Recent Work

Eastside Christian Church Finesses Acoustics with Meyer Sound Constellation

Eastside Christian ChurchWe recently had the privilege of working closely with one of our long-time clients, Chris Gille (formerly of Willow Creek Community Church), to design and supply the sound system, consisting of Meyer MICA, Constellation/D-mitri, an Avid VENUE console, and related items, for Eastside Christian Church’s new 1,765-seat auditorium.

The size and construction of the room made acoustics a challenge.  Rather than being locked into a “fixed acoustical ceiling,” the Eastside team opted to install a Meyer Sound Constellation System, which, in this case, uses an array of more than 30 microphones and 50 speakers (and a ton of processing power) to model room acoustics in real time.

Originally posted via Meyer Sound:

Constructed inside the shell of a vacated Boeing Defense Systems plant, Eastside Christian Church in Anaheim, Calif. is centered on a 1,765-seat worship auditorium. A Meyer Sound Constellation acoustic system and a MICA line array loudspeaker system were installed here to provide flexible sonic enhancement for Eastside’s contemporary worship band and musical events.

In addition to supplying variable acoustics, Constellation also helps lend a sense of small-room intimacy to the teaching segments of Senior Pastor Gene Appel and others. “The main benefit of Constellation is that we can finesse it. We are not locked into a permanent acoustical decision as we would have been with a fixed acoustical ceiling,” says Chris Gille, Eastside’s CTO and chief systems engineer.

Gille says Constellation’s effect on the room is strikingly apparent at all times. “Just talking with the default settings on, the room feels alive, yet controlled.”

At the core of Eastside’s Constellation system is a D-Mitri digital audio platform comprising three DVRAS processors for the three acoustical zones, plus six additional processors for core processing and analog input/output. Thirty-two miniature microphones are deployed for ambient sensing of the physical acoustics. Constellation is also supported by a total of 80 HMS-10 cinema surround, MM-4XP, and Stella-8C installation loudspeakers, and eight M1D-Sub subwoofers. In addition, loudspeakers in the sound reinforcement system are utilized.

Eastside’s Constellation system allows the main reinforcement system to automatically adjust the Constellation-generated reverberation time in response to the level of amplified sound in the room. This new capability was conceived by Gille.

“When the desk drives the mix to a certain threshold, Constellation subtly pulls back the strength parameter,” Gille explains. “When the mix is loud, the room dries up just a touch, helping to clarify detail and widening the stereo image from the main arrays.”

The sound reinforcement component features main left and right hangs of eight-each MICA line array loudspeakers, supplemented by a total of 10 additional UPQ-1P, UPQ-2P, and UPJunior VariO loudspeakers. Four 700-HP subwoofers are placed under the stage. The entire system is controlled by a Galileo loudspeaker management system with two Galileo 616 processors.

Feeding the front end of the system is an Avid D-Show digital console. Wireless microphone systems are Shure UHF-R, with seven handhelds and seven beltpacks equipped with DPA and Countryman headset mics. Six channels of Shure PSM900 wireless IEMs supplement both an Avid VENUE Personal Q and an Aviom personal monitor mixing system.

As always, it was a pleasure to work with Chris Gille and his team, assisting with system design and providing the gear for this project.

For more information about Meyer Sound products, or for consultation on your next project, please contact our Sales Team at 847.367.9588 or sales@tcfurlong.com.

Design=Success for Father’s Day Bash

WCCC-Building-SatelliteIf you have ever been to the South Barrington campus of Willow Creek Community Church, you know that their grounds are beautiful and extensive.

When planning this year’s Father’s Day event, Willow Creek asked us to design a system that would allow the music and announcements coming from the DJ area to be heard all around the perimeter of their massive building.  In addition to a huge coverage area with lots of turns and obstacles, a major priority was having as few cables on the ground as possible.  With hundreds of people walking the campus, keeping trip hazards to a minimum was paramount.

After discussing several audio designs based on satellite images of the campus, the next step was a site survey.  The satellite view didn’t do a good job of showing a lot of the foliage in the area, and it didn’t give a hint of the hilly nature of the terrain, and the site survey allowed us to refine our design taking these issues into account.

Besides the main DJ system, we had to distribute the same program material playing on more than 10 speaker locations along a U-shaped path that stretched roughly 2000 feet around the Willow Creek buildings.

With local power available at many of the speaker locations, we decided that using point-to-point wireless systems with a variety of specialized antennas was the best way to go—reducing trip hazards and decreasing setup time.

Signal was sent via hard line (run across the roads in cable ramps) from the main console to two wireless transmitters.  From there, the signal was broadcast to the other speaker locations, often being relayed multiple times from one speaker location to the next.

On the day of show, it took our crew of three most of a day to get the system up and running, despite having to work in rain for the first three hours.  We ended up making one small change to the location of one of the speakers, but for the most part implemented the design exactly as we planned it.

This was a challenging, but very interesting project to work on. Design and advance preparation paid off.   The sound was crystal clear, even with wireless transmissions over 500 feet.

