Good sound begins with good acoustics. Now apply that to your sound problems

Gayla R. Postma

Nick Colleran recently visited a church where the preaching was excellent, the music terrific, and the sanctuary beautiful. So why did he leave with a headache?

"Sound was bouncing all over the place, making everything hard to hear," he says.

Colleran, marketing director at Acoustics First in Richmond, Virginia, says sound problems are relatively new in the life of the church. "Two thousand years ago, Jesus didn't perform acoustical miracles; he preached where it was acoustically beneficial," Colleran says. A thousand years ago, churches put slits in walls and filled the cavities with ash until the sound was right. Today churches that are designed without considering acoustics are a setup for sound difficulties."

Sound Problems
To test the acoustics in a room, clap your hands and count the seconds till the sound goes away. If sound is bouncing around the room five or more seconds later, you're inviting listener fatigue and frustration.

• Faulty acoustics. Whether you consult Anchor Audio, Mackie Designs, Telex Communications, or another sound group, you'll discover that good sound starts with good acoustics. "Some one trained in sound can immediately tell where the resonances are," says Carl Lafky, vice president at Anchor Audio. "That will dictate the solution."

Mike O'Neill at Electro-Voice agrees. "If the acoustics aren't right to begin with, there are a number of remedies available," he says. "But fundamentally, anything we do to a preexisting de sign is a Band-Aid approach. You can only minimize problems with sound reinforcement."

• Dated design. The problem with some church sound systems is that they were designed as public-address systems, says John Fuqua at All Pro Sound. Those systems are no longer adequate for today's worship needs, which can range from traditional to contemporary to a combination of both, and include everything from choirs, organs, and orchestras to guitars, worship bands, and praise teams.

Contemporary music requires less reverberation, which is also good for speech clarity. But when a church alternates between organ and amplified instruments in blended worship, sound is a problem. One solution is to install reflecting panels at the chancel end of the auditorium so the choir projects out. If the space is too small, electronics may be the only way to increase reverberation.

Sound Problem at Crossroads
Crossroads Community Church in Las Vegas, Nevada, needed a new facility to accommodate its growing congregation. Bob Hoffman, associate pastor at the church, says the congregation found a warehouse to lease in a desirable location, but a lot of work had to be done to correct the acoustics.

"It's a fairly new building, but it was just four concrete walls, a concrete floor, and a high ceiling," Hoffman says. The five-second echo delay was an acoustic nightmare for the singers, rhythm section, and other musicians who led worship.

With help from Acoustics First, the church began treating the hard services in the worship center. "We added carpeting and fabric chairs," Hoffman says. "From the ceiling, we hung about 90 sound clouds"; 4-by-8-foot fiberglass panels covered with porous plastic that are hung vertically.

The walls were texturized and painted. Then two different kinds of sound panels were put up: 80 flat, two-inch-thick fiberglass panels covered with porous cloth, and, opposite the speakers, diffusers, which are like acoustic panels but curve out from the wall. Acoustic wall carpet was also installed around the room.

The envelope of absorption worked. "We went from space that was worse than a school gym to a really great worship space," Hoffman says.

Other Trouble Spots
The narthex has become a gathering place in many churches today. Noise can be a real sound problem, especially for participants in a service that's just starting. Horrall says the problem can be eased by installing sound-absorbing material in the narthex. "Treat surfaces, walls, and ceiling," he says.

The fellowship hall was the acoustical weak spot at St. Timothy United Methodist Church in Litchfield, Illinois. "We had a tile floor with concrete walls," says Anthony Bell, pastor of the church. "Sound just bounced around the room."

The church solved the problem by installing about 20 Alphasorb panels from Acoustical Solutions around the room.

Holy Cross Catholic Church in Derry, New Hampshire, also solved its echo problem with Alphasorb wall panels. "We bought 12 panels, and we're going to order more," says Mark Comeau, a member of the church steering committee. "They're doing the trick, but we'd like to get a little more bounce out of the room."

No matter where you buy sound absorbing and diffusing materials, the challenge is to shape and install them properly. So don't nail or glue anything in place till you've sat through a worship service and really listened. Can you hear the drummer without wanting to cover your ears? Has the preacher never sounded better? If so, your acoustical environment is doing what it's designed to do.

Gayla R. Postma (postma@mor-net.on.ca) is a freelance writer living in Morrisburg, Ontario.

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