latest news headlines

Small Budget - Big Time Wireless

Although it was 1999 when Charlotte South Fellowship Church formed under the leadership of Kenny Hibbard, it wasn't until 2006 that the then 700-member strong church had a building of their own. Their beautiful new 23,000 square foot structure houses a 700-seat auditorium and a two-story children's ministry area. Like many churches, CSF's budget has little room for audio gear so worship pastor KC Clark and volunteer sound engineer Brent Taylor maximized equipment functionality, sound quality, and reliability with cost-effective, premium-quality gear from Sennheiser.

Energetic contemporary music is a cornerstone of CSF's unconventional services, and considerations of both stage movement and aesthetics demanded that the duo invest in a small number of high-quality wireless microphones. They bought three Sennheiser ew 135 G2 handheld transmitter/receiver systems for backing vocals and one ew 165 G2 handheld transmitter/receiver system for lead vocals. The two systems are identical except that the 135 comes with a cardioid dynamic capsule, whereas the 165 comes with a super-cardioid condenser capsule. For spoken word and wireless acoustic guitar, they purchased three Sennheiser ew 100 G2 series body-pack transmitter/receivers with lavalier microphones. Finally, a camera-mountable Sennheiser ew 100 G2 series transmitter/receiver system sends a wireless feed from the main mixing console to a video camera to record pristine audio for both archiving and webcasts.

Recently, funds became available to upgrade the CSF's sound booth. Because space was at a premium, Clark and Taylor replaced all of their portable racks with one tall rolling stage rack that could be placed neatly next to the monitor position. As that rack space was still limited. Taylor built a custom two-unit rack panel where he mounted all of the antennas for the Sennheiser receivers and all of the antennas for their wireless personal monitor transmitters.

"It's funny, but the sound booth really shouldn't be working," laughed Taylor. "We have a heap of antennas, some for transmitters, some for receivers, all in the same spot. And surprisingly, we never have problems - the system works reliably week after week!"

Taylor attributes their unlikely success to Sennheiser's frequency agility. He continued, "Even on top of all the RF traffic we have in the rack, the greater Charlotte area is crowded - and becoming even more crowded - with TV stations and other RF users. Nevertheless, it's easy to find open channels with the Sennheiser gear and to trust that they'll stay solid for the duration of the service."

But RF stability was only part of the reason Clark and Taylor invested in the Sennheiser systems. Sound quality and rugged dependability were other important factors. Although volunteer musicians, singers, and technicians imbue CSF services with tremendous passion, their professional polish is not always one hundred percent. Taylor finds that the 835 and 865 capsules of their handheld wireless systems are wonderfully forgiving of imperfect mic technique, yet capture more practiced voices with a stunning musicality.

"A lot of times our volunteers, especially in the youth band, aren't as careful with the equipment as I'd like them to be," said Taylor. "We've had a lot of drops, but with the exception of a cracked LCD panel, the Sennheiser equipment keeps working without missing a beat. Yeah, our cables often fail us," Clark added, "but these mics keep going and going!"

When funds become available, the duo looks forward to replacing their current wireless monitor system with a Sennheiser system. "We've borrowed Sennheiser systems before and there's a noticeable difference," said Clark.

"It's not so much that our singers start gushing about the Sennheiser wireless monitors. Rather, when they wear our current wireless monitors, they complain. When they wear Sennheiser wireless monitors, they don't complain. What could be clearer than that?"

In picture: with energetic contemporary music as a cornerstone of both the worship auditorium and children's ministry at Charlotte South Fellowship Church, the pastor and sound engineer decided on Sennheiser evolution wireless systems for quality, reliability and functionality.

News Type:

latest news headlines

Small Budget - Big Time Wireless

10th November 2008

HEADLINES

news archive

search stories