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| A Primedia Property | |
| September 2, 2004 | |
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Table of Contents Houses of Worship Top Story Copyright, license issues often overlooked Installation News Steele Creek Church uses QSC amps for temporary worship facility Less is more for Applegate Christian Fellowship Church Product News Pesa's Cat Paws offer affordable AV distribution over existing facility networks DPA Microphones debuts cardioid headband microphone at AES 2004 Mackie set to ship 24-mic input digital mixer ADVERTISEMENT Since 1980, FSR has been providing ultra high quality audio and video control and switching solutions to the a/v industry. Located in West Paterson, New Jersey, all Since 1980, FSR has been providing ultra high quality audio and video control and switching solutions to the a/v industry. Located in West Paterson, New Jersey, all FSR products are "Made in the USA" and carry the warranty and support that you require. At FSR, "We have what you need". www.fsrinc.com Houses of Worship Top Story Copyright, license issues often overlooked Many churches with ambitious video and audio copying operations are overlooking potentially troublesome issues that can present both legal difficulties and a moral dilemma. One of these issues is highlighted by Mark Miller, webmaster and former AV technician at Word of Grace in Mesa, Arizona. Word of Grace produces both audio recordings and videos of services and other events, which it distributes on DVD. ADVERTISEMENT  TV One produces over fifty products for the professional video market worldwide, including Seamless Switchers, Scan Converters, Video Scalers, HDTV Converters, Standards Converters, SDI Converters, Matrix Routing Switchers, Digital Video Recorders, Video Servers, LCD Monitors, Frame Synchronizers, Distribution Systems and other Video Terminal Equipment. www.tvone.com "When we record videos, we have a whole bunch of copyright issues that many other churches may be ignoring," Miller says. "For example, if we show a video clip on screen in our service, that needs to be licensed." Even a licensed clip can be used only in specific ways, Miller adds. For example, at Word of Grace, everything that appears on the large video screens in the sanctuary is also recorded simultaneously to hard disks. But the church does not have the right to insert an outside video clip into a finished DVD recording of the service in which it was used. Instead, they substitute a different image in editing. According to Miller, ethical considerations carry as much weight as legal. As a church, he notes, "We're supposed to do things right." Jay Morissette, mastering engineer at Grace to You in Valencia, California, notes a similar concern that affects part of his organization's mission. The church orchestra produces its own audio CD every few years, combining highlights of recent concerts and worship performances. "We're in Southern California, so everyone here is very aware of copyright issues," Morissette says. "We have to sort out all the royalties" involved in orchestra performances of other people's musical compositions. Hymns and other public-domain songs, of course, don't present these difficulties. And some churches are able to minimize copyright issues by relying on original music composed just for them by members. Still, all too often church media ministers don't even think about the potential problems involved in including other people's music in CDs they sell to their congregations. Some turn for help to licensing organizations such as Christian Copyright Licensing International. CCLI offers access to a library of thousands of songs, which churches are permitted to use under broad annual licenses, at sliding fees tied to the size of the congregation. In effect, CCLI does the paperwork and pays the royalties on behalf of its licensees. A church with 5,000 members, for instance, pays $624. Providing advice on issues like copyright is a key role for the AV systems integrator, especially when installing high-capability video capture and projection systems. In many other settings, though, either a church works without an integrator or the issue doesn't come up. This lack of awareness is often compounded by the ease of use that manufacturers build into their CD duplicating systems these days. The problem is also brought to the fore by the fact that many churches rely on CD sales as a revenue stream, albeit often a modest one. At Word of Grace, all services are recorded live, both audio and video. The video is switched live to a hard disk drive array, which is used to make "one-off" DVDs as needed. Demand for DVDs is still low, Miller says, with anywhere from five to 30 copies being sold per service. On the contrary, "there's a huge demand for audio cassettes and CDs," he adds. "It's amazing that in the church market cassettes are still more popular than CDs." Grace to You broadcasts on radio worldwide, with some 13 million listeners, says Morissette. All sermons also become part of an online archive, which now totals more than 2,000. Listeners can order any of these sermons, and Grace to You currently ships 3,000 to 4,000 CDs monthly. Installation News Steele Creek Church uses QSC amps for temporary worship facility The Steele Creek Church in Charlotte, North Carolina, is moving. Representing the realization of a dream come true for this lively, music-oriented congregation, the praise team will pack up its microphones and follow minister of worship Brad Clarkson into a new 3,000-seat sanctuary. The space is being built expressly for their dynamic approach to conducting worship services. In the meantime, the church has setup shop in a sprung structure, a prefabricated building that can be popped up instantly