Church A/V Upgrade

Our church has recently upgraded our sound system as part of upgrades leading up to our 150th anniversary. Our old system was mediocre at best, sounding fine for speech, but sounding ok at best for music. We were renovating our sanctuary space, ripping up carpets, painting the roof, so we thought it was the best time to upgrade.

Article will likely update once more stuff happens

Organising and ordering gear

We initially got a quote from some A/V integrators locally. They came back and quoted us over $100,000 NZD before GST for all the gear, including Control4 automation for lighting and sound. That was way too pricy so we asked them to see what they could do to reduce the damage.

They reduced the size of the PA, as earlier they quoted 4 RCF column cabinets, which is overkill for our small room. They got rid of 2 of those cabinets along with some other gear. $60K. Not as bad, but I thought I could do better.

Putting together the quote

I surfed the web for gear reviews and prices. I already had a few brands in mind, namely PreSonus and Yamaha. I thought a new PreSonus StudioLive 32SX mixer would be a good fit for our church. It has user layers, scene switches and user profiles for idiotproofing, so nobody can mess stuff up. 32 inputs allows flexibility, and aptly named Flexmixes allow for even more flexibility.

I chose the Yamaha DZR series for our PA. Our old system was Behringer somethings from donkeys years ago. I also got the DXS15XLF for the subwoofer; it’s complete overkill, but it’s awesome!

I added various bits and bobs like a dbx driverack PA2 and a few amplifiers for ceiling speakers.

I even put together equipment for the A/V system out in the other rooms in the building like the parish hall. I chose an Australian Zonemix4 system as they have really easy to use wall panels that are idiotproof. They even have bluetooth!

Getting it approved and buying stuff

I put together all the equipment into a quote, made a powerpoint and presented it to our church’s board meeting. They call it vestry, which must be a traditional name. Needless to say, it got approved and I could start purchasing gear!

I had many back and forward emails with Rubber Monkey, our main supplier. I also bought equipment from other retailers.

Taking delivery

Delivery took a few weeks for everything to get sent out and delivered, as the gear was quite bulky. But nevertheless unboxing all the gear was a dream come true! Me and 3 of my mates unboxed the PA system and immediatly started blasting music on the subwoofer and speakers. That was really fun!

The slow, slow process of installation

We took a Saturday to move most of the stuff over to the new system. We still have to put the DZRs up in the ceiling but until then we are using speaker stands. It sounds so much better than our old Behringer speakers, and I think they will sound even better when they are up high in the old speakers place. The subwoofer is absolutely overkill and awesome. Sometimes I play some Forrest Frank after the service just to stretch its coils.

The ceiling speakers I got haven’t been installed yet as the really old ceiling speakers were installed in a very permanant way. A seperate loose plank of wood witha hole cutout inside thats bigger than the first hole covered up by a metal grill. I just gave up when I saw that. At least they work for now.

I have yet to install the zonemix system as we’re waiting on someone to drill into the wall and put in a box for the wall panels. What I have done is get all the amplifiers ready and wired up for duty. I have a new found hatred for those little rack screw things that go on the side. They’re such a pain to deal with.

I also have yet to install all the live streaming stuff like the AVMATRIX switcher and a ptz optics camera. Once our custom booth has been installed I will probably install it all permantly. I will update this article when I get the chance to!