Bethany recently took possession of a former health club building and required some extensive remodeling to be conducive for church activities. The entry foyer leads directly to this new sanctuary designed as a room within a room. Two layers of drywall on common walls will dampen leakage into adjacent classrooms and offices, while the undulated rear wall was specially designed to provide a more diffusive surface for low and mid frequencies. As a cost-effective client choice, the space between all of the ceiling I-beam girders and purlin grids will be filled with R-30 batting encapsulated in microperforated black vinyl, and selected fabric covered panels were applied on the side and back walls. A distributed four cabinet loudspeaker system consisting of Electro-Voice Xi1152A's coupled with under-stage mounted subs was specifically tuned in EASE for both excellent voice articulation and contemporary music reproduction for each seating area.

I worked with the client and the architect on the building materials, room shape and modeled the room using EASE to achieve a 1.3 second reverb time by recommending several unique acoustical designs for the room including multiple 'Putnam' traps placed into wall cavities for extreme low frequency energy absorption.

The worship space is designed much like a black box theater and gives the church ultimate flexibility in the presentations they can produce. Every detail from HVAC to sound to site lines was closely studied and balanced with the budget to produce the final product.

Bethel had an octagonal floorplan which reflected and focused most of the energy into the center of the room, so I designed undulated mid/high absorbtion for the walls with hard rear surfaces and then trapped the low frequency energy in the suspended cloud system in the ceiling. I also recommended acoustical texturing for the exposed upper surfaces of the wallboard and into the clerestory. Then the sound system was designed and arrayed for the best coverage even when the seating areas are moved and re-arranged for round table discussions and lectures.

Buffalo Covenant was designed for future expansion by enlarging the 'pie slice' sanctuary with new walls so a floating cloud system was designed with edge capture trim to encapsulate absorption on top, as well as treatment for all of the mechanical structure above to the roof deck.

Wall treatment was added for lateral reflections on side and rear walls, and carpeting was recommended throughout. These acoustical modifications, as well as the extensive EASE model data proved to be quite satisfactory in providing a contemporary worship space and room to grow the congregation.

It will be 33,264 square feet, and it will have a sanctuary, offices, educational space and a multipurpose gymnasium. Ebenezer now has a membership over 400 and averaging over 250 in worship attendance & children‘s church, and is currently in fundraising of approximately $3.5M to achieve the goal of completing this construction project.

The project for Excelsior Covenant required modeling for choice and placement of a new loudspeaker system to cover the main congregation with exceptional response for spoken word, and low profile fill speakers were added and aimed to cover the front few rows of seating.

Falls Church took possession of a vacant warehouse space for their new sanctuary and offices and had a very limited budget for remodel or new construction of the space, so I designed an artistically coordinated pattern of absorption panels for the walls, treated the roof deck and girder steel, then proposed a serious rock-n-roll soundsystem in stereo configuration for coverage of the entire floor. The system was highly tuned and performs incredibly well for the congregation.

Hope Lutheran required their soundsystem loudspeakers to be direct and present, yet be placed as far as possible out of sight lines in the laminated wood beam and girder suspension system. A choice was made to install a cluster of three Danley SH-50's with a high degree of down angle and narrow directivity to avoid reflections from the majority split block and glass walls.

Messiah Methodist, working with a limited budget, required a full coverage system for nearly 180 wide seating that was capable of handling reinforcement of the contemporary music program as well as spoken word. A four unit loudspeaker system consisting of mono distributed dual clusters of Danley SH-50's with subwoofers located under the front of the stage.

St. Christophers wanted to commission a study entailing adding a gable section to allow them to move the chancel to one side of the long, narrow sanctuary and move a recently acquired massive pipe organ onto the existing chancel. The remodel would also move the choir to the sides and front of the organ manual and they needed acoustic reinforcement to enhance projection up and out into the vaulted ceiling.

The original tongue and groove wood paneling was also absorbing too much ambience for proper organ recital reverberations, so it was recommended that it be cleaned and coated with spar varnish to harden it. Seating areas were rearranged to surround the new pulpit, and a sound system analysis and coverage study were run.

Trinity desired a worship space that would allow energetic contemporary music in conjuction with well supported congregational singing. The ceiling was designed and modeled to aid in reflecting voices diffusely back down to the seating area, while allowing low frequency energy to be attenuated by the absorptive materials above and on the roof deck.

The rear walls were altered to be undulated in a zig-zag pattern to diffuse longer wave lengths so they would not return to the stage area and covered with acoustic paneling for high frequency absorption.

The sound system was designed as a distributed focus hung on each seating area using four Danley SH-50's and dual subwoofers loaded into the stage lip.

Abundant Life North Branch commissioned a study of their new proposed sanctuary with attached offices and educational/library facilities and is currently in the process of fundraising the necessary construction costs.

This design required temporary acoustical treatments that were effective yet not expensive or permanent as the architectural design allows for the side walls of the stage to be demolished and two more symmetrical seating areas added on each side of the sanctuary.

Beautiful Savior is capable of a full range of musical production from organ and choir to a contemporary worship band. The church also expressed a desire to have the sanctuary to be live enough so the congregation could hear themselves. There are many diffusive properties built into this room with exceptional acoustics in the range of 1.6 seconds mid-band.

The system features Danley SH-50 loudspeakers flown in a mono configuration. The sound is smooth and the coverage is extremely even, with the overlap regions between the three cabinets occur in the aisles.

