Daddy’s Blog

Last week Daddy’s Sound Solutions installed some nifty new Peavey Sanctuary Series speakers in Christ the King Church in Rochester, NH.  The job came out well and we (and the customer) are very pleased with the new SSE-LA compact line arrays.  This church is basically a-frame style and the congregation decided to face the pulpit and stage “the short way” across the church instead of using the traditional set-up.  This left a very wide space (actually more than 180 degrees) that needed coverage.  We chose the Peavey SSE-LAs for their small size and wide-angle coverage.  With a subwoofer, these tiny speakers perform very well in a church that features “contemporary” worship. 

We also installed our first SSE-UB2 “under-balcony” speaker and the results were terrific.   A Shure DFR22 was used as a crossover as well as for equalization and feedback abatement.   This was a fun job with exciting results!

With all due respect to Fred “Daddy” Bramante, our leader and Chris Gleason, our VP and author of the “Music GEAR” section of this blog, at Daddy’s Sound Solutions it’s way more than just the gear. Case in point: Yesterday we went to a church to try to help the priest and the folk group understand and correct the fact that their recently installed sound system was not “cutting it” for live music. This group is not a “heavy metal” church band by any means. They use synth tracks, amplified acoustic guitar, and voices. Period! No drums, bass, electric guitar. A real “folk group.” They should not be putting a strain on any system. They were sold 8 excellent 70Volt “Foreground Music” speakers, OK but not great for spoken word, not enough for live music of any kind.

Their equipment rack was loaded with excellent gear, including a Shure P4800 digital processor, one of our favorites here at Daddy’s Sound Solutions. It has a “user net” of $2665 although it can be bought at a discount even (and especially) from us. This unit is a 4 in, 8 out digital processor that can be programmed to do just about any kind of audio processing you can imagine including, but not limited to, equalization, feedback reduction, compression and limiting, and crossover functions. It is programmed by computer and IT WORKS GREAT!

When we attached our laptop to examine the presets we found that this $2500 piece had been used as one, 31-band graphic equalizer feeding 2 outputs. I have a somewhat shopworn but warrantied Peavey Q1311 in my office that will do exactly the same thing. You can buy it for $100 by emailing me. That would have saved the church $2400 and gotten the Peavey piece off my shelf. $2400!!! Not peanuts…and certainly enough to buy a ton of gear from Fred and Chris.

The point is that a great piece of gear can easily be a waste if it is not used or installed properly. If you need help with your sound (or video or lighting) system, please give me a call.

It finally happened yesterday. Daddy’s Sound Solutions removed 2, fairly new, “name-brand” speakers in a church and put up 2 Peavey Sanctuary Series SSE-S5 enclosures. Both the models have a 15” woofer and a driven horn. The lower cost Peavey’s improved the sound in this sanctuary by several orders of magnitude. The system now needs much less processing power to sound good and gain-before-feedback is greatly increased.

We were originally asked to come up with a proposal to add rear speakers in this moderately large sanctuary. This would have required more processing power from the system’s Shure P4800, possibly the best digital audio processor with active feedback control available at this time. Unfortunately, the P4800 was pretty much maxed out and it was running only 2 main speakers and 2 relatively simple monitor mixes. The culprit was the XO1## brand “15s with a horn.” In all fairness to the manufacturer, whose loudspeakers we do sell, the guy who designed the system did not use the speakers we, or practically anyone else, would have specified for this job.

Here are some guidelines for speaker selection for installed systems:

1. The size and coverage pattern of the horn really matters. If a listener is outside the coverage pattern, recognition of speech will be impeded. Two 90 degree horns cover a half circle. Two 60 degree horns do not.
2. As far as distance is concerned, Peavey’s Sanctuary Series guidelines mention a 60’ maximum distance for their models with their 1.4” diaphragm driver. I would suggest you extrapolate this and consider guidelines of 40’ max for a speaker with a 1” driver and 80’ for a speaker with a 2” driver. A demo of what “sounds good” is difficult in a music store or even in the ultra-cool DSS office at Daddy’s Central in Manchester. Go to somebody else’s church, gymnasium, or hockey rink before deciding on your speakers.
3. Consider a 12” and a horn enclosure. Less thump will be required as an installed system is usually designed for speech first and then music. Low frequencies travel farther in large rooms as well. In addition the smaller enclosure size is a little less visible and therefore more easily acceptable to the viewer.

