SVC Podcast – Show Notes – Show 150-1
In this edition of the SVC Podcast, SVC Contributing Editor Bennett Liles talks with Duke DeJong, Vice President of Systems Integration with CCI Solutions in Olympia, Washington about the sound, video and lighting system installed by the company for Saddleback Church in the new permanent facility for their 16th satellite location in Anaheim, California. CCI Solutions set up an L-Acoustics ARCS WiFo speakers system, lighting control and video projection for the new church location in what had been a health spa.
For Part 1
Links of interest:
- CCI Solutions: AV equipment, acoustical consulting and systems integration
- L-Acoustics loudspeakers and amplified controllers
- L-Acoustics LA4X Amplified Controller
- The Avid SC48 FOH mixing console used by the church
Download Podcast Here:
https://s3.amazonaws.com/nb-svc/public/public/150-2_Saddleback_CCI_Solut…
From Sound & Video Contractor Magazine, this is the SVC Podcast with Duke DeJong of CCI Solutions. Show notes for the podcast are on the web site of Sound & Video Contractor Magazine at svconline.com.
Saddleback Church puts out video and sound to followers all over the world and they’re growing with new locations all the time. CCI Solutions of Olympia, Washington outfitted their newest church in Anaheim with sound, video and lighting. Duke DeJong is back to wrap up his story about how they got it all done on time and on budget. That’s coming up next up on the SVC Podcast.
Duke, thanks for being back with us on the SVC Podcast from CCI Solutions in Olympia, Washington and we were talking about the Saddleback Church and something like 16 locations they’ve got now. You’ve worked with them before, but this one had to be done kind of in a hurry. There was a very wide house and not very deep. That called for a little bit different design on the sound system. I’m not sure how much we got into this in Part 1 but does Saddleback Church have a high-energy worship style with live music or are they more traditional?
No, they’re definitely high-energy and they’ve been in kind of a progression over the last five years. They’ve always been very contemporary, but a couple of years ago they definitely began making a shift towards a much more modern style of worship with heavier guitars and more lighting and haze and those kind of things in a regular worship environment. So this is definitely a very, very modern worship space. It’s got a great, warm, intimate feel to it. Like the sound system especially has to be crystal clear when the message is delivered. Their senior pastor, Rick Warren, is one of the best-known pastors in the world, so it’s obviously a high, high priority for him for speech to be clear, but at the same time that PA has to rock when they want to rock. We’ve done a lot of L-Acoustics systems over the years here and that’s one of the reasons why we keep turning back to them is because they deliver both so well. [Timestamp: 2:12]
And you put in the L-Acoustics ARCS WiFo and I believe you had LA4X amplified controllers in there?
Yeah, l believe that was right and SB-18 subwoofers.
So no problem with the bottom end on the live bands, but going from big music to single mic speech intelligibility can stretch things and some churches, depending on the acoustics, don’t do both exactly right.
Yeah. You know, some speaker systems can handle one or the other really well and then they kind of fall down on the other. But like I said, we’ve had such great success with really any L-Acoustics product we’ve used, but especially this WiFo system. The speakers themselves are extremely articulate, but they kind of have some girth and some meat to it when you need to get up and go. And right now the L-Acoustics subwoofers are some of my favorite out there. They’re just so tight and punchy and clean-sounding that really this system can rock, but at the same time, when it’s as simple as a single spoken mic, it’s as clear as anything you’re going to hear. [Timestamp: 3:18]
That could be interesting with the left-right-left design that you put on this, but the right, I believe, on the outsides and a left channel in the center just to give it that spatial stereo effect but everybody still being able to hear everything.
Yeah. I mean, you know, most rooms, if you think about it, the simplest room that’s got a left and a right, most of the time the room doesn’t hear all of left and all of right. So, you know, stereo in a live venue is often imperfect. So this was sort of how we tackle and wide room within perfect stereo, but obviously that space is great when it’s music and when we need to utilize that space, but when it comes down to spoken word, it’s a single source. It’s going to rock through all the speakers. It’s going to be delivered and received very evenly. And whether you’re in the front, the back, side to side, you’ve got to be able to connect with the message that’s being communicated. [Timestamp: 4:13]
All of this live music really sets a good, energetic pace but what also sets the mood on this is the lighting and I think your guys did the lighting system on this one as well.
