First Baptist Church in Tacoma - System Rewire

Chris Pak from First Baptist church in Tacoma contacted me about their system a few weeks ago. They felt that the system was not operating properly and there were some wiring issues regarding hum in the system. I don’t know who designed the system but I did meet the installer. The amplifiers were placed in the sound booth under the mixer, feeding the monitors and the main speakers from the balcony. The system design consisted of a center cluster with additional speakers for side fills all located behind the suspended ceiling.
The cluster: 6 boxes of McCauley M120 speakers, and 2 subs cabinets (mounted one on each side of the array) not sure what the side fills are.
The processing for the system: DBX Driverack PA The driverack was set to a JBL 3 way speaker system with subs. (The McCauley system is a 2-way box)
The sound was very thin and I could tell that the mids where none existent.

We programed a custom setting in the driverack and the speakers came alive with all kinds of good sound.

TV Show Audio for Video

We just finished doing a pilot (4 shows) for V-Boys Productions. The show is a talk show format similar to "The Vue" but with a Christian perspective. The Show is called "The Vanessa Waller Show". We provided the audio recording for the shoot. Here is a picture of the set.





There are 5 hosts for the show and a small live audience. We mic'd the hosts direct with wireless lapel mics, and recorded everything to Logic Studio. An important thing to remember, is the format. You need to record the audio in 16 bit 48 kHz because that is the format for the video when you bring it together in post. The show was shoot in HD (720p 30p) using Panasonic HVX200 cameras.


The next shoot takes place next month. We are going to record directly into one of the cameras and to Logic from now on. It is much easier to edit in post if you have good audio synced to a camera when you bring all the footage into post and the logic recording will be the backup.

How to Build a Home Recording Studio Recording Studio

First off this picture is not a picture of a home recording studio. It is however a good example of what to target towards.



I recently was invited to visit a ministry that is in the process of building a recording studio in Seattle. They are taking 2 rooms of an existing building, and converting then to a recording studio. The proposed design is to build a box within a box retaining the original shape of the room just building a new wall inside of the rooms with an air gap. Not sure who did the design but it will definitely create problems. This setup is a recipe for Standing Waves

How Important is it to Aim Speakers?

I just finished correcting a problem at the St Joseph’s Catholic Church in Issaquah. The problem was a very reverberant space with lots of echo. In the sanctuary there wasn’t a lot sound absorbing materials, tile floors, plaster walls in a basic rectangular shaped room. The 4 speakers providing sound to the 4 seating areas were located in the skylight structure. see pics

ISP in Idaho

We just finished doing an install of a pair of ISP HDM 115 speakers in the All Saints Presbyterian Church in Boise, Idaho. We had to create special brackets for the beams in the sanctuary. As you can see from the pictures, the beams have different angles from one side to the other. Here is a picture with the old speakers (Mackie SRM 450) and what it looks like now.

United Church Complete

Well here we are all finished with the install. We moved some of the equipment we replaced (with the new equipment) downstairs to a multifunction room. Put it all in a rack (see above pics) We also brought a feed down from the sanctuary so they could use this room as an overflow.


We installed a custom plate that they can plug the mics directly into and the speaker cables with a choice of spring clip or speakon connectors. Here is the back end of the rack with all the cables neatly in place.

United Church ISP Install

We just finished the install at the United Church in University Place, WA. We changed the location of the speakers along with new ISP Speakers. The front pews really don’t need re-enforcement because they are close enough to hear everything naturally. That allowed us to install 2 overhead choir mics for the choir. The comments from he congregation were “I could hear everything clearly for the first time in years” “I sit in the back and I could hear the choir” (they were not able to mic the choir before because of the old speaker location) The choir is located between the 2 arches on the right side. Between the old speaker location and the new speaker location



Here is a picture of the old board and the new board. We changed out the old board for a Behringer Xenyx 2442 FX, and the recording device to a Tascam CC-222SL CD/Cass recorder. We installed a stagebox with 6 XLR and 2 monitor jacks to the right of the platform.


The church will replace the FOH cabinet so they can enclose the board to lock it up. All in all this was a very clean install. We also added a monitor and a Sennheiser mic for Jeff the worship leader

Home Recording - Sound Proofing

Here is a new product that I just discovered, its called Quietrock and their claim is that 1 sheet of their 525 product (which is 5/8”), is equal to 8 sheets of 5/8” drywall (acoustically speaking).
Check these videos out:

As you can see from these videos it works really well. So here is the thing, you can build a home recording studio with relatively good sound proofing without doing major construction to your house. This would be a first step in gaining a quiet control room. Remember good sound isolation from the studio to the control room is paramount.