One of the neatest things Daddy’s Sound Solutions offers is custom wiring for audio and video. The best way to make the stage in church look neat is to bury as much of the wire as possible under the stage and use custom floor boxes for access and connection.Â

We recently completed an installation at Granite State Baptist Church in Salem, NH where we installed 7 recessed floor boxes. Each contains 4-XLR microphone input jacks, 2 Speakon monitor output jacks (giving access to 4 monitor mixes), and a duplex AC outlet. Any variety of audio or video connections could have been custom mounted on the plate at the bottom of the box. The mix is up to you, our customer.

Compare the “down the mic stand into the recessed floor box” look possible with this installation to the miles of spaghetti-like cables connecting your microphones and monitors to a stage box at the end of a commercial audio snake. Churches spend thousands of dollars on decorating to make their sanctuaries attractive for worship. As contemporary worship grows in your church, consider a sound investment in neatness and convenience with custom wiring using floor boxes. If you’re reading this in New England, Daddy’s Sound Solutions is nearby. Give me an email at dfuchs@daddys.com and I’ll stop in when I’m in your neighborhood.

Here’s a hot one for folks looking for a GREAT way to mike a choir, children’s program, or pageant in a church or school this Christmas season. The MB1245 from Audix is a fantastic microphone solution. Audix has mounted one of their “Micro” series capsules on the end of a 2.5 oz., 50″ carbon fiber boom. The cable attaches to the other end. This thing looks neat and it sounds great. We use Audix pulpit and hanging choir mics and love their smooth response and good gain-before-feedback. The microboom puts an even better capsule in a nifty package. This set-up is better than a hanging choir mic because it can be moved closer to the performer. Audix offers an optional pedestal mic stand but the Microboom is so light we’ve been able to mount it on a standard round-base (el cheapo) mic stand and position the boom horizontally at a 90 degree angle without a counterweight. Using the MB1245 this way, there is no stand positioned in front of the kiddies.

If you’re in New England within shouting distance (like 100 miles of Manchester, NH) and would like to see the Audix MB1245 Microboom, feel free to email Dave Fuchs at dfuchs@daddys.com and I’ll bring one by.

Once again Daddy’s Sound Solutions (the smallest and coolest of Daddy’s 22 divisions) has come up with a great lighting product for churches and schools. The Elation Opti RGB is an LED fixture designed to replace the old and tired par can as the principal color lightiing fixture. Now that LEDs have become standard in automotive lighting, they are quickly making their way into other lighting applications. We recently used 12 of these in an installation at Granite State Baptist Church in Salem, NH and the results are spectacular!

Millions of colors are available from each Opti RGB via dmx control. Compare this to par cans that offer only one color, that of the gel. The LEDs have very low power requirements. Often we have seen schools and theaters spend thousands on new electrical service to support lighting needs. This expense can be spared in many cases by using these fixtures. The Opti RGBs create much less heat on stage than conventional incandescent lighting and the bulbs have a 50,000 hour life. Additionally, you can get away with less fixtures because each one does any color you can imagine.Â

Think of the number of trips up that rickety ladder you can save by not needing to change gel colors or replace burned out gels or bulbs! The Elation Opti RGB could be for you!

Greetings from Daddy’s Sound Solutions! We’re the smallest (and coolest) of Daddy’s 22 divisions (21 stores and us.) From time to time, we run into something special while we’re out there designing and installing sound, video, and lighting systems in schools, churches, hockey rinks, bingo halls, etc. etc. Lately, we’ve done a couple of sound systems in churches with “Low Ceilings” I’d like to tell you about.

High ceilings are GREAT for installed sound. This is because by hanging the speakers up high, we can minimize the difference in the distance between the nearest and farthest listeners, yielding a fairly even distribution of sound levels. The rule is that the speakers should be 1/3^rd as high as the throw distance. This is an excellent thing to achieve in a school auditorium or church. Even distribution of sound is a little different kind of goal than the “loud up-front, soft(er) in the back” approach bands and dj’s have to use when they put portable equipment of the corners of the stage. Hangin’ speakers high is not possible in rooms with low ceilings.

This picture shows horizontally mounted EAW-Commercial VR21 speakers at the Granite State Baptist Church in Salem, NH. These speakers come with a choice of rotatable horns. Because of the low ceiling, rear fills were needed as well and these were delayed to prevent an unwanted echo to be heard by listeners in the rear.

In the second church, we used a distributed ceiling speaker approach. These are also EAW-Commercial Series speakers, technically the CIS400 2-way ceiling monitors. Let me tell you, they sound GREAT! I’ve been installing ceiling speaker systems longer than many of you readers are old. I’ve never heard anything like them. They have lots of low end along with exceptional clarity and excellent sensitivity. They look great as well.