At Orlando’s Summit Church, leveraging culture is a means to fulfilling its mission, and thus a typical service pulses with rock styles echoing Aimee Mann and Radiohead, yet with lyrics often borrowed from pre-modern hymns. The unique mix is delivered with full impact by a Meyer Sound self-powered loudspeaker system designed and installed by the Orlando office of Pro Sound.
Summit Church’s home is also a bit unorthodox. In 2005, the congregation moved from its temporary meeting spaces into a shuttered eight-screen AMC movie theatre multiplex, bringing its legacy Meyer Sound MSL-3 loudspeaker and 650-R2 subwoofer system to be used in one of the larger screening rooms, while three other theaters were gutted to make way for a purpose-built 770-seat worship auditorium.
“Summit’s new room is very wide and shallow, which did not lend itself to a line array solution,”? notes system designer Kelly Prince of Pro Sound. “Instead, we went with a left-right-left-right configuration of four CQ-1 loudspeakers. It fits the space perfectly and also provides good stereo imaging.”?
The proposal for CQ-1 loudspeakers immediately resonated with Andy Simonds, the church’s creative director and lead keyboard player in Summit’s band. “I’m a great fan of how the CQs sound,”? Simonds remarks. “I particularly like how they treat vocals. It’s easy to get vocals into the sweet spot in the mix, and to make them come up front without being shrill.”?
For those sitting in the front rows, four UPM-1P loudspeakers keep vocals above the band’s strong instrumental sound. Power-packed low end is supplied by four of the veteran 650R-2s working in conjunction with a pair of 600-HP subwoofers.
“The 600-HPs are incredibly precise in the upper bass,”? Simonds observes. “I love the tight kick drum we get from them.”?
Simonds adds that the church is planning on further upgrades in the future, including additional microphones and replacing the analog board with a DigiDesign Venue D Show. In the initial phase, however, he made it clear that the first priority was a firm foundation for future expansion. “I wanted to be sure we had the basic infrastructure right,”? reports Simonds. “And that included getting all the cabling clean and putting in the right Meyer Sound loudspeakers. We wanted to make sure everything we had on the back end was right from the outset.”?
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