The Connection Between Worship Experience and Acoustical Treatment
By: Chris Ogle

At times, it can seem as though the line between an events venue and worship sanctuary can become a bit blurry. Is it time we stop and ask why we are adding sophisticated audio systems, video screens, and elaborate lighting systems to our sanctuaries? The answer is obvious enough. We are attempting to deliver a powerful message that will resonate with those who are listening. 

But have we gone overboard trying to achieve the ultimate worship experience? Have we created barriers instead of tools to help spread His message? Psalms 136 repeats "for His loving kindness is everlasting" 26 times, but after installing that new sound system, does every verse coming from the pulpit seem to echo 26 times? While excessive echoing occurs on one side of the sanctuary, do people sitting across from them complain the sound is muffled?

When it comes to creating a worshipful environment that focuses on praising God, it's important to ensure that all aspects of the service come together to deliver the message most effectively.

In this article, we'll be looking at using acoustic treatment to focus technology, design, and worship back on His message. How do we do this?

1. Evaluate Current Technology Use

Technology has opened the door to many new ministry types. In some ways, it has truly revolutionized how the message is delivered. 

When evaluating your technology use, ask yourself if it distracts from the worship. Be careful to ensure your audio equipment allows the message to fill the room, but not create an overpowering distraction from the minister's voice.

If you find yourself with a new or existing sound system that calls more attention to itself than the Word, you may want to apply acoustical treatment to bring the focus back to the reason for worship: God.

It can be difficult to understand the reasons behind a congregation complaining of feedback or even issues with excessive echo sounds in one particular section of the sanctuary, but not in others. Oftentimes, the first attempt to correct this problem is to adjust the volume level.

What's wrong with this solution?

It doesn't normally work. The reason that some people complain they can't hear clearly, while someone sitting a few seats away can, is based on simple room design. Rooms with hard surfaces will reflect the sound back and forth, creating what is known as a flutter echo and making it difficult for people to understand the message. 

If your first attempt to correct this is to turn up the volume on your PA system, you are amplifying the problem. Not only does this decrease the worship experience in terms of listener satisfaction, but, more importantly, this distracts away from the message itself. 

While technology benefits the worship experience in many ways, it may be necessary to incorporate acoustical treatments to ensure the technology enhances the worship experience and does not distract from it.

2. Have a Written-Out Plan

Different churches have different acoustical needs. A variety of elements feed into the proper combination of treatments to ensure the optimal worship experience.

Some elements to consider when creating a written plan are:

* Size and shape of the space
* Style of preferred worship
* Budgetary constraints

Knowing that the size and shape of your worship facility has a great impact on the innate acoustic quality of the space is the first hurdle. If God has blessed the church with the resources to build a new facility, designing the space to have optimal acoustic quality will ensure that the congregation can hear the message and grow spiritually.

If building a new facility is not in the near future, there are still many options to creating an acoustically correct worship facility. Most commonly, fabric-wrapped acoustical wall panels are used to trap, or absorb, excessive sound from echoing throughout the room.  Along with wall panels, acoustical baffles and ceiling tiles also help to increase speech clarity. 

Acoustic consultants can recommend the best combination of treatment types by modeling, based on the room dimensions, how the sound actually travels throughout the space. By knowing how the sound is traveling, and the locations that it is bouncing off of within the room, you will be able to properly treat the room. The different treatment types will be determined by where the sound reflections most occur.

Another element of proper acoustic design is the style of preferred worship. While the size and shape of a room can tell us a lot about how the sound moves, the style of worship tells us what types of sounds need to be heard.

For example, a ministry with a more modern praise group will have different sound needs than a more traditional ministry that focuses on hymns. While both ministries provide praise and glory to God, the acoustical needs can vary dramatically between the two.
This is not to say that a worship facility must be limited to one worship style. As you contemplate the different worship styles and the different ministry types that take place in your facility, it is beneficial to note your primary style, and then list out any additional styles. For example, special Christmas cantatas may call for a slightly different acoustical treatment than the typical service. It is helpful to discuss the different worship types with an acoustical consultant to make sure all ministries are supported.

With your written plan, comprised of room dimensions and worship styles listed out, the last element is sometimes the most difficult—money.

Budgetary concerns for most religious organizations weigh in heavily. But, before you start a new capital campaign to raise the funds for the proper acoustical treatment, find out what options are available. 

The apostle Paul, in his letter to the Christians of Corinth, 1st Corinthians 14:40, said, "all things must be done properly and in orderly manner." This applies to the church in every way. Just as technology must be used properly, as discussed above, acoustical treatment must also be used properly. When developing a budgetary plan for acoustical material, look for options.

