DSH Audio Visions – St . George ’ s Episcopal Church in Nashville , TN
relation between attendance and congregation growth and solving the audio and acoustical issues in a given space – one that can vary anywhere from 10 to 25 per cent , in his experience .
“ How the church sounds has got nothing to do with how it looks , but unfortunately , a lot of people conflate how it looks with how it sounds ,” De Buglio muses . “ So if you have a good sounding church , people don ’ t fuss about the looks , but if it ’ s a bad sounding room , the looks are everything . When you ’ re only fixing the acoustics for the room , from before and after a church can realize anywhere between 10 to 15 per cent growth . When you only deal with the sound system , it can be 5 to 10 per cent . With both , I ’ ve seen as much as a 25 per cent increase in attendance . I ’ ve seen some churches that have gone through four or five sound systems in as many years , spending hundreds of thousands of dollars trying to find the right product , when the acoustics haven ’ t been dealt with .”
In both Hosbach and De Buglio ’ s careers , they ’ ve seen and continue to see situations where their work is critical to the future of the worship community their clients represent .
De Buglio cites a comment from a member of the Kingston Road United Church in Toronto , who once told him : “ If the acoustics hadn ’ t been done back in ’ 96 , the church would be closed today .”
Hosbach , for his part , references a potential upcoming project , renovated 10 years ago but without proper attention paid to room acoustics so that , after the sound system installation , people still couldn ’ t hear properly . “ Now they ’ ve got people who are threatening to leave the parish if they don ’ t fix this , and quick .”
Increasingly , the implementation of integrated audio , video , and broadcast systems that allow churches to add depth to their offerings – both
David Hosbach
within and beyond their walls – are becoming popular in traditional spaces .
“ Whether they ’ re providing graphics on a screen , or a more interactive system that uses , for example , video clips as an object lesson in a sermon , that helps to revitalize the worship setting ,” Hosbach says . “ We ’ re living in a video-oriented society . We don ’ t listen as well , but we pay attention to our screens for hours , so video , in a church , provides a measure of revitalization .”
But no amount of high-end video or broadcast equipment will help if the room isn ’ t rock solid , acoustically and sonically . “ When you have good acoustics , you don ’ t have to spend as much on higher end equipment for video streaming and on-air mixing ,” De Buglio says . “ When the room sounds good , people don ’ t mind allowing the sound of the room to be included in live broadcasts . When the room is bad , they eliminate it .” Ultimately , that can cut down on the audio infrastructure and , to some degree , the cost of a given solution .
ONSITE TRAINING
Quite beyond designing acoustic treatments and audio systems for a given space , one of the big parts of both De Buglio and Hosbach ’ s jobs onsite is education . More often than not , both say , the degree of education necessary in the HOW market is greater than in other areas of the audio business .
“ The amount of teaching I do now is about the same as 20 years ago ,” De Buglio says . “ I would have thought , with all the technology and ease of use , it would be easier . It ’ s not .”
One reason , he says , is that he believes there are myths about acoustics that are prevalent and constantly perpetuated . “ I run into a lot of churches that have acoustic tile up , or they have fibrous panels – anywhere from one to five inches thick – and I tell them to take them down because they kill the room to the point where congregational singing is abhorrent . The technical side of it is that fibrous material only absorbs highs , not lows . The lows build up excessively in the room masking the highs , so you ’ re trying to get high details in music and speech – and you can ’ t . And the more you turn up the system , the more bass it amplifies . When you have a new church , people think that you put in the absorptive materials and that ’ s all it takes to make it sound better . No . What you ’ ve done is changed the sound of the room . You may have gotten rid of the noise , but the frequency response of the room has gotten worse . They ’ re exchanging one set of problems for another , and because they spent so much money , they don ’ t have the budget to go back right away and fix that .”
“ We also always look at who ’ s operating the system ,” Hosbach puts in . “ There , we can take advantage of today ’ s technology – digitally controlled devices , automatic mixers , all kinds of things where we can make the system as hands-on or hands-off as we need it to be . Besides loudspeaker design , I spend a lot of time on the electronics because I have to start from the standpoint that the church has a volunteer who doesn ’ t necessarily know how to operate a console , so we have to find user-friendly solutions . They also need education in the types of loudspeakers I ’ m working with , so they know where I ’ m coming from in terms of getting sound from point A to point B and keeping it off the walls and ceiling . Whether it ’ s a large format-traditional horn , steerable or passive column array , or distributed system , we have to work through potential solutions and arrive at the best one based on room acoustics , aesthetic and architectural considerations , and physical limitations like columns and statues , so there is a lot more education that goes into a traditional space .”
Kevin Young is a Toronto-based musician and freelance writer .