Times Square Church renews its audio with L-Acoustics

This cultural emblem of New York City now has a speaker system L-Acoustics K3i, controlled with the console DiGiCo Quantum338, according to the project carried out by SES Integration, to continue holding events.

Located in Manhattan's theater district, Times Square Church (TSC), has a long and diverse history, which starts in 1930 when was it built by Warner Bros. like a movie palace, known as the teatro Warner Hollywood, who later changed the name to Mark Hellinger. During that time, hosted iconic Broadway musicals such as My Fair Lady y Jesus Christ Superstar.

In 1991, the space was repurposed as an interdenominational place of worship under the direction of the pastor David Wilkerson, with the decision to preserve the modern façade and the rococo interior of the place, becoming a New York City landmark.

In order to update this great space to current audio needs and after closing its doors for more than eighteen months due to the pandemic, This public worship space has completed the project to install a new sound system, carried out by SES Integration, composed of the K3i speakers of L-Acoustics, which are managed through a Quantum338 mixing console of DiGiCo.

The previous team, also composed of a platform V-Enough and dV-Enough de L-Acoustics, combined with console DiGiCo SD10, It had become obsolete after many years of operation and suffered significant damage to some equipment with the floods a few years ago..

This is what he points out Luke LaPrairie, TSC production director: “On a typical Sunday we have a full choir, from sixty to one hundred people, and different instruments on stage, which means many PAs. When considering a new speaker design, We were looking for better coverage throughout the room, so that all attendees had the same experience and improve the accuracy of the frequency response”.

Yes ok, some problems had to be solved, as he adds Trey Blair, director of SES Integration: “one of the challenges was the space itself. It is a huge and beautiful room., in which we couldn't change anything and we had to fit the new PA where the previous one was, as well as discreetly adding subwoofers”.

Besides, The new system had to ensure that the spoken word of Tim Dilena, TSC lead pastor, could be heard clearly. “We use acoustic simulation software Sound vision from L-Acoustics to create a 3D model of space, We tested several of their solutions, and K3i won hands down -Blair points out-. We needed the impact of a big box, but we couldn't have the size of a traditional large format PA, and this system fit perfectly and left us room to fly other teams alongside it”.

Using suspension points from the old sound system, SES Integration was able to fly a dozen L-Acoustics K3i enclosures, along with six subwoofers KS21i on both sides of the stage. “A single X8 coaxial, wall mounted under each secondary hanger, provides extreme left and right padding. While five XT5 ultra compact, aesthetically installed at the front of the stage, They provide complete coverage”, underlines.

To this configuration are added several X12, located at the top of the stage and on both sides, for choir fill, that with another additional pair at the bottom drive the word of the pastoral team.

SES Integration has completed this renewed design of the room speakers with DiGiCo Quantum338 to serve as the FOH console, that shares a fiber optic loop, which has recently been integrated with the twin SD-Racks and SD10 consoles (one for monitor mixing and one for dedicated streaming) already existing in TSC.

Each of the SD10 consoles has been updated with the latest SD10+ software for additional features and input channels. SES Integration also supplied a DiGiCo Orange Box, equipped with cards DMI-Optocore y DMI-MADI, for easy connection to church video router for audio

“DiGiCo Quantum338 was always our first choice for this project,” says Blair., as it fits into TSC's existing hardware ecosystem with the SD10s and gives them the number of channels, of buses, “Correct control technology and I/O connectivity to serve you today and in the future.”.