Sight and Sound - Kent Morris-

A New Toolbox: Rose Heights' Purposeful Renovation
"We aren't doing this just to update our facility; we wanted new tools to help us reach our community." Pastor Doug Anderson's dedication day remarks anchored the thrust of the yearlong process to reinvigorate the ministries of Rose Heights Church of God. As one of Tyler, Texas' long-term residents, Rose Heights has seen the rise, decline and revitalization of the east Texas region known as the Hill Country. During the last oil boom, Rose Heights flourished and grew, but had to struggle to maintain its momentum as the wells ran dry. Now riding the current energy industry surge, Tyler is welcoming newcomers to its doors; many of them unfamiliar with traditional church settings. Pastor Anderson's vision is to offer young families a safe, inviting environment without a bevy of stumbling block

A Good Start
Vibrant church life is a result of families engaging in the ministries of the church. With the support of the leadership board, the church staff set out to define ministry for Rose Heights. The church determined it made sense to classify its structure based on function and purpose rather than identity groups. The new format has been a clear success and is streamlining the way Rose Heights executes ministry.

In the same vein, the church media systems had grown without purpose and needed a new direction. The audio system was incapable of delivering clear speech and wholly inadequate for the church's musical offerings. Video was dim and the lighting system consisted of a hodge-podge bought decades ago. The choir felt entrapped onstage, and the praise team was lost in a maze of cables. Worship Pastor Tony Robinson knew he could solve the issues if the church was willing to radically transform the worship space. By tying the sanctuary renovation into the overall outreach plan, the congregation was able to see the benefit a wholesale makeover would bring.

Stop the Bouncing Ball
Rose Heights faced the same sonic issues as other fan-shaped balconied churches: the rear wall created a parabolic dish effect by gathering energy from the room and sending it directly back to the stage. Tony hired a solid contracting firm with experience in acoustics as well as electronics and had them solve the problem. Since reflected energy must be stopped at its reentry point, the firm installed dozens of Auralex Acoustics' absorption panels in a decor-matching finish around the rear wall and on the balcony ceiling. With the room under control, and a commitment from the church to "do it right" the team drew up an EASE (Electro-Acoustic Simulation for Engineers) model from the original blueprints to evaluate several speaker candidates until the appropriate model surfaced. EV's QRX series proved to be the "correct" system for the room with its defined coverage pattern to keep energy off the sidewalls and its solid response in the critical crossover region in the midrange. Three large format units were spaced across the proscenium, supplemented by four frontfill speakers in the base of the stage and six flown balcony delays along with four flown and four recessed subwoofers. A total of 17 Crest CKi amplifiers were chosen to drive the EVs due to their integral Cobranet capability. Cobranet is an industry-wide data protocol designed to monitor and control dispersed devices and tie them into a central networking system. The heart of the audio system is a Media Matrix NION processor with enough power to instantly control every detail of the audio chain. The NION is more than a gee-whiz box; it removes the complexity of a traditional large audio system with its myriad units and interconnects and replaces them with a simple user interface that can be remotely administered by the system designer in another state.

Keep It Simple
The old analog console gave way to a new Yamaha M7CL-48 digital mixer. The M7 sits alone in the tech booth since it houses all the effects, EQs and dynamic processors onboard. The result is a clean layout and one box to plug in. Aviom's digital snake was installed as a cost-effective way to bring sixty-four channels from the stage to the booth. In the video realm, a high power eight thousand lumen Christie Digital DS-8K projector runs through an RGB Spectrum processor onto a custom twenty-one foot wide-format video screen with imagery provided by an Edirol DV-7 video presenter.

Lighting is now a complete theater-ready environment with ten Robe moving head luminaires, dozens of ellipsoidals and Fresnels and a complement of "cyc" (cyclorama) stage wash lights running through an LSC console and stacks of Applied Electronics dimmers. The idea is to provide any incoming artist with everything needed to perform without bringing in any outside equipment.

As Tony Robinson and Doug Anderson navigated the ups and downs of the construction period, they kept sight of their goals until the dust settled. With the new systems in place, the dedication service proceeded flawlessly and the church was finally able to begin its new episode of community outreach.

Song DISCovery Volume 73
Available Now!
Song DISCovery Volume 73 includes new songs from Michael W. Smith, Travis Ryan, Hillsong, Dave and Jess Ray and many more!