If you have a live event needing audio support, please contact our General Manager, Jeff Cech, at 847.367.9588 or jc@tcfurlong.com.

A Successful Opening to the Outdoor Event Season

MS event 2013 1364Live music can add a lot of energy to an outdoor event, especially when the music is provided by a big, enthusiastic band that is thrilled to be performing.

This was certainly the case at our one of our first outdoor events of the season—the National MS Society’s annual 5K Walk.

The Exceptions, a band made up of Northern Trust employees, played three sets of classic rock and soul hits. Featuring 5 horns, a full rhythm section, and a whopping 8 vocalists, the band skillfully and joyfully greeted the Walk’s participants with songs from Chicago, Aretha Franklin, The Doors, and Guns ‘n’ Roses, just to name a few.

Better audio by design: our system consisted of (2) MacPherson M2X and (1) Meyer 650-P per side, mixed side-stage on a Yamaha LS9-32. The relatively small PA kept the music loud and the energy high for the people in the stage area without interfering with the tents and kiosks farther away from the stage.

Participants of the event could enjoy the music up close, while still being able to enjoy the rest of what the event had to offer.

Marylin Aikens, VP at Northern Trust, and our contact for this event, said:

“Thanks for an incredible job provided by [TC Furlong Engineer] Luke Walchuk, in his sound support of the Northern Trust Exceptions Band, in conjunction with the NMSS Walk.  The sound was so crisp and clear, between the singers, drums, guitars, horns, etc.  Everything was absolutely perfect.  Luke was a wonderful resource; his professionalism and know-how took our entire event to another level”

Beautiful weather combined with a worthy cause, a great band, and a solid audio design made this event a successful opener for our summer outdoor season.

For help with audio production at your next event, please contact our General Manager, Jeff Cech, at 847.367.9588 or jc@tcfurlong.com.

Last-Minute Design Changes Don’t Stop the “Dances”

Assad Brothers

Classical guitar duo, the Assad brothers, and Grammy Award-winning woodwind player, Paquito D’Rivero, recently performed their show, “Dances From the New World,” in a concert setting, and TC Furlong provided a full audio rental system, along with audio engineers and system techs.

Last-Minute Audio Redesign

The original stage plot and sound requirements from the performers had, in place of a conventional PA system, one small speaker in front of each performer, which would provide excellent localization for the acoustic instrument performers.

Our design included Meyer UPJ-1P speakers, laid on their sides and with the “VariO” horn rotated for proper horizontal coverage from the 80×55 degree horn pattern.  Several layers of black Duvetyne cloth were laid on the wooden stage surface in front of each speaker reduced reflections and resulting comb filtering.

However, upon arrival the performers decided to change the setup to a more conventional left-right pair of main speakers and floor monitors.  We already had a pair of Meyer CQ-1 speakers set up as mains for voice reinforcement, and moved those closer to the performers and further upstage than usual.  This configuration helped with the localization of audio.

The UPJ-1P speakers were repurposed as monitors and as front-fills for the front center seats.

A Natural Sound

Along with the audio localization concerns, the performers were very specific about the mix being as natural as possible.

During the show the guitars were only brought up to the level of the clarinet, and mixed closer to their natural sound level during the first part of the show when the clarinet was not on stage.

Remote Mixing

Instead of an iPad with the Yamaha StageMix app, a small netbook computer with Studio Manager was used to remote control the LS9-16, with a Griffin Powermate USB knob.

With the Studio Manager software our engineer was able to use the trackpad to set the mouse pointer on any on-screen knob and use the Griffin Powermate to control that virtual knob very precisely.  This allowed access a much wider range of controls than the iPad Stagemix application.

Gear List

  • Meyer Sound CQ-1 main speakers
  • MacPherson M2X balcony fills
  • Meyer Sound UPJ-1P monitors and front fills
  • Neumann KM184 cardioid condenser microphones
  •  Yamaha LS9-16 digital console with Studio Manager and Griffin Powermate

If you need sound reinforcement in Chicago, the Midwest, or Nationwide, please contact our General Manager, Jeff Cech, at 847.367.9588 or jc@tcfurlong.com. 

Photo Credits: Northwestern University/Pick-Staiger, Scott Helmke/TC Furlong Inc.

Yamaha CL Premium Rack and Familiarity Key Factor for Willow Creek Youth Event

Press release by Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems

Yamaha CL5 at FOHHeld in late January 2013 at the Pheasant Run Convention Center in St. Charles, Illinois, Willow Creek Community Church hosted Blast 13 a youth group retreat for approximately 1,400, produced by the Willow Creek Student Impact Ministry, with audio support provided by TC Furlong (Chicago).

One Yamaha CL5 digital audio console accompanied by two Rio3224-D input/output racks were used at front of house with a CL1 selected for monitor mixing along with two ProPlex Gigabit switches for network redundancy. “Network redundancy was important because of the high-profile nature of the event,” states Chris Wintz, Rental Manager, TC Furlong. “The crew at Willow Creek likes to have backup/redundant systems whenever possible.”

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