Blue Ridge Sound

 

Blue Ridge Sound Started working with Pleasant Hill Presbyterian Church in the fall of 2007 before their new sanctuary was even under roof. We were recommended by the Church builder who we had worked with before after their consultant had failed to find an AV installer that could provide an adequate system within budget. We contacted Myron Surber with SE Systems to partner with us on a proposal. After reviewing the existing AV Design and several meetings with the church's staff we were able to address all of the needs with a system that was more than capable of their performance expectations. Most importantly it was within their budget. The partnership with SE Systems was critical to make this work. It turned out that the most reasonable way to maximize Pleasant Hill's money was for the church to purchase the equipment from SE Systems directly, and for us to install the system.

 

It was decided that the previous design would almost be useless moving forward. We were handcuffed by the floor pocket layout since the back boxes were installed into the concrete stage by the electrician; also the subwoofer had cavities on the front edge of the stage to the left and right. The previous design had no provision for front fills so we had to have the front of the stage cut to provide space for seven Soundtube Ci-MM3. These were a near perfect solution as they perform well and they fit in a double gang electrical box. A single center cluster was the obvious solution for the main system, EAW MK2366s were used to cover the main listening area with no need for delays, EAW VRS12s fit well in the subwoofer cavities and provide plenty of Low frequency. Soundtube ceiling and surface-mount speakers serve in the hall and foyer. QSC PLX Series power amps were used to power the main PA, while the front fills and distributed speakers were powered with Ashly SRA series power amps. The speaker processing for the EAW loudspeakers is handled by an EAW UX8800, utilizing Gunness Focusing. An Ashly Protea 24.24M is handling the other loudspeakers. We Used Shure SLX Series wireless microphone combo systems with handheld SM58s and body packs with Countryman E6 head-worn microphones. A Yamaha M7CL32 was chosen as the mixer. The M7 is easy to setup and use, has all of the necessary functionality, and the reliability is bulletproof. The Video System Consists of a great Audeum rack-mount PC, a Kramer VP727XL, and a VP719XL which allows for the three Sanyo Projectors two for the front and one in the rear to have separate video sources. Video is transmitted Via Kramer twisted pair transmitters and receivers, which gave us great quality on the long runs through inexpensive cat5 cable. Playback and recording equipment include Denon, Tascam units as well as a Presonus Fire Studio that is coupled with the Audeum Video PC for multi-track recording.

 

The system went in beautifully. All of the equipment arrived on time and the integration was flawless. In May of 2008 we were finished with the project, and the church opened its new sanctuary with a state of the art sound and video system. Everyone is surprised when they hear how low the final bill was. I think Pleasant Hill Presbyterian is one of our best projects. We were able to go into a situation in which the customer thought major sacrifices would need to be made, and leave our customer with everything they wanted.

 

John Holder & Greg Hoyle

Blue Ridge Sound

312 Shore Drive

Morganton NC 28655

828-201-5646