Contact Us - Services
for both new construction & existing facilities		Home
Serving churches in the Greater Chicago area and across the United States offices in Chicago & Toronto

Faith Community Church, Waupaca, WI

by Blake Engel, All Church Sound

(below) the old sanctuary, now used for the kids and youth.

(below) the platform, rear projection screen, and speaker cluster. Notice how the back wall of the platform has outrounds and is angled. This helps cut down on monitor sound being reflected back into the congregation. My wife and I entered the service late, due to a last minute decision to visit the church and a map that didn't show enough detail for us to figure out where to go! However, upon being seated during the sermon, the first thing I noticed was the clarity of the sound. It was almost an unreal sound; in some respects it was as though I was listening to the pastor with a pair of personal headphones on--or watching him in a movie theater with some surround-sound processing. It was very obvious the sound was coming from the platform (although we were seated somewhat off to the side), yet there was a slight ambient sound sensed that the room had life to it; it wasn't a dead space at all. The response Stephanie (my wife) had was that it didn't seem real at first, almost like a dream--but then she realized she was hearing every single word in perfect clarity, as if she and the pastor were having a personal conversation only a few feet from each other. When he dropped his voice, we still heard his words crisp and clear--yet the overall volume was not overwhelming at all--it had been adjusted to a very comfortable level by the sound person. (Keep in mind as you read the comments on this page that we were analyzing the space and all of its components, we're not typical church-attenders--while everyone notices how good the room performs, most people are simply happy they can hear and understand--we like to analyze what we hear and sense and use descriptive words to try and describe what the experience is like. Rember, we're picky!) The weather outside was cool (about 37*F) and rather windsy. The temperature inside was very comfortable; we never heard the HVAC system turn on. We spoke with a few of the church members briefly and they only had good things to say about their love of the space they now have.

(below) Accross the platform to one of the rear walls. Note the diffused rear wall. The glass back wall opens into a cafe (pictured later). See the TV monitors at the front lip of the platform? Something I thought should have been done differently was that the windows in the sanctuary should have had some sort of shade over them. This would need to be a mechanical/electric shade, but there needs to be a way to shut out the light from outside. While the backlit projectsion screen was very good, we could see shadows on it from thel light streaming in the windows. Even covering just the few front windows closest to the screen would be helpful. After the sermon, there was a solo sung by a very talented woman during the offering. Her accompaniment was via piano and the electronic drum kit. The song had many word phrases that were sung very quickly, phrases that I've heard on the radio before, but never understood. This was the first time I understood the words! Even though it was a very difficult song to sing, both Stephanie and I were able to later recite the words we heard--and we both heard the same thing! At the close of the service, the worship team got back on the platform and we sang one final song before being dismissed. Having missed the song service at the beginning, this was a great treat to us! Although there were only about 200 people in the sanctuary at the time, it sounded as though there were twice as many! Everyone was singing together, everyone was clapping together, and you couldn't help but sing louder and actually enjoy the worship experience, unlike many churches where you can't understand the words being sung or clap in unison. This was indeed a thrilling experience, one which I wish EVERY church in Wisconsin, the United States, North America, the whole WORLD could experience on a regular basis. Not only would it be great if they could have such a room to worship and learn in, but they SHOULD! While the consulting work required at this church wasn't free, the money spent on the work done has already been paid off, in my opinion. This is probably the best sounding church sanctuary in all of Wisconsin.

(below) The back wall, looking into the cafe and out the windows to the outside. This space doubles as an overflow room.

(below) the opposite rear wall, lots of diffusion and lots of room for platform lighting instruments.

(below) photo by Joseph De Buglio of the mixer, lighting, and video desk. This is a beautiful desk, however I would have liked to see more knee room for the control area on the far right (closest to the viewer in the photo). Simply mounting the equipment racks back several more inches (6 or 8) and providing a light to see them better would have helped. I don't recall what equipment is in that rack for sure; but if none of it needs to be adjusted on a regular basis (or often), it could have been pushed back to give more leg room. One other thing I like to see is having the tape and CD playback and record decks just below eye level. Usually this means just off to the side of the mixing console or mounted directly above them. In this installation, going a few inches higher wouldn't have been a problem since the congregation doesn't sit behind the mixer desk. This configuration means that all of the controls and meters (especially for recording) are right in front of you and easy to get to.

(below) the speaker cluster from below and behind; also the "suspended" cloud ceiling. I hadn't noticed this while at the church in person, but the photo shows how the cables for the speakers come out the ceiling between the vertical steel hangers. The aesthetics could have been improved if the cables had come out just behind one of the suports. Not a big deal, but aesthetics is often very important to some people or congregations, while not as much of an issue to others. In this case, it's not a factor of cost to do it differently, just a matter of catching it and dressing it up better. Obviously it doesn't affect the performance of the system.

(below) the speaker cluster from the front and the front portion of the platform.

(below) courtesy JdB Sound, Acoustics, this photo shows how the cluster is put together. "For those interested in the sound system, it is a 3 way system. All of the speakers are grouped together and there is also enough capacity to add 2 more sub woofers if the church wants to. The system is limited to 105dB. During testing the system played as loud as 112dB. When the room was test with my MLSSA, the worst intelligibility level was at the mixer desk. The %Alcons dropped from 4.5 to 5.2. Otherwise, the average in the rest of the room was 4.6%. When I test a room, I test the room, the sound system and then both combined. These numbers are of both combined. The room's performance was an average of 5.1%. The sound system is powered with Crest V series amps. The cluster has over 3,000 watts driving it. The highest actual draw of power never went over 1700 watts when testing. In the above photo, we see the speakers chosen and the xover setup. As the room cures over time, the balance of levels and even the xover points may change - slightly." --JdB Sound, Acoustics

(below) The cafe; this shot was taken from the glass wall shared with the sanctuary. The church has a large, commercial kitchen nearly 1/3 the size of the cafe itself.

(below) Every detail was taken care of, down to the indirect lighting in the hallways and high-density distributed speaker system through the hallways as well.

Page Copyright (c) 2001, All Church Sound