Bethlehem sought to build a large modern worship space to accommodate current and future congregational growth, as well as accommodating national conferences several times per year. The design required that the roof of the center section of the worship space be raised to increase the cubic volume and alleviate some of the issues encountered with a low, flat ceiling structure. Then the left and right wings were opened up, increasing the seating complement to over 1200, albeit at a lower finished height.

The undulated ceiling center section incorporates extensive absorption in the cavity above, as well as diffusion of major floor/wall reflections, while allowing light in from the clerestory windows. Side and rear walls were manipulated in the design stage to eliminate most room nodes, and diffusive and absorptive wall panels were applied to create a very effective and pleasing acoustic environment.

Servodrive loudspeakers were deployed (3 in front cluster, 2 in rear delay cluster) for the center section, with Tannoy speakers filling the side wings for low sight-line interference, and horn-loaded subwoofers were mounted under the stage.

Rosemount United Methodist found that they had a desire to move the contempory worship arts programs into the facility's gymnasium, so I modeled several options that would still allow the space to double for physical activities. The final plan required spaced acoustic panels to be laid up on the ceiling and walls for absorption and the loudspeaker system to be aimed and energized for the best distribution in the room.

The main sanctuary was also modeled for proper coverage of a new loudspeakers to replace an old component system.

Servant of Christ commissioned a simple coverage study for the installation of a new loudspeaker soundsystem.

Saint Michael's Catholic requested a way to increase the natural acoustic projection from the choir nave, relying less on electronic re-enforcement, selecting more modern and defined microphones, and effective coverage of a steerable compact line array mounted on each side of the altar.

Trinity required a new loudspeaker system to replace the old 'horn & box' system that just wasn't working anymore. The room was modeled mostly for coverage choices, as acoustic treatment was not required. Innovox small line array were chosen to provide steerable spoken word coverage and aimed at each seating area.

Century Baptist needed a low cost coverage solution so I developed a cluster of ElectroVoice full range cabinets centered around a flown subwoofer that had acceptable intelligibility for nearly every seat in the house. Acoustic treatments included wall panels and ceiling clouds, along with modifications to the roof trussing and deck.

EASE modeling of three EAW Ax series loudspeakers provided just what the client wanted for coverage of this remodelled sanctuary.

Rockpoint architects BWBR designed the roof section of this sanctuary at multiple elevations with a very large support beam at the level division creating a difficult challenge in ceiling treatments. This cloud system was designed for congregational singing support as well as diffusion by being angled in a random manner. The under surfaces are hard enough to diffuse and reflect desirable energy, while extremely effective low frequency energy absorption was placed aboved the visible ceiling. Additional wall treatments were designed to reduce echo from the back wall to the stage, and absorb many of the lateral reflection issues.

The sound system was designed as 3 Danley SH-50's in source point configuration with subwoofers mounted into concrete enclosures under the stage front.

Shiloh required acoustical design and treatment that would provide less than one second of broadband reverb time for contemporary worship services that were in excess of 103 decibels. This required special treatment of the lower side of the roof decking, high energy absorptive material on top of the ceiling clouds, selected placement of wall panels on the rear walls to reduce reflections, and the addition of Putnam traps in corners for extreme low frequency trapping.

The loudspeaker system consists of three Danley SH-50 full range trapezoid cabinets in a mono source point configuration with three dual 18" BagEnd subwoofers built into the stage front.

Saint Mark's was a simple study of coverage for a proposed distributed steerable line array system, along with an analysis of actual reverb time measurements in-situ for intelligibility and articulation issues.

Saint Mark's was a simple study of coverage for a proposed distributed steerable line array system, along with an analysis of actual reverb time measurements in-situ for intelligibility and articulation issues.

ALCC's budget limitations required the modification of an existing single story 'warehouse' style building with a relatively flat and low roof, and they wanted to provide worship in a theatre type setting with very low reverberation times. The walls were rough split cement block which was good for diffusion in higher frequencies, but the room needed a lot of absorption in the low range which dictated that the ceiling structure be constructed with a separated grid of acoustic tile clouds topped with high density fiberglass battes. Additional acoustic panels and diffusers were spaced around the walls on sides and rear of the room for lateral reflections.

The loudspeakers were mounted horizontally to avoid interference with sight-lines and distributed to aim at each seating area. The subwoofers were custom mounted into the front of the concrete stage. The system is capable of running in mono, LCR, and 5.1 surround mode for DVD playback just like a theatre.

Coverage patterns of multiple congregation areas with shadowing issues were the primary impetus for developing a detailed model for Pax Christi's sanctuary and overflow seating. Several options were discussed and presented, with the final installation comprising three Danley SH-50's clustered directly over the altar/pulpit, with fill speakers feeding more intimately into the shadowed areas. Delayed full range speakers were modeled for the overflow and special occasion functions.

Autumn Ridge (formerly First Baptist) boasts the largest congregation in Rochester, and as such, perform a variety of different types of services ranging from very traditional organ recital and orchestral worship to lively amplified contemporary groups in this 1100 seat theatre. This required the acoustic design and treatment to work for multiple sources. In doing so, several surfaces were arranged to aid in the natural projection of choir and instruments from the stage, as well as allowing the congregation to blend well from ceiling reflections. Low frequency energy is absorbed above the ceiling space to the roof deck, as well as carpet on the floor.

The distributed sound system can be either mono or LCR on EAW AX series cabinets with three subwoofers in the stage.

Mount Olive desired a modeled study of the positioning and effectiveness of a proposed steerable line array loudspeaker system.

Calvary Church was a full blown design and analysis of the electro-acoustics of the newly constructed sanctuary. I designed intensive trapping in and above the seperated cloud system, along with recommendations for wall and floor coverings and materials.