We did. We did full audio, video, lighting on this one and both, actually, lighting and video were just as critical to them. From a lighting standpoint, because they are very dynamic and do have a very modern style of worship, there is a sufficient number ofmoving lights and a haze and all of that in there so that it may not be quite as robust as a touring lighting rig, but at the same time it certainly has a great dynamic look to it. Most of the rig – I believe all of the rigs – is actually LED. Low maintenance – this being, again, of a few dozen sites it’s all got to be very user-friendly. It’s got to be very low maintenance. They don’t want to be out there changing bulbs all the time. So with Chauvet putting out a lot of great fixtures like they’ve been doing lately, we were actually able to do a complete LED rig for the stage lighting with their Ovation E-190 ellipsoidal fixtures. All the movers are Chauvet Rogue R-1 wash, R-1 spots, and there were a couple of R-2 spots as well. And all the house lighting those were LED as well. So the entire system is very low-maintenance as well as lower-cost in regards to electricity and power consumption and heat production. [Timestamp: 5:45]
And in this Anaheim location, I believe their 16th location, where do they control the lighting from? Is that out there next to the front of house sound mixer?
Yeah. It’s in front of house. At the Anaheim campus audio, video and lighting are all at front of house. It’s got a lot of capability there, but it’s all very compact. And video is really fairly simple for the venue, but as I mentioned it’s actually highly critical because they will generally pipe in the message from the main campus in Lake Forest. So not only do the side screens have to support the worship service, or if there’s a local speaker but there’s a large center screen that drops and has to be crystal clear and beautiful and engaging for when pastor is piped in from the main campus. [Timestamp: 6:30]
And you did the projection on this, too. What did you use for that?
We did. It’s all Christie projectors. So they’ve been on Christie projectors on most of their campuses and have had very good luck with it and have had good support from the mover the years, and so if it ain’t broke, why fix it? [Timestamp: 6:47]
Yeah. So what sort of video signal transmission do they use? How do they get the video to the projectors?
For the local stuff it’s all done like most searches. It’s a computer running ProPresenter software for motion graphics and lyrics and whatnot. For the message time they’ve actually got a Grass Valley T2 Pro in there that is essentially playing back the message from the main campus. [Timestamp: 7:12]
And I know that once things get going in there that’s a lot of stuff to coordinate. If one thing stops working it can have a domino effect. But it sounds like you got the job done and they’re going right along with all the new stuff.
Yeah. That campus has done really well. In our world, quite often no news is good news and so far, since that campus has been open now almost nine months, the only time we were hear about it is when they’re happy. They just happen to mention, “Oh, yeah, man, we were out there this weekend and t was great.” So there’s things that happen during install in any project and we hasn’t brought it right out of the box or this or that on this project like we do with any project and you get it fixed before they open. But really, since they’ve opened there have been very, very minor issues and all stuff that’s pretty normal in the production world for most of us. So nothing crazy that will surprise anybody. [Timestamp: 8:05]
Okay. Well they’re a pretty high-profile client, Saddleback Church, and I know that you guys have done other things with them. So now that you’ve got this done, what’s coming up next for CCI Solutions? Stuff going on since then?
Oh, my goodness, yeah. We’re in process of wrapping up a couple of large projects actually up here in Seattle right now. We’re getting ready to launch another campus. We’re working with a church in Indiana that has a main campus and five multi-site campuses and we’re in the process of building Building #2 for the multi-sites. So we’ve got a very full year ahead of us. We’re already booked up into the summer. [Timestamp: 8:43]
Okay. This one worked and you’ve got plenty of new things happening so I appreciate your being here, Duke. It’s Duke DeJong from CCI Solutions out in Olympia, Washington.
Yep.
And Saddleback Church out in Anaheim; the 16th location for them and you did a great job. Thanks for telling us about it.
I appreciate you having me.
Thank you for being here with us for the SVC Podcast with Duke DeJong. Show notes are on the website of Sound & Video Contractor Magazine at svconline.com. Be back here with us next week for the SVC Podcast.
