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.

Tascam DM-4800 can it be used as a Front of House board?

I recently spec'd two Tascam DM-4800s for a system install. One for recording and one for the FOH. After some fine tuning on the budget the church decided to drop one the the boards. We decided to use the remaining board as the FOH board and the church will get the other board later.

Now does it work for FOH? Yes, we used it last sunday for the first time with only a little bit of "up close a personal time" with the board, and Julius Ezeb (Director of Media Ministry) and the Tascam did a great job. The board is well laid out and things were easy to get to. The only thing that is lacking in the board for FOH duties is the number of outputs from the main mix. We had to use the assignable aux outs for the recording, nursery and lobby feeds. Not a great set-up because of the time it takes to create the separate mixes. The other outs provided (studio, control room large and small monitors) are not useful in a live situation.

The other complaint is the false advertising - Tascam claims that this is a 48 channel board, not true!. It comes with 24 mic pres and the capability to add more (8 channel) input cards to bring the channel count up to 48. I am assuming that once you get the cards installed you will have the same dynamics, gate, EQ and effects available on every channel as well. If that is the case then this is way better than the Mackie TT24. If the "Line Inputs" 1-24 where capable of being split and assignable to the 25-48 channels then it would be a true 48 channel board. Even if you add the X-48 track recorder to DM you still need to have some kind of interface to get the analog signal into either the X-48 or the DM. So if you bought the DM and the X-48 without any additional optional cards you would only be a 24 track setup. They do come with the 48 TDIF I/O channels on each machine but they are useless until you get the some kind of interface to bring the audio in.

What really matters, sound quality

Yes it does sound pretty good. Its digital and its Tascam. The sound quality is clean with good definition but I wouldn't call it warm.

Tascam DM-4800

Sound Quality ✹✹✹
Ease of use ✹✹✹
Bang for buck ✹✹✹✹
Build Quality ✹✹✹✹
Manufacturer Claims ✹✹✹

(Rating: scale ✹= poor ✹✹✹✹✹=excellent)

Test conditions : Channels used - 8 vocals, 1 wireless handheld, drums (4 ch), Keys (1 ch), Guitar (1 ch), Horns (1 ch), Pulpit (1 ch), outboard effects (2 ch) in this church

Live Recording & Audio Recording/Video Capture-Editing Studio

We are installing a complete Live Recording - Tracking studio for Christ Life Church in Tacoma, WA. They are upgrading their existing live sound system to accommodate live audio recording and live video recording.

This church is blessed with remarkable musical talent. They have produced and recorded their own CD's (in a recording studio) already and now they what to capture their live performance.

We are installing a new 32 x 8 split snake from Radial Engineering and 2 of the new Tascam DM-4800 digital boards. One for the live and one for the studio. To record and track in the studio we are installing a Tascam X-48 (48 track hard-disk recorder) which gives them the ability to record the live performance to individual tracks as well as another 16 tracks available for tracking in the studio.

For the video capture we are starting with 2 Panasonic HVX200 HD camera's, a third camera will be added later. The editing bay consists of a new 8 core Mac Pro setup with 8 gigs of RAM 2 x 750 gig hard-drives and 2 x 24" Monitors that can handle 1080p HD. Software to edit video Final Cut Pro Studio 2, and Logic Studio to handle the audio.

The great thing about the Tascam board is that it is also a controller for the most popular DAW software (pro tools, logic, sonar, etc.)

We will be dealing with the acoustics of the sanctuary as part of phase 2 of this project. For now the church will be honing their skills on the new equipment.

Live Recording - analog, digital, with computer, harddisk recorder?

What are the pros using for live recording (bands)?
Things have changed rapidly in the way that we record live. We used to use a separate mixer and get a feed from the direct outs of the FOH mixer to record the performance. That practice for a long time only changed slightly when digital multi-track recorders became available. Pro-Tools has become the digital recording program of choice for many years, only because it established a foot hold early. Now things have got real interesting as far as new things to come along.

Digidesign has released the live/recording consoles (The Venue Series) which give Pro-Tools users a real good way to mix and record live, of course this would be at the high end.

Muddy Sound from a Sound System with Active Sub Woofers?

Are you having issues with muddy sound from your subs?

Here is a tip:
If possible wire up your subwoofers from a post fader aux send on the board to a graphic EQ then to the subs. See diagram below:



This gives you the ability to send only the channels that you want to the subs. It will clean up your muddy sound and it will give you the ability to dial in your subs with a lot more control.

When you are mixing you don't want any vocals going to the subs or cymbals. All you want is the bass, kick drum, floor tom and possibly some guitar.

This will drastically improve your sound.

Note: The graphic EQ is an option. You don't need it for the subs, but it will help you dial out a frequency that tends to come alive in your room.