on-site like an umbrella and quickly anchored to terra firma. Tough enough to weather hail, wind, and rain storms just like their wood- or steel-framed counterparts, sprung structures have established themselves as good, inexpensive alternatives for temporary or permanent facilities of all types. Usually sporting a domed roof (as Steele Creek's temporary sanctuary does), the buildings intrinsically create their fair share of acoustical problems for audio designers, however. Luckily for the Steele Creek Church, Armando Fullwood of Charlotte-based Design 2020 Inc. has answers to most audio problems in sprung structures, and he also has an eye on the bottom line. "Budget always matters," Fullwood says. "And this is something that's keenly felt on a project like Steele Creek's temporary sanctuary, where the church is trying to hold on to its dollars to complete its new permanent home. Being on a budget doesn't mean compromising on audio, however. You just have to be more creative." For Fullwood, being creative within Steele Creek's 900-seat sprung structure environment meant using well-placed absorptive panels, and, in some cases, playing the harsh reflective surfaces and the domed ceiling against themselves to positive effect. To keep component costs down without sacrificing sonic quality or performance, 12 amplifiers from QSC's RMX product group were chosen, including RMX850, RMX1450, and RMX2450 models. Fullwood also used a single eight-channel CX168 amp from QSC's CX Series to build dedicated zones of enhanced reverb. "Using the eight-channel CX168 and a Mackie DX8 digital mixer, I routed the choir mics' reverb returns through different loudspeaker zones established in the sanctuary," he says, explaining the basics of his poor man's surround-sound system. "Within my design, voices still are heard right down the middle of the room, but stereo reverb is piped into the zones. If you slide up the matrix sends on the board when the choir sings, you get a nice, warm 'surround' feeling. For the money involved, it's a great effect that offers the client something extra, and the CX168 made it all possible right from two rack spaces." When the Steele Creek congregation ultimately moves into its new permanent home, the keys to the aurally enhanced sprung structure will be handed over to the church's youth group. "At that time, we won't have to change a thing for the younger generation's needs," Fullwood adds. "The system will be perfect for their dramatic presentations and music. All in all, every hand-me-down should be this good, don't you think?" QSC Audio Products, Inc. is a leading manufacturer of power amplifiers, loudspeakers, signal processing, digital signal transport, and computer control systems for professional audio markets worldwide. For more information, visit www.qscaudio.com. Less is more for Applegate Christian Fellowship Church After years of trying to make quick, inexpensive fixes to a steadily deteriorating sound system, and routinely having to shuttle the antiquated behemoth between indoor and outdoor venues, Applegate Christian Fellowship Church in Ruch, Oregon, found sound salvation in a single piece of equipment: The InnovaSON Sy40-8 "all-in-one" digital live performance mixing console. Specified and installed by Anderson Group International (AGI), a Eugene, Oregon-based AV integrator that the church hired to retool the sound system, the Sy40-8 has considerably lightened the church's sound equipment load, improved sound quality, and greatly enhanced the sound system's setup, flexibility, and operation. With features that include extensive built-in processing functions, open architecture, and extensive library capabilities, the Sy40-8 has almost single-handedly transformed the church's ability to stage the proper types of services at the desired times and locations. A fundamental capability that the Sy40-8 has delivered is the ability to switch from indoor to outdoor services, says church sound manager Joe Fritts. After each Saturday night's indoor service, the church stages Sunday morning services in an outdoor amphitheater. The Sy40-8 has greatly simplified that task. "One of the neat things about the InnovaSON is that we can quickly recall Saturday night's settings for the Sunday morning service," Fritts says. "Its recall capabilities give us a way to have a mix dialed in before we turn anything on. We can move outside, power up, and do line checks before we do anything with the amps. Then when the band shows up, we power up, the monitors are mixed off the console, the front-of-house is mixed and we're good until the 10 a.m. service." Before the installation of the Sy40-8, racks and racks of sound equipment and an analog console had to be repositioned from inside the church to the outside venue every week. Setup and sound checks took considerably longer. This was a problem, given the growing need to limit early-Sunday-morning noise in an area increasingly populated by single-family homes. Given those challenges, the church made an obvious call by specifying a high-quality digital solution like the Sy40-8 as the backbone of its system, says AGI general manager Jeff Weinkauf. "The amount of time and effort it took to load in and load out the system from the sanctuary to the amphitheater and back again was challenging," Weinkauf says. "The Sy40-8 has proven to be a real time and space saver, replacing numerous racks of outboard gear with those functions now residing in the console itself. Plus if something changes, its library capabilities allow quick recall of settings at the touch of a button. Adding an instrumentalist or vocalist at the last minute is a breeze. In seconds, the church can recall a player's full channel strip including gain, EQ, comp/limiting, gating, and monitor levels. Additionally, the