The opening of the new sanctuary at St Gabriel’s Catholic Church in Powat, California, marked the culmination of more than ten years’ planning and construction.
Designed in traditional cruciform style by design-build contractor TB Penick & Sons and architects Hyndman & Hyndman, the church’s ambition and patience are evident in its architecture.
Although visually stunning, however, the many reverberant surfaces posed a challenge for AMT Systems, the Santa Clarita, CA-based audiovisual contractor responsible for designing and installing the church’s new audio system.
Toward the front of the church, the pulpit and altar reside beneath a massive domed wood and aluminum barreled ceiling that has been blow-torched and sanded to give it a rustic appearance. Hundreds of unfinished wood pews sit atop an expansive polished concrete floor, surrounded by a drywall interior.
Like many contemporary churches, St Gabriel’s incorporates music into most worship services, with live musicians and vocalists frequently taking part in services. In addition to being aesthetically pleasing, AMT Systems had to provide a steerable system with high intelligibility and musical output.
‘It’s a gorgeous looking facility, but acoustically it presented some difficult musicality and intelligibility issues,’ confirms AMT Systems’ Mike Shelton. ‘Cruciform architecture presents its own special challenges. Typically you have sound bouncing all over the place, muddying the intelligibility with echoes and timing problems. It’s very hard to get even coverage in cruciform transept spaces.’
Together with St Gabriel’s, AMT selected Iconyx digitally steerable line array loudspeaker technology from Renkus-Heinz – mounting two IC32/16-R systems on columns either side of the domed ceiling. The pastor’s mics route back to a DSP processor controlled by a Crestron touch screen and iPad. All musical instrument inputs route to a Yamaha LS9 mixer. Both inputs remain live throughout the programme or service.
Using Beamware modelling software, Shelton configured shape and throw distance to direct sound to the nave and other areas that have previously been dead spaces. Shelton reports that Beamware helped them eliminate much of the need for acoustical treatment, now only necessary on the domed ceiling to ensure maximum sound absorption from its highly reflective corrugated aluminium panels.
‘The church has really perfected their use of the Iconyx technology with this audio system,’ Shelton says. ‘They’re extremely pleased with the musical quality and the voice intelligibility is outstanding. Everybody loves the system.’
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