Many acoustic companies can provide a variety of cost options. Typically, higher-cost options tend to be more custom-fitted to the worship facility. High-end designer fabrics can create quite a statement when covering acoustical wall panels and baffles. On the opposite spectrum, the lower-priced options will provide the needed acoustic treatment, but may not be as visually pleasing.

Just as you need to be careful that the multimedia elements don't distract from the message, you must also make sure the acoustical treatments allow for heightened focus—not further distractions.

Choose treatment colors and designs that will blend into the décor so as to not draw attention away from the message. When planning your budget, understand that there are low-end and high-end solutions, and most churches invest somewhere between the two.

3. Don't Be Afraid to Use Silence

Once you have removed the distractions of excessive technology use and corrected the acoustic quality of the worship facility, embrace the silence. 

Directed silence allows the congregation a time to reflect on the message and apply it to their personal relationship with God.

While many churches have a moment of silence, is it ever really silent? Is your church on a busy street or a loud intersection? Do sounds from the adjoining nursery leak into the sanctuary and distract from this time of reflection and spiritual growth? 

While we have discussed how to remove distractions caused by elements inside the worship facility, will they work for sounds leaking in from outside the facility? Not always. 

The acoustic treatments discussed above are meant to absorb interior noise, not block exterior noise. If your facility experiences noise leaks from other rooms, or from the outside, you may need to apply a sound-blocking solution. 

While some acoustical companies offer wall panels that have blocking materials built into them, more commonly, the solution will involve a heavy vinyl barrier material and/or a sound-dampening material. Both types of material are applied either directly to the studs or in between layers of drywall. Because this solution requires additional drywall work, it can be more costly and disruptive due to the added time needed for construction.

But before jumping into full construction mode, remember sound can leak in from all sorts of places. If you experience sounds leaking in from the nursery, check to see if the HVAC system connects the two rooms. If so, construction may not be needed. Lining the ventilation system with a sound-absorbent material could solve your problem for a fraction of the cost.

After you have evaluated your technology use, written out your plan for acoustic treatment, and ensured the ability to provide a spiritually reflective time of silence, you must put together an action plan to keep it in line.

The best method is a simple one—listen to the congregation. Congregation feedback is a powerful tool, and it is a vital part of developing a truly optimal worship experience.

Chris Ogle is the digital media and marketing coordinator for Acoustical Solutions, Inc., www.AcousticalSolutions.com.

 Sidebar I
Improving Sound Quality in Challenging Venues
By Dana Jensen

We've all experienced it.  We attend a service where the sound is so muddled and reverberations so bad that it is difficult to understand what is being spoken. Even audio professionals are sometimes confounded with poor quality audio and find it nearly impossible to get loudspeakers to produce clear and intelligible speech in a challenging venue—such as many church venues. This problem is so common that we have become used to it. 

Why is this so?

Houses of worship present a number of challenges to audio quality. Many houses of worship have beautiful wood or glass walls that create unwanted reverberations, and the church board isn't about to approve sound treatments to cover them. Concrete floors and wooden pews also add to the problem. Some loudspeakers have a narrow beam of sound that produces dead zones or uneven sound dispersion across a venue, which can result in blasting the audience up front to get sound to the back. Frequency distortions from some loudspeakers contribute to muddy or unintelligible speech of varying quality across a venue. Older churches were not acoustically designed to handle today's sound requirements. Aesthetic requirements can prevent us from making the best acoustic decisions. 

All of these issues contribute to poor audio quality, produce listener fatigue, and leave the audience with an unpleasant experience. If they can't hear clearly, they won't enjoy the ministry of the church.

Consequently, houses of worship are often stuck with various acoustic challenges and have limited options to make improvements. You may have tried new speakers or equipment, only to find the same problems remain. Loudness isn't the problem; hearing clearly is. 

Flat-Panel Technology
The result of the past 20 years of research and development into these problems is the flat-panel speaker, a speaker that is about a quarter-inch thick and the dimensions of a poster.

Flat-panel speakers produce exceptionally high clarity speech and intelligibility. They have an even response throughout the vocal range, where clarity is most important.

Flat-panel speakers have almost 180-degree sound dispersion pattern. Flat-panel speakers put even sound across a venue, eliminating dead zones. Every listener in the audience will hear crystal-clear audio, no matter where they sit in the venue. 

