Lighting is important. In a world where everything is captured on video, it is even more important than it used to be (unless you can afford REALLY expensive cameras and lenses). Lighting enables us to see where to focus our attention, and by creatively filling the rest of the space, lighting can be almost as powerful as music when it comes to influencing our emotions. There is a reason that statistically more people commit suicide in a city like Seattle (with limited days of sunshine per year) than in Phoenix (with limited days of cloud cover per year)... and it isn't just the politics! And while everyone likes a great sunny day outside, we are all captivated by the drama of a spectacular Sunrise or Sunset, and love when God gets really dramatic just before or after a thunderstorm.

There are books and university classes on the subject of lighting, so I plan to keep this brief based on my experience and what I have learned from those who HAVE taken the university classes. If you want to learn more, by all means do so! If you want to study this topic more, I would focus on theatrical lighting or becoming a lighting director (LD) (or both). All of that to say, this series of articles will not cover ever available topic in depth!
The most obvious type of fixture is your house lighting. For many churches, this is controlled by a switch (or series of switches) on a wall that may or may not be dimmable that turns on everything from overhead fluorescent lights to chandeliers. We call a piece of hardware that emits light a “fixture” to distinguish between the hardware itself and the light emitted by the fixture. The typical fixture hanging in a traditional church building is called a “pendant.” While they are traditionally warm white in color (think traditional incandescent bulb), it is now possible to have a variety of colors (Including blue red, any other color and of course warm white) which CAN be used to further enhance the environment. On the other hand, if your house lights are a weird color because of the nature of the pendant they are enclosed in, that can really impact both the quality of your vides and the quality of a visitor’s experience. More important than the color is the control. Being able to easily turn the house lights on or off or dim them at the same time as your stage lighting can be VERY beneficial.

Speaking of control, DMX is the most common lighting control protocol available. Other protocols (such as ArtNET and sACN) basically enable more DMX control (number of available universes) per wire, but the concepts are the same. DMX is basically a constantly updated database of 512 channels that can each have a value of 0-255. That is one “Universe.” On a traditional 3-pin or 5-pin XLR cable, you can only have one universe. For many churches (and other organizations, that is all that is needed depending upon the number and complexity of the lighting fixtures in use. Each fixture typically uses between 1 and 30 channels each. Some fixtures can be given the same “address” (the number on the DMX database it jumps on at), and that technique can make your universe go further and save you some (or a lot) of programming at the cost of some artistic flexibility (which your DMX controller may or may not be able to handle anyway). It should be noted that there are still some older protocols called AMX and MPX that may look the same (and even use the same XLR cables), but they are NOT compatible with DMX without expensive converters, and you can cause serious damage if the two systems are accidently a combined without said converters.

DMX Controllers vary from simple controllers such as the Obey 40 from Chauvet (which won’t even let you access all 512 channels and are technically limited to 12 fixtures although there are some creative ways to control more) to huge professional controllers costing 10s of thousands of dollars and capable of many universes. As a controller is basically a dedicated computer with a physical interface, there are many computer programs that can also control your DMX. Some of these can use a physical interface (faders, buttons, etc.,)

The biggest advantages to the more complex controllers is that they facilitate multi-fixture effects, have much better dimming capabilities between scenes, and enable you to control multiple scenes and chases independently at the same time. A scene is a common term used on any controller and refers to a preprogrammed set of DMX settings sent to one, some or all of your fixtures. A chase is a series of scenes used to create various types of light movement (whether with color, intensity or actual movement). If you have some complex moving fixtures, a larger console almost becomes necessary as it can become a painful experience to control all of the available channels without the proper tools to do so. Our observation is that the jump from a typical simple controller ($100-$1,000) to a more powerful programmable controller with built-in effects and 2 or more universes will usually cost at least $3-4K with the next jump landing between $6K-$30K. Similar to soundboards, your needs, what you want to accomplish, and your available resources must be balanced, and we would be happy to help you think through that process.

Next time, we will talk about different kinds of stage lighting fixtures and the use for each. As always, if you have questions about your church lighting system or you are thinking about upgrading it, please contact us!

