The newest location of multi-campus church The House in Ft. Worth, TX, an existing 600-seat facility that’s been refurbished and converted to a worship space, has been outfitted by integration firm Diversified with a new sound reinforcement system that incorporates d&b audiotechnik A-Series loudspeakers and supporting components.
“We were first introduced to the church from another pastor in New York who we were already working with on another project,” states Nick Geiger of Diversified. “We met in the late winter of 2021 and to say this project was fast-tracked is an understatement. From first conversation to opening Sunday was just over 8 weeks. At the completion of their renovation of the existing facility, the building is unrecognizable from those modest beginnings — fresh, clean, and modern.
“As part of our scope assisting them with a great sounding worship environment, our experience with room shaping allowed us to efficiently assist with plans around a stage renovation and a balcony expansion to maximize the number of seats in the room,” he continues. “We created 3D models for both audio performance prediction and to assist the church’s team [to] develop the overall room with intentionality.”
The d&b A-Series is designed to address the needs of mid-size spaces where point source loudspeakers may not provide adequate coverage or SPL, and line arrays exceed budget or impede sightlines. The ability to set variable splay angles and be hung as a vertical or horizontal can help make them more adaptable to the specific space.
“The room was a good candidate for the A-Series in a vertical deployment because there was great trim space and it wasn’t very deep,” Geiger notes. “d&b’s ArrayCalc software gave us confidence that with three boxes per side, we could cover from front to back without extreme box to box angles and achieve an SPL drop front to back of less than 4 dB. Because it was important for the balcony seating to feel as great as seating on the floor level, especially in the low frequency range, we flew one d&b 21S subwoofer directly behind each array. We supplemented the flown system with 21S subwoofers under the stage and three 10S boxes as center and out fills to address small coverage gaps close to the stage.”
“The main arrays are utilizing ArrayProcessing with each A-Series loudspeaker having its own dedicated amplifier channel,” Geiger adds. “ArrayProcessing is an optional function in the system design that applies filter algorithms to optimize the tonal (spectral) and level (spatial) performance of a loudspeaker array over the audience area defined by its mechanical vertical coverage angle. This system fits inside three 30D and one 10D installation amplifier, with a channel to spare for 44S front fills that will be added later.”
When Geiger arrived on site for the calibration of the system, he was able to open the same d&b system file in the d&b R1 remote control application and within minutes had deployed settings to the amplifiers and was controlling the system. “I put one EQ cut across the mains in the low mids to compensate for a room resonance, set some cut and CPL values on the fills, and adjusted the infra mode settings between the floor and flown subwoofers. At that point we had a final product that everyone was very happy with. The software tools really make the job on-site easy. I’ve found less is more with d&b on the PA calibration side. The church came in shortly after and played music for fun enjoying how great all of the tracks sounded, the amount of punch they had in the low end and walking around realizing there wasn’t a bad seat in the entire space.”
The specific loudspeaker configuration includes three AL90 cabinets per side deployed in a vertical configuration as mains, a 21S subwoofer per side flown behind the main arrays, two 10S point source deployed as out fills, a 10S four center fill, and four 21S subwoofers under the stage in cavities in a delay arc configuration. All are powered by three 30D installation amplifiers and a 10D installation amplifier.
“Our vision as production team is simply to creatively serve with excellence using our gifts to produce an atmosphere where all people can experience God free from distractions,” states Eric Bell, production director, The House Ft. Worth. “It’s very simple; we want to see lives changed forever through Christ. With that in mind we take our gear and integration teams very serious because of the impact we as a production culture carry in executing the vision of our house and thank Diversified and d&b for their support, love, and willingness to be a part of the building process.”