— Northwoods Community Church Upgrades House System —
BUENA PARK, Calif. — For Northwoods Community Church (Peoria, Ill.), the arts have always been central to their mission. "We want to deliver our message in a relevant way," says creative arts director, Dawn Henderson. "That means using all the arts to touch the lives of people. We consider the arts the front door to our church."
Northwoods' various venues are in constant use and are all outfitted with professional sound reinforcement, video capabilities and theatrical lighting.
Use of the arts – music, drama, dance, and especially the technical arts – has grown along with the size of the facilities and the number of people they serve. The Northwoods campus now occupies 175,000 square feet, including a two-story children's facility, a junior high Activity Center (for grades 6 - 8 and capable of accommodating 800), an atrium/lobby area and an 1800-seat main sanctuary. The average weekend attendance at services has grown to over 3800.
The church's venues are in constant use by its various ministries, all of which are outfitted with professional sound reinforcement, video capabilities and theatrical lighting. The main sanctuary hosts regular weekend services, as well as attendance by 700 adults at their Wednesday evening Worship service. Also every Wednesday evening, around 250 teens pack the Activity Center for live band entertainment, competitions, videos, games and discussion groups.
As the use of the arts has grown at Northwoods, so has the church's full-time staff. The arts team consists of directors of drama, media, music, technical and production, all under Henderson. Yet day-to-day production and operational tasks are in the hands of the church's many volunteers.
Programs change every three days in the sanctuary, and often include up to 14 piece bands and multiple vocalists.
Given the scheduling demands of the sanctuary and the other area of the campus, Northwoods felt that digital technology could help both simplify tasks, as well as reduce the chance for error. With a program that changes every three days in the sanctuary and an on-stage complement of performers that fluctuates from a minimum of four (drums, bass, guitar and keyboards) to a 12 or 14 piece band with multiple vocalists, the advantages of a digital console and recallable scenes were not lost on Northwoods.
The staff had no conceptual hurdles to overcome when considering a digital console for the sanctuary. Multiple Yamaha 01V96 units were already in place in the six children's facility venues, the atrium/lobby area, and the Activity Center. Northwoods chose the Yamaha M7CL to replace its analog console in the sanctuary. At the same time, the volunteer operators for the M7CL had some experience using the 01V96s in the other venues.
"Because we depend almost entirely on volunteers to run audio as well as video at the church," says Henderson, "my main concern was that the console had to be user-friendly. It could be programmed at a higher level, but our operators had to run it during services without the fear of a train wreck." Key audio volunteer Rich Pflederer adds, "Ease off programming and total recall were the main reasons for going with the 01V's in the other venues. Once they're set up, volunteers with little or no background in audio can run these consoles very easily."
Audio volunteer Rich Pflederer at the M7CL.
The 01V96s were all programmed by staff production director, Kirk Moser. Overseeing the M7CL installation and programming the console had become Pflederer's project. "Sound has been my passion in this church for a long time," he says.
"The ability to record scenes and set a monitor mix for specific songs, without having to go back manually through the board during a quick transition and reset monitors," says Pflederer, "from my perspective, this was the key reason for purchasing the M7CL. As we try to step up what we're doing on the stage, with an analog board and volunteer operators, there's only so many changes you can make in a 20-second transition to monitor mixes. Now we record them in scenes, and with a push of a button, we're ready for the next song."
Pflederer has four monitor sends to stage wedges, but usually uses two. Band members use the Aviom in-ear system, via the M7CL AVIOM16/o-Y1 plug-in card, keeping the signal in the digital domain.
The sanctuary P.A. system includes six Meyer MSL4 (main left and right clusters), three Meyer UPA-1P (downfills on left and right clusters, and tech booth fill), one Meyer CQ2 (center fill), six Meyer UPM-1P (front fills), and four EAW SB1000Z subwoofers powered by two Crown MacroTech 3604Z amplifiers.
A pair of Shure P4800 4-input/8-output digital audio processors feed audio signal from the tech booth via the video send to rest of the building.
Seven different volunteer teams rotate operations duties through weekend services and the Wednesday evening service. "I've been building a scene library in the M7CL for those seven teams with a weekend setup and a Wednesday night setup," says Pflederer. "We start rehearsals from these base setups." Scenes vary from a basic on-stage complement of four instrumentalists to a full-sized band with backup vocalists, to scenes for dramatic presentations.
As Northwoods grows, their production needs grow, and grow more complex too. The Yamaha M7CL helps the church handle its increasing production demands, and helps keep things simple too.
