Stratford-upon-Avon’s Holy Trinity Church has replaced an aging sound system with an Electro-Voice and Dynacord alternative from NoiseBoys Technologies