Specialising in meeting the technical needs of houses of worship throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey and surrounding regions, Front Row Seat Productions recently installed DPA Microphones at the Pendle Hill Retreat Center in Wallingford, Pensylvania, and St Luke’s Episcopal Church in Gladstone, New Jersey. Both were looking to connect with congregation members remotely.
As a Quaker study, retreat and conference centre, Pendle Hill Retreat Center required bidirectional communication for its livestream, which it accomplishes using Zoom video conferencing.
‘With Pendle Hill, members attending in person need to be able to stand and speak freely, without having to grab a microphone to ensure the home attendees can hear them,’ explains Front Row Seat Productions founder and President, Robert Bullington, who worked in conjunction with DPA Global Support Manager Gabriel Antonini on the project. ‘For that, we installed a network of ten ceiling-mounted DPA 4098 Goosenecks fixed to a DM6000 Mounting Base, to allow clear, intelligible speech pickup that complements the hybrid online worship format.’
At St Luke’s Episcopal Church, the ministry is considered ‘participatory,’ with members encouraged to join in on the hymnal singing that is synonymous to the Episcopal/Anglican Church. With both traditional and contemporary styles of worship available to its members, its clergy offers outdoor services during warmer months, with the parish hall used during the colder months occurring in the US Northeast.
‘The team at St Luke’s wanted to offer an immersive-style video livestream to its members and needed a mobile A/V system that could be used during the outdoor services,’ Bullington says. ‘We had previously installed an audio system for livestreaming at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware, and we took what we learned there to accommodate St Luke’s. For this project, we installed a network of microphones indoors, which includes a 4006A Omnidirectional Mic in the most critical spot, pointed up the middle of the chancel; 2006 Twin Diaphragm Mics for ambient capture and 4097 Choir Mics hung above the two opposing sides of the choir. This gives the church a beautiful, immersive sound for the live stream on Facebook and YouTube.’
Bullington and Antonini also created a second system for the contemporary services held in St Luke’s courtyard and parish hall. ‘The church members have affectionately nicknamed the system R2D2, and it integrates DPA’s 4099 Instrument Microphones for the piano and two guitars,’ Bullington says. ‘We also deployed DPA 2028 Vocal Microphone capsules on a Sennheiser wireless handheld system for the pastor and vocalists. We project everything through RCF loudspeakers, and the combination of these solutions has resulted in pristine audio for all participants.’
In addition to these livestream applications, Bullington specified DPA mics for smaller projects, such as a pair of 4098 Goosenecks at the lectern and pulpit at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Trenton, which is the seat of the Diocese of New Jersey. ‘That is a huge sanctuary, with a lot of resonance, and they have had very differently statured Bishops over the years, which were two sticking points,’ Bullington says. ‘The 4098 has very accurate off-axis rejection, so I was able to find a fixed position that is perfect for any speaker. Trinity previously had so much trouble with spoken word applications, and the short boom version of the 4098 has solved all their problems.’
Similarly, he supplied a single 4098 Mini Gooseneck for use on the lectern at St Luke’s Episcopal Church in Metuchen, New Jersey. ‘I went to install cameras, audio mixers and other live streaming equipment, and found that they were using a little consumer pencil mic at the lectern,’ he says. ‘I plugged in the 4098 that I had on-hand to show them how much better their system could be. They were smitten. The one DPA microphone that St Luke’s Metuchen has is the 4098 at the lectern, and my contact, Chuck, gushes about it anytime it’s ever mentioned.’
Bullington also has a DPA collection of his own, which he uses for Front Row Seat’s video production. ‘So many of the concerts that I record are done using the DPA 4015, which have a very accurate sensitivity pattern that you can trust, and do a great job of capturing width,’ Bullington says. ‘Then, I’ll flank the conductor with a pair of 4099s on mic stand adapters. Doing this in combination with the 4015s allows me to capture all the beauty of the room and the singers.’