Frankly, I am not asked this question very much...thankfully! But as a person who tries to be wise with the resources I am given, I have to imagine it crosses the minds of others when they are thinking about upgrading their AV systems. So lets explore this.

Here are a few practical reasons. Obviously, the bigger the project, the longer the list gets:

1. After you spend all of the money necessary to upgrade your system, it is ideal when it does what you were hoping to accomplish.

There's nothing like getting excited about being able to finally upgrade your system so you go to Guitar Center, Amazon, Sweetwater, or someone else to get your new gear.  You bring it back, unbox it, plug it in the best you know how, and... maybe it made an improvement, but you were hoping for so much more!  Why it doesn't do so much more could be related to a lot of factors, some of which are mentioned below, but in many cases, it COULD have been so much more.  It may still not be too late to hire a professional, but if the professional makes some of their money selling product, they may charge you much more to fix what you have in order to make up the difference, and he/she will be limited to the equipment you chose (which may or may not be ideal).

2. Getting the RIGHT equipment the first time can actually save you a LOT of money.

Somewhat related to the first point, someone that is just selling you gear is often happy to make as much money selling you gear as possible.  You might not realize that your equipment could have been used in a different way that could have eliminated the need for really expensieve gear that may end up being a disappointment anyway.  One example is In Ear Monitors (IEMs).  Maybe you were told to buy individual IEM Mixers for each member of the band, but, unbeknownst to you, there was a way to accomplish the same thing using the tools you already purchased that would have given you much more flexibility AND cost a LOT less.  While professionals also make money selling you gear, a professional that tuly cares about your ministry/endeavor would be remiss to not at least mention some alternative ways to accomplish the mission and, more importantly, help you set the equipment up in such a way that you can realize those alternatives in a way that would make you wonder why you ever considered buying the more expensive but much less capable solution.  On the other hand, if you have the money, they may be aware of much more expensive options that will meet your needs in ways you only dreamed of.

A second way this can be important is that a professional will help you navigate between where you are and where you want to be, and help you think through a reasonable balance (chronologically speaking).  At the same time, they can help you find gear that will keep you from being disappointed when you get home, plug everything in and realize that you really need to go buy the upgrade because what you just purchased isn't going to get the job done.  In carpentry, the saying is "measure twice cut once."  In AV equipment, it is often described as "cry once, buy once."

3. Having the most expensive equipment in the world won't do you any good if you don't know how maximize its usefulness.

So you now have an inexpensive equivalent of what used to be an extremely expensive piece of equipment.  But do you know how to utilize that piece of equipment to its fullest extent to really help make a difference?  Not all professionals take this extra step, but anyone worth their salt will most definitely take the time to optimize your sound/lighting/video boards to ensure they are as useful and easy to use as possible. 

I often give this example: In 1996, I was introduced to a brochure for a Midas XL-4, which at the time was a $100,000 soundboard.  If someone is going to trust you to use a $100K soundboard, chances are you have some idea of what you are doing.  Fast forward to the ubiquitous X32 (which is by no means the most complicated soundboard out there now), and they basically took 90% of the features found in the XL-4 and added another $60,000 worth of rack gear, and sold it to anyone who could afford a $3,000 upgrade for their soundboard.  And then you wonder why people don't know how to fully maximize its capabilities!  Your professional integrator is PAID to do this for you, and their skill at this is usually well worth the money you invested in them.

Likewise, even if your AV system has been optimized and sounds/looks amazing, you will often need to be trained in order to keep it doing what it is designed to do.  Don't skimp when it comes to receiving this training!  Professionals are usually more than happy to provide said training (once), but it behooves you and your organization to fully take advantage of this training WHEN it is provided.  Chances are, your installer won't be going to your church or organization on a regular basis.

4. Who care what it looks like anyway?

Aesthetics isn't EVERYTHING, but frankly, it should be important, espcially when it is an option.  The whole goal of a proper AV system it to be as non-distracting as possiblle. This includes looks as well as sound.  Whether that means running cables through walls and ceilings wherever possible (as compared to a mess of cables dangling down the wall or raceway running everywhere), or that your speaker system is not a horrible eyesore (but still gets the job done), a professional installation will be much more likely to sound amazing and look beautiful at the same time.