ISP Speaker Upgrade Complete

Wednesday, January 7, 2009
I just finished installing a pair of ISP HDM112 speakers for the First Baptist church in Twins Falls, Idaho. The original system consisted of an Allen Heath GL 3200 32 channel board and a LCR speaker system with Mackie (RCF) 300A for the Left and Right and 2 Community cabs for the cluster. We replaced the RCF speakers with the ISP HDM112. The difference was amazing. The thing that I notice about these speakers is their ability to project sound and their clarity. In a narrow (39’ wide and 39’ ceiling height) room like this its important to have a system that can project to the back of the room without being incredibly loud at the front.

With these speakers we maintained the same level from the first pew to the face of the balcony. Under the balcony we only lost 3 dB. What is really amazing is that these speakers are one of speakers in ISPs monitor speaker lines. The old sound system used a delay and a small set of EV speakers for the under balcony fills to cover the back of the room. Now with the ISPs we don’t need the under balcony fills. These ISP speakers need a sub for good punch. I installed EV active subs on the original install and we left them as is. You can see the subs at the corners of the platform, they are small but pack a good punch in the low end. I used the Peavey speaker mount as these speakers are pretty heavy ( 63 lbs) and the Peavey mount can handle a 100 lb speaker.
Tuning the system
We originally installed 8 channels of Ashly Protea EQs and they came in very handy for tuning the system. The interesting thing I noticed about the tuning was that this room really likes 100Hz, we had to take it out completely on all 3 channels L-C-R. The rest of the frequencies required very little adjustment. This is by far the easiest system to tune. Mike Redmond (the Worship Leader) said that it even change to sound on the platform. He could heard things he has never heard before. He said his guitar actually sounds like he is playing through his amplifier. (he runs direct from his pedal)
Comment from Mike Redmond
To Whom it May Concern:

Wow! That was my first reaction when we turned the ISP speakers on. I had kept my expectations low because our old speakers were quite good. Unless you put speakers side by side you often don’t hear the difference. However, in this case, there was such a remarkable difference, I was shocked. Even from the stage we could hear things we have never heard before. I felt foolish when I found myself looking for a leak when I heard our rain stick playing through the right speaker!

We assumed that only those directly interested in sound would really notice the difference. Instead, the first Sunday several people (3 of them musicians who are not on our team) made a point to come talk to me and with all the superlatives they all used the same word: “clear.” Every comment was positive. One of our elderly members said he heard everything for the first time in years.

These HDM112s could be used in a much bigger facility. We have seats for 300 and a traditional high ceiling (40 ft), and the speakers are on the lowest volume setting. Even at that level we could blow the windows out of the building. Most remarkable is the violation of the law of inverse square law. One of our team members kept walking up to the speakers and then to the back of the room because he couldn’t believe the sound level never changed. Even under our balcony (which reflects sound) the level only drops 3 db.

My only complaint is now we have to be better. Every mistake can be heard! Of course, so can all the great stuff that God produces.

We have been blessed from the first day we met Tom Hautka (Soundoc.net), and we are doubly blessed that he made it possible for us to own these outstanding speakers. I seriously doubt if there is another sound system to match ours within 100 miles.

Mike Redman
Worship Leader

ISP SPeaker Upgrade

Heading back to Twin Falls ID. This time it's to fix a system that I installed a few years ago. The system consisted of a pair of Mackie (RCF 300A) speakers. This was when Mackie had just bought RCF, and had not taken over production from Italy yet.

Side Note: Mackie had a hard time meeting demand with the factory in Italy so they took over production and eventually outsourced to China. This was bad for the church. Now it is really hard to get service, and we don't have access to RCF components. I have tried to get parts directly from RCF to no avail.

Someone tweaked the settings on the Ashley Protea EQ and blew out one of the Woofers. Mackie replaced it once with the speaker that they use now, but with the bad settings that one blew up also. Now they (the church) would like to upgrade to a better speaker. I recommended the ISP HDM112. The improvements will be really noticed in the mid range where guitars and vocals live. The ISPs are a 3 way speaker with 2 x 2" compression drivers for the mid range. This will give them clarity that a 2 way system could not produce. I will post pictures when I get back from the install. I will be conducting 2 days of training for the new sound personnel.

The install that we did a few years ago really improved the sound for the worship team. I left the existing cluster in place and used that as the center channel of the system. We configured the system into a LCR setup (Left Center Right). We set it up the center channel on a separate control from the Left and Right.
The cluster was only used during the preaching and the L & R only for the worship. During the preaching and announcements the L & R speakers were turned down. Also the original sound booth was in the balcony and the sound personnel had a hard time mixing. We moved the booth down to the main setting area just ahead of the face of the balcony.