Flat-panels also eliminate frequency distortions. When you move from the front to the sides of some loudspeakers, some of the audio signal is lost.  Bass frequencies are still heard, but the higher frequencies drop off in volume as you approach the sides. This change in frequency response with the angle is "beaming" and contributes to the distortions when heard across a venue. Listeners directly in front of a loudspeaker will hear the entire frequency range, while listeners toward the sides will hear less and less of the full range of frequencies. Loss of the upper portions of the frequency range creates a muddy sound common to some loudspeakers, particularly in the vocal range. This results in a loss of intelligibility of speech, which is not something you want in a sermon. The flat-panel does not have the same loss of frequencies as the listening angle changes and consequently produces a more clear sound evenly across a venue.

For reverberation problems—even in the most "audio-challenged" venues—flat-panels will substantially reduce the noise from reverberations.

For overflow rooms or other special events, flat-panels' light weight of only 8 pounds makes set-up, take-down, and portability a breeze. Also, you can attach graphics to the panel, and use it for artwork, photos, information, or a welcome screen, all without degrading audio quality.

The end result is that people in your congregation will hear sermons clearly and will not have to strain to understand the sermon.  Hearing vocals clearly is a critical issue in worship technology, as sermons and other vocal requirements make up most of the use.  Now you don't need to settle for poor sound quality for your congregation. Muddy voice and other acoustic problems are too common.

Don't give up on getting high-quality audio, even if you have a severely audio-challenged venue and have tried other solutions that did not work. Only recently has flat-panel technology become available at reasonable prices. It may be the solution for you.

Dana Jensen is president of Innovative Sound Solution, www.innovativesoundsolution.com.

 Sidebar II
The Art, Science, and Common Sense of Acoustical Design for Worship Centers
By Tony Sola

Is acoustic design an art or science? 

For a space as complex as a worship center, it should be a combination of both.  There are few (if any) spaces where acoustic consideration is more important than in the design of a worship center. Balancing the need to understand speech and also enhance music within the same space is a difficult acoustic task. More significantly, the speech and music programs are not just important; they are, in fact, sacred to the participants.   

There are myriad acoustic considerations within the design of a worship center: reverberation, reflections, speech intelligibility, transmission loss, mechanical noise, vibration, loudness, clarity, warmth, envelopment, etc.  Fundamentally, all of these involve noise and reflection control.

In an enclosed environment, the prolongation of the sound caused by multiple reflections is called reverberation. Reverberation time is the primary descriptor of room acoustics. It is the length of time that it takes for reflections to "die out" (reduce 60 decibels) after a source has stopped emitting sound. An optimum reverberation time is different for different spaces, depending on the size of the space and its specific use or function.  Different styles of music, even different musical pieces, require different reverberation times.

Even if the optimum reverberation time is achieved, problematic reflections can cause severe consequences. Reflections should be carefully considered, especially if domes, concave or large, parallel walls are incorporated in the design. In most worship spaces, it is particularly important to control the reflections from the back wall. 

Acoustically absorptive material can be used to help control reverberation and problematic reflections. For reverberation, the material can theoretically be placed anywhere. However, common sense must still be applied. Placing acoustic material where sound waves never really reflect will not effectively help.

To control problematic reflections, it is critical to place the material where the problematic reflection occurs. Installing carpet on the floor will not control reflections from a dome. To help control reflection from parallel walls or from the back wall, material is typically placed in a band from an approximate height of 3 feet to 8 feet. Of course, the appropriate placement will be project specific.

Even basic acoustic design for a worship center can be complicated. It is important to get advice from good acoustic and sound system consultants early in the design process.

Is acoustic design an art or science? It is a combination of both. Although intuition and creativity play an important part, physics and math allow accurate assessment and prediction for a space's acoustic environment. The acoustic success of our worship center should not be left to chance.

In addition to his acoustical consulting practice, Tony Sola teaches Architectural Acoustics at Arizona State University and is one of the founders of Acoustics.com.

Case Study
Acoustics in the Mix at Castleview Baptist Church
By Tim Martin

Castleview Baptist Church in Indianapolis, Indiana, recently tuned up their main sanctuary with a total sound solution. 

After a major renovation and pro-audio upgrade in the main sanctuary, Castleview faced a serious acoustics problem and brought in the experts from Sensory Technologies, www.sensorytechnologies.com, who, in turn, called in the pros from Auralex, www.auralex.com.

"We had a major issue with reflections coming off the back wall of the sanctuary, which was causing nulls in the middle of the room," says Jean Goosman, technology and communications director for Castleview. "Our congregation had a difficult time discerning the spoken word after we upgraded our pro-audio set-up." 

Matt Reeve, business development manager for Sensory Technologies, was tasked with getting the acoustics up to par. 

"We were given a set budget, short deadlines, and strict parameters to ensure that the acoustical issues were taken care of and the aesthetics of the room were maintained," he said.

