Replacing a ten-year-old PA system in its main sanctuary, the Community Reformed Church in Zeeland reckons to be ‘one of the best-sounding churches in Western Michigan’. Key to its claim is the installation of two L-Acoustics ARCS ‘Wifo’ loudspeaker systems.
Installed by Parkway Communications, the first system is being used in the main sanctuary, while the other is in the adjacent gymnasium where it serves extended worship space.
The sanctuary system comprises two ARCS Wide and four ARCS Focus enclosures (‘Wifo’) with four SB18m subs, two coaxial 12XT fills and a pair of LA8 amplified controllers for power and processing. In the gym, two ARCS Wide and two ARCS Focus are paired with a single SB18m and LA8. The sanctuary audio upgrade also included a new DiGiCo SD9 console.
Parkway Communications’ Director of Sales & Marketing, Gary Zandstra, is a member of the church and often mixes the sound for services, along with Parkway colleague Josh Maichele, who has also mixed live sound for country music headliners Toby Keith and Keith Anderson as well as classic rocker Mark Farner. So the sound in this church was personal as well as professional.
‘The sanctuary has had issues for years with reflections that affect intelligibility, and the gym would naturally have the same kind of challenge because of the hard reflective surfaces,’ says Zandstra, who adds that the same committee-based processes of most houses of worship had slowed down acoustical treatments in this church’s sanctuary by several years. Work began in the gym first, with planning for the sanctuary system replacement starting soon thereafter.
‘The Wifo combination is perfect for keeping energy off of the walls and on the audience,’ says Zandstra. ‘Vocals really pop out crystal clear. In the gym, where the portable stage is mounted against the long wall, Wifo is able to give us the vertical dispersion we need to fill that kind of a space without any problem.’
With acoustical treatment in to the sanctuary, the church has been transformed : ‘With the L-Acoustics systems in place, I’d put this church and gym up against any performance space,’ Maichele says.
