the first.
The main Martin Audio CDD-LIVE 12 is flown over the center just beyond the stage, and the delay about half way down the center aisle.
“Working with a smaller budget, we had to figure out how to make it sound really good in there compared to what we did in the other space,” said Mike Sessler, project lead of CCI Solutions, which designed the AV systems for both sanctuaries. In addition to the budgetary challenges, Sessler said that since the Fremont campus sanctuary isn’t a modern space, like the other location, but a traditional A-frame church that had been built in the 1950s with large wooden truss beams and numerous reflective surfaces, it presented some acoustical considerations.
“For choral and audience singing, it sounded pretty good, and really the acoustic signature was fairly pleasant—but it did need some acoustical treatment,” Kessler said. He installed about a half a dozen Kinetics HardSide acoustical panels along the walls, with a few additional panels along the back of the sanctuary to help tame the front-to-back reflections. “We didn’t do too much, as we couldn’t spend a ton of acoustic treatments. Pattern control was a key factor for us.”
To meet both budgetary and pattern control needs, Sessler opted for just two Martin Audio CDD-LIVE 12s and two CSX-LIVE 218 subwoofers to cover the sanctuary. At the first StoneBridge space, he’d installed speakers from the CCD line, and the church had been pleased with the sound. “Then for this install, the Lives had just been released, so we opted for them. And honestly, I think they’re doing some voodoo with the processing to make them sound just a little bit better.”
The main CDD-LIVE 12 is flown over the center just beyond the stage, and the delay about half way down the center aisle, with the two CSX-LIVE 218 2X18 subwoofers flown over the front of the stage. CCI relied on the built-in DSP on the CCD-Live, which also helped keep the costs down.
“The reason we went active with CDD-LIVE in this setting is so we could eliminate external DSP to do any system alignment, timing, and EQ because that’s already built in to the speakers,” he said. “We could just connect the speakers up via Dante to tune the PA quickly and efficiently just with the built-in DSP.”
Ensuring the experience in this sanctuary lives up to that of its other campus, CCI specified the same mixing console, a Midas M32 in both, so volunteers can go from one campus to the next with ease. In addition, two of the same Christie LW551i 5,500-lumen projectors that are in the first space were also installed here.
Having enjoyed its newly updated sanctuary for a few months now, Kessler said StoneBridge is glad they went for the upgrade when they had the chance.
Mary Bakija is a writer and editor based in Brooklyn, NY.