Enter the team from Auralex: Matt Call, custom install manager and Gavin Haverstick, lead acoustical engineer. 

"The Castleview project really challenged our creative team, and we quickly realized that standard acoustic treatments would not suffice in this particular install. After analyzing the reflection problem, it was clear that a custom solution was needed," Haverstick recalled.

"We used our ELiTE Custom Fabric System, which allowed us to seamlessly color-match the acoustic treatment solution on the rear wall with the rest of the sanctuary," Haverstick said. "To further balance the room, supplemental absorption treatment was needed, which was achieved through the installation of ELiTE ProPanels."

According to Goosman, "Since the installation's completion, the response from the congregation has been very positive. The results are dramatic. Sensory Technologies made it very easy for us to choose Auralex because the price was precisely where we needed it to be. Our budget was limited, but we didn't want our system to sound that way.  Sensory Technologies and Auralex did a great job in getting the pricing right for us with the equipment we needed."

The experience was mutually beneficial.

During the design process, Reeve was very impressed with expertise of the Auralex team. 

"These guys know their business," he said. "They quickly designed a solution that met our needs and installed it to exacting standards."

Reeve continued, "One of the major reasons we were so comfortable in going with Auralex's solution is the company's sheer attention to detail and pre-planning.Its program provided us with tons of specifics about how to stay within budget while still getting the best possible sound, despite the limitations of the room and audio gear that was already installed."

Tim Martin is the director of sales and marketing at Auralex.

Product Roundup

iMount Speaker Systems from Lowell
iMount speaker systems from Lowell combine audio excellence with low installed cost. Systems are engineered for flown or bolt-in installation in open ceilings or closed-grid systems. Their ability to reproduce music with full fidelity and provide clear voice articulation makes them a favorite for house of worship applications. Speakers are mounted within a precision formed and acoustically lined metal enclosure that includes a protective job-site driver cover, optional transformer, and architectural grille.
www.lowellmfg.com

Panelfold
EchoSorb acoustical panels by Panelfold provide superior sound control by deadening sound "bounce" within a room. Perfect for music rooms, auditoriums, theaters and large halls, these panels may be wall mounted or suspended from ceilings. With custom sizes and dozens of fabrics and colors to choose from, the choices are almost limitless. You may even create panels with your own artwork for a unique design touch.
www.panelfold.com

Stretch Wall from Acoustical Solutions
For the ultimate in customized acoustical treatment, Stretch Wall by Acoustical Solutions, Inc. provides a visually seamless solution for sound control and noise absorption. Class A fire-rated sound absorption panels are mounted beneath designer fabrics stretched over a custom tracking system. The Stretch Wall's custom site installation assures a perfect fit to all adjacent work by eliminating any gaps, sagging, or miss fitting. The tracking is secured to the panels and can be applied to either walls or ceilings.
www.AcousticalSolutions.com

SoundPanel from Innovative Sound Solution
Got problematic acoustics, reverberations or "muddy voice" problems? Or all three?  Now you can easily get crystal-clear audio with the latest in flat-panel technology. The SoundPanel is a thin, lightweight loudspeaker that delivers exceptionally clear sound in a unique flat-panel design. With the ability to attach graphics and a minimal profile, the SoundPanel looks like a poster or work of art hanging on the wall. The SoundPanel eliminates dead zones associated with conventional speakers. You will hear crisp, clear audio in every corner of the room.
www.InnovativeSoundSolution.com

Tectum Fabri-Tough II Wall Panels
Fabri-Tough II Wall Panels are the latest innovative wall panel introduced by Tectum. Combining abuse-resistant Tectum Wall Panels and a 1/8-inch, 18-pound density fiberglass facer laminated to the face of the panel with new designer fabrics, Fabri-Tough II is perfect for offices, conference rooms, and any space where designer fabrics are required. Control noise efficiently, economically, and attractively in open plan, closed, or mixed-use space with the Fabri-Tough II Wall Panel System. 
www.tectum.com

Isolating Drum Booth from Perdue Acoustics
Perdue Acoustics' new Isolating Drum Booth LSS-DBK is an excellent way to isolate drum kits in order to keep stage volumes at a manageable level. The Iso Drum Booth also helps to achieve better house sound by not allowing bleed-over on the drum mics, and by dramatically decreasing stage volume that would normally compete with the house mix. The Drum Booth consists of: 8 acoustical panels fully wrapped as a base, 8 cast acrylic clear panels connected together with a non-slip hinge at each side, and a fully fabric-covered panel lid and back wall
www.perdueacoustics.com