ability to recall settings saved by the church's key operators gives those on the sound team with less experience a good baseline from which to start. There's a lot less sound-check time involved, which makes everybody happy. The Sy40-8 has given Applegate a quick, easy and seamless way to manage their system." By acquiring the Sy40-8, the church also has put an end to a spiraling descent into more complex sound-quality issues. Over the years, as the church sought to deal with higher demands on the sound system, it purchased component after component, Weinkauf says. But the problems just compounded. "Looking for a solution, Applegate had been buying equipment out of catalogs. They ended up with many different products that they'd bandaged all together," he says. "Basically the sound quality had been getting worse over time as they spent more and more on solutions that weren't of a level they needed. By moving to a professional solution like the Sy40-8, with its onboard processing capabilities, we were able to take out multiple racks of unneeded equipment. Many of their quality problems have been solved with the placement of this single product." The Sys40-8 was initially configured with 48 inputs and 16 outputs and paired with InnovaSON's Stage Box, an audio rack and transmission system that enables remote control from the console using coaxial cable in place of bulky, multi-core snake cabling. The Sy40-8 is helping to change Fritts's approach to his creative work. "I've had to learn how to mix in a different way," he says. "With the old system, I used to approach mixing by trying to separate musical instruments; now it's a matter of the instruments automatically having their place in the mix. With the Sy40-8 everything is easy to pick out in a mix. Now, instead of separating the mud, I can focus on uniting all the instruments and blending the vocals." The Sy40-8 just the first step in a multi-phase upgrade that AGI is overseeing. Another part of the first phase included a new wireless microphone solution from Sennheiser, the same company that distributes the Sy40-8, as well as other InnovaSON sound equipment. The church has acquired Sennheiser EM 3032-U wireless receivers, Sennheiser SK50 UHF body pack transmitters, and SKM5000 handheld transmitters fitted with Neumann KK 105-S capsules. "Neumann and Sennheiser mics are the standard for their ability to accurately reproduce high-quality music and voice," he says. For the church's wired needs, the Neumann KMS 105 was the mic of choice. For more information, visit www.innovason.com and www.sennheiserusa.com. Product News Pesa's Cat Paws offer affordable AV distribution over existing facility networks Pesa Switching Systems, a leading provider of analog and digital video and audio equipment, introduced its new Cat Paws twisted-pair RGBHV transmitter and receiver. Able to drive an SXGA signal over CAT-5 cable as far as 450 feet (135m) with perfect reproduction, Pesa's Cat Paws take advantage of existing network infrastructures and serve as the perfect solution for sports bars, airports, hotels, auditoriums, courthouses, and electronic signage. Recommended for use with either commercial-grade CAT-5/5e/6 or non-skew unshielded twisted-pair (UTP) cable designed specifically for video applications, Cat Paws are designed with internal skew compensation to accommodate longer runs with less expensive UTP cable. Also, instead of forcing the sync signals through the cable, the unit analyzes the incoming signal, converts it at the transmitter, and reconstructs it as a true sync signal at the receiver. "Skew compensation is a major issue in computer video transmission over CAT-5 cable," said Bob McAlpine, Pesa's senior vice president of sales and marketing. "Most computer VGA cards are only designed to drive the signal a few feet, which creates impedance mismatch over long cable runs. With our Cat Paws, we're able to provide excellent overall fidelity even over extended distances while utilizing a facility's existing network." The CP450TX and CP450RX Cat Paw modules come with an RJ-45 connector and an HD-15 connector for RGBHV sources, and have an LED signal indicator and external power pack. Their small footprint and light weight allow the modules to fit just about anywhere, either rack-mounted or as stand-alone throw-down units. Optional receivers are available for 1000-foot and 1500-foot uses. Cat Paws support video resolutions of up to SXGA (1280x1024 at 75Hz) with an impedance of 75 Ohms. Both the CP450TX and CP450RX have met the CE and FCC approvals. The new Cat Paws product family will be on display at the Pesa stand, 2.124, at IBC 2004. Learn more about Pesa's complete line of products at www.pesa.com. DPA Microphones debuts cardioid headband microphone at AES 2004 DPA Microphones will debut its new cardioid headband microphone, the DPA 4088, at AES 2004, booth #1342. The 4088 is ideal for live performances requiring high stage volumes. It provides a secure and comfortable fit while allowing complete freedom of movement. DPA now has the best-sounding, directional, head-worn microphone available on the market. The 4088 was developed in response to demand from customers who perceived a gap in the market for a high-quality, extremely discreet cardioid headband microphone. Open, clear, natural, and reliable are adjectives most often used to describe this microphone. Sound engineers now experience a head-worn mic that does not need an EQ mark-up just to sound tolerable. The high quality of the microphone ensures that you will hear only the sound of the voice right away - not the microphone or background noise. "The 4088 has incredible accuracy in a package smaller than what many companies call sub-miniature," says Bruce Myers, president of DPA Microphones, "and it is so