d&b delivers the modern joyous vernacular at The Church on the Way, California
A seminal location in the annals of Contemporary Worship in the United States, The Church On The Way in Van Nuys California, and its founding Pastor Jack Hayford, are respected for their contribution in leading Christian Worship towards a modern and joyous vernacular.
With an ever-growing congregation and two separate churches on the Van Nuys campus, and a brand new sanctuary twenty-five miles north, time had come for an update to the tools of communication. Associate Pastor Mark Henderson said, "Two of the three churches were designed for purpose, the third is a renovated cinema. The fundamental problem with the two actual churches was the out dated equipment. We were eager to step into the twenty-first century and go digital.
The Church On The Way was ultimately to contract Audio Ethics, a North Carolina based specialist in church audio systems, with a particular reputation for digital network systems and acoustical treatments. Nevertheless, NC is a long way from California. "It's our first major project in California for several years," admitted Donnie Haulk, CEO and founder of Audio Ethics. "But despite the long distance between there and North Carolina they had heard about us through articles in the press, and we had been recommended to them as one of the top companies in this field."
"I had asked for references," said Henderson. "And I called almost every one on the list. I didn't receive one bad reference." Nice to hear? "Yes" Haulk replied, "Mark told us that, and it was nice to hear. When you take a prospective client to listen to an existing installation there is naturally a subconscious pressure on the visited party to say something positive when you're all there together in the room; social pressure being what it is. But what The Church On The Way heard was unsolicited, and I can't tell you what that means to me and all of my team at Audio Ethics."
"So they had already been contemplating a significant change and consulting with other vendors. After my evaluation I made a proposal for each environment, all of which involved using d&b audiotechnik loudspeaker systems, and acoustic treatment to the West Campus. I also proposed quite different solutions from the other consulted vendors, one of whom had even suggested line arrays for all three locations, a proposition I believed totally unsuitable for two of them."
And the audio solutions? "Something different for each church; The West Campus, a twelve hundred capacity church, is in fact a d&b Qi-Series line array, but with a few Ci80 loudspeakers as the fill system. There are other challenges here; this is where the Hispanic members worship, and naturally their musical style is different, with a much greater emphasis on percussion; hence the greater emphasis on low end loudspeakers, namely several d&b B2 subwoofers, in the total system. East is the largest Church, two thousand, and here we have a big distributed system, Ci7s, Ci90s, Ci-SUBs as well as B2 subwoofers. We completed West in October, and East just before the Christmas services began." And the third, North Church? "That's essentially a point source system again using Ci7s, Ci subwoofers and B2s, but with elements of distributed PA using the little E0 loudspeaker. MAX12 or M4 monitors are used in the churches, and each system is driven by d&b's D12 and E-PAC amplifiers with full control via the d&b Remote network."
