Green Acres Baptist Church creates intimate worship space with the help of d&b ArrayProcessing

Green Acres Baptist Church, located in Tyler, Texas, USA, is a mega-church with attendance reaching over 14,000 people each weekend. The massive worship space, known as the Main Sanctuary, seats 4,500 people, with a separate chapel also seating 1,500. In addition, the church houses a 128-track recording studio, gymnasium and a broadcast suite. 
The vast size of the church presented a significant challenge to provide consistency of sound output across the Main Sanctuary, and the church was suffering regular system failures with its previous audio set-up. 
Green Acres tech team wanted to ensure the entire congregation had the opportunity to experience the same intimate service, no matter where they sat in the church, and to invest in an audio system that would stand the test of time, setting them up for success over the next decade.

To help achieve these goals, in August 2016, Green Acres Baptist Church enlisted specialist production and integration company, Morris, which designed and installed a fiber-based, digital audio system that features the d&b audiotechnik V-Series with ArrayProcessing and two SSL L500 Plus consoles with 256 channels. This system is one of the largest d&b audiotechnik and Solid State Logic installations in the house of worship market. 
The Main Sanctuary of the Church, where the installation took place, is a fan-shaped auditorium with 40 ft. high ceilings, and includes a balcony. For the optimum placement, the stereo line array speakers were placed in a left/right configuration with a mixture of ground subs, flown subs, flown front fills, end stair front fills, out fills and delays. 
With the support of d&b ArrayProcessing, a function within the d&b ArrayCalc simulation software that ensures every member of an audience benefits from the same remarkable quality of sound, by enhancing the spectral consistency with a defined level distribution, to achieve a consistent tonal balance for each listener, Green Acres was able to achieve its goal. Through ArrayProcessing, the system created a consistent and even sound across Green Acres’ huge space, ensuring there is minimal loss between the front and back rows. The result is that the best seat in the house and the ‘worst’ seat in the house are within a decibel and a half of each other. 
Mark Leonard comments, “The sound is incredible. One of the biggest surprises we experienced was from our senior adult members who commented on how much better they could hear and understand. Our gain before feedback and intelligibility on the choir was unbelievable, and the pastors’ voice sounded clearer and more intelligible than ever before.” 
The upgrade has been an incredibly positive development for the church, with the addition of ArrayProcessing overcoming the key environmental challenge of consistent sound across a large area, and creating a more intimate worship space for the congregation. The design and advanced technology allows for the 4,500 seat auditorium to be a prime venue for touring Christian artists, as it is now rider-friendly.