MLA keeps the action on show for San Diego’s The Rock Church

USA: The Heights Campus of The Rock Church in San Diego has adopted a Martin Audio loudspeaker system in a bid to completely renovate the sonic footprint inside its sanctuary. The building is a former dealership for renewable energy cars and features multiple large glass surfaces. Taming audio transmission in the sanctuary was therefore no small task.

The Rock Church’s director of facilities, Ron Fulton, confirms that The Heights Campus, one of five in the San Diego area, provides what is ‘a pretty full production between lights, graphics and sound. We have spoken word, contemporary worship with bands, rap concerts and worship nights. Everything is live except a teaching portion that is transmitted via cable.’

To tackle the acoustic problem, the church called on design/build integrator, Clark, which specified the manufacturer’s MLA Mini line array system alongside CDD Series enclosures.

‘The back wall that the PA and stage is facing and the two parallel side walls are all glass, with what was formerly the showroom office walled in with entry areas to the left and right,’ explains Clark’s George Clark. ‘There’s a 5x10m stage backed up to that wall in an intimate room that’s 36m-wide by 18m-deep and seats about 450.

‘The Heights is a multi-site church campus with live spoken word and contemporary worship services that include bands with keyboards, drums, guitars, bass and vocals – none in an enclosed housing,’ the integrator continues. ‘That’s why we were concerned when we first saw the room and realised the PA would be firing right into that glass wall behind the audience. Fortunately, we were able to make full use of the fantastic MLA technology Martin Audio has developed.’

The system designed and installed by Clark includes a hang with one MSX sub and eight MLA Minis per side, and two outside fills flanking those main arrays with one Martin Audio CDD15 each flown at the height of the bottom two Minis to cover the far sides of the first rows in the audience. There are also four CSX218 subs groundstacked under the stage.

As a result of the particularly tricky acoustic environment, Clark ‘brought in half of an actual system as proof of concept and focused it 2m up the glass wall to show the Church exactly what it would sound like in terms of controlling what was hitting the ceiling, the glass walls and directly beneath the performers on the stage and it really cleaned everything up. When they heard it, they knew right away it was the direction in which they wanted to go,’ Mr Clark recalls. ‘They could get consistent coverage front to back without the late reflections off the back wall. It’s so detrimental if you get a reflection that comes in 100ms after the original sound for people in the first row and the performers on stage.’

‘We wanted the stage to face out to windows on the street, so people could look in and see what was going on – knowing the reverberation from all that glass was extreme and we had to manage the situation,’ adds Mr Futon. ‘After Clark brought in the MLA system so we could hear it, we couldn’t have asked for a better fit in that room. MLA really is doing what it was supposed to do and recently I had someone in who said, “Wow, did you guys make the right decision”.’

‘We’re very pleased with it,’ furthers Clark’s senior audio commissioning engineer, Ed Crippen. ‘The clarity and intelligibility is fantastic. And there’s more than enough power in the system, you never have to push it to the limits of what it can do, there’s plenty of headroom there.

‘These arrays are actually tucked upstage a little bit where they’re hung relative to the stage,’ he adds. ‘You can be in front of and under that array and still have great isolation on stage.’

Summing up, Mr Fulton says, ‘We’re loving MLA’s performance with minimal acoustic treatments to the room. The intelligibility and warmth of the sound are great, it allows us to have a full range spectrum of sound that obviously enhances the worship experience.’

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