5. Is your installation safe/ legal?

When you do wiring on your own, you can often get away with a lot of things that seriously skirt the concepts of legality.  However, it turns out that some (OK Most) of those legalities are in place to keep your church or orgnaization from falling apart or burning down.  And nobody wants that!

6. Who do you go to when you have a question or something goes wrong?

There are a few people who may be willing to help if they were not the people who did the installation, but it is nice to know that your installer has your back AFTER the gear is in place and working correctly.  This is unfortunately NOT a given (in spite of the fact at a licensed contractor is legally required by law to at least warranty their work and materials for two years after installation), so you willl want to discuss with your installer the kind of support that you will get after the installtion has been completed.  At Whole Hearted Pro AV, we have answered a lot of questions on Sunday mornings from clients trying to trouble shoot this piece of gear or that issue, etc., often years after the installation.  At a certain point, we might say that an issue was caused by you and decide that you owe us something for getting you back on the straight and narrow (especially if we have to invest some serious drive time or other resources), but we tend to be pretty generous with our customer support, especially for clients that paid us well to meet their needs.  And that ALONE may be worth the cost of hiring a professional.

Conclusion

Hopefully, this has been helpful. At least you now have an idea of why you should even be considering hiring someone from outside your organization to help improve your AV system.  Not all integration companies are created equal, but there should be one that will be perfect for what you are trying to accomplish.  But that sounds like a blog for another day!

Probably a strange place to start a website blog, but it brings up an important point that applies to AV whether you ask us to help you with your Production needs or your AV installation.

Physics Matters.

That is the main mantra from the Sound seminar that we teach. As a result, a LOT of time, effort, research, and expense has been invested into creating products that deal with various aspects of physics in order to provide the best and most transparent experience possible.

I recently visited a temporary venue with some rented gear, and my curiosity caused me to see what was being used. What I saw took me a minute to fully digest, but when I did, I was astonished! The two speakers sitting on top of the subwoofer are QSC KLA12 speakers. KLA12s are designed to be used as part of what is called a Curved Line Array. They are meant to have a very narrow vertical dispersion (15 degrees) and a very wide horizontal dispersion (between 90-120 degrees). However, this is only true when the speakers are in landscape orientation where the wide part of the speaker is sideways and the narrow part of the speaker is oriented vertically. The idea is that you tightly connect multiple speakers together in a vertical array with one speaker on top of the next to get the vertical coverage you need with minimal phasing issues. In the environment these were in, two speakers stacked on top of each other with the back of the botttom speaker raised up a bit so the bottom of the front of the lower speaker was aimed at the first row of people would have worked as designed and sounded amazing for a very wide audience.  In fact, KLA12s have down-angled pole mounts on their bottom (under where you see the silver logo in the picture) for this exact purpose.

But that is NOT how these speakers were set up. As these speakers were being used, the birds and the worms in a very narrow path heard very well (and a few people...almost). However, not only were these speakers standing on their sides, they also were not fastened to each other as they were designed to be.  This created a bunch of phasing issues-- you know, the issues the speakers were designed to mitigate!  The end result was a lack of clarity and some harshness and some other artifacts throughout most of the listening area.

Now, the reality is that most of the people there didn't seem to care. I suppose a little alcohol goes a long way toward mitigating bad sound!  Most didn't even know that it could have sounded much better with a few changes in how the system was deployed.  Frankly, a single high quality properly aimed point source speaker (such as a QSC KW153) on each side would have probably sounded better (and cost a lot less). Without an AB comparison, people probably wouldn't now how bad things were and how much better they could have been given the quality of the components provided. And when things are done like this in an installation, people eventually "get used" to bad sound (if they stick around long enough).

Ultimately, the point here is that it is not just how much you have spent on equipment, but rather how you use the equipment you have available. We would love to help you with your next project to ensure you have great equipment THAT IS USED PROPERLY to give you the best experience possible!