comfortable and lightweight, you'll forget you're wearing it." The capsule is a pre-polarized first order pressure gradient transducer, hidden in a small and lightweight housing with dimensions just slightly larger than DPA's omni capsules. The low-frequency response is designed for optimal linearity at 1 to 1.5 inches distance from the sound source. The result is a bass roll-off that is relatively prominent at a small distance (in practice no response under 1kHz at only 20 inches). This is paramount when it comes to rejection of background noise and the fight for avoiding feedback. The 4088 offers a tremendous amount of gain before feedback without losing its clarity and definition. The mechanical design is based on the proven build quality of the 4066 headband microphone. The headband mount is exactly the same; the boom, however is 3cm longer, to be able to match the need for placement at the corner of the mouth. To avoid "popping," the element should not be put directly in front of the mouth. The sound timbre and sound pressure level is as good at the side of the mouth as it is in the front. The flexibility and stability of this construction is unique and has no equal. DPA's miniature microphone range has enjoyed a prominent position in live theatre, musical productions, places of worship, and corporate events since the mid-1990s. In common with all DPA products, the miniature range has a reputation for a uniquely natural and open sound, especially suited for voice and traditional acoustic instruments. DPA Microphones is a wholly owned subsidiary of DPA Microphone A/S, a leading manufacturer of high-quality condenser microphones and microphone solutions for professional applications in studio, broadcast, theatre, video/film, and sound reinforcement environments. For more information, visit www.dpamicrophones.com. Mackie set to ship 24-mic input digital mixer Mackie is set to ship at the end of Q3 a new 24-mic input digital mixer developed specifically for live sound applications such as clubs, theaters, houses of worship, rental companies, sound production companies, regional touring acts, as well as for weekend warriors. The Mackie TT24 is a 56x45, 24-bit, 96kHz capable digital live console with 100mm touch-sensitive faders, on-board analog and digital I/O, full channel metering, digital recall, EQ, dynamics, and effects. "The TT24 was conceived only as a live console," commented John Boudreau, TT24 product manager. "Most current digital live consoles in this price range begin their lives as recording consoles and are then 'shoe-horned' into live use. The problem with these consoles is that the user interface isn't engineered for live applications." Boudreau continued, "With the TT24, we had the live sound engineer in mind from the very beginning. We designed a unique control section that combines a 5-inch touch screen, eight function buttons, and 12-parameter rotary encoders that work together to provide quick and easy access to key live functions such as Fat Channel overview, EQ, Dynamics, Group/Aux assignments, Aux masters, Snapshots, FX control, and Matrix. Absolutely nothing is out of immediate reach." TT24's rear panel is equipped with all of the necessary I/O connections to take full advantage of the board's functionality right out of the box. In addition, powerful on-board DSP capabilities virtually eliminate the need for expensive outboard equipment. The TT24 development team drew extensively on Mackie's history as a provider of high-value, small-format analog live consoles, as well as the company's extensive experience in digital audio technology, to equip the TT24 with an enhanced set of live sound tools that simply aren't available in the analog world. These tools includes the incorporation of a true Aux Mode, which instantly converts the console from FOH mode to monitor mode; eight flex groups, which are each individually configurable for mono, stereo, LCR, or VCA operation; as well as a feature called Matrix Plus, a large 11x8 matrix that allows digital patching of any desired signal into the matrix. Every Mackie TT24 Digital Live Console ships with a copy of the TT Control Software, a PC-based GUI that connects to the console via USB. The TT Control Software allows for a much larger view of console parameters. It also aids in the file-saving process. Key TT24 features * 24 bit -- 44.1/48/88.2/96kHz * 24 mic/line inputs with four-band EQ/comp/gate * 8 line inputs with four-band parametric EQ (stereo linkable) * On-board 36x28 analog I/O * On-board 28x28 digital I/O * 29 100mm motorized faders * 28 virtual--potentiometers with metering * Left-Right-C/Mono outs with four-band parametric EQ with dual "kill filters" and comp/limiter * 12 aux sends with four-band parametric EQ with a dual "kill filters" & comp/limiter (stereo linkable) * L-R + mono or LCR operating modes * Eight groups have 10 assignable four-band parametric EQ & comp/limiter available * Eight matrix outputs with 600ms of total delay * Turbo Touch section including a 5-inch touch-LCD and 12 push-button rotary encoders * Separate group faders * Eight flex-groups * 11x8 matrix-plus allows patching of any desired signal into the matrix * Aux Mode for instant conversion to monitor console * TT-control GUI via USB * 99 snapshots per show * Two console linking * Two Optional card slots Mackie, a LOUD Technologies brand, is a leading developer and marketer of high-quality, affordable professional audio systems. Mackie products can be found in professional and project recording studios, video and broadcast suites, postproduction facilities, sound reinforcement applications including churches and nightclubs, retail locations, and on major musical tours. For more information, visit www.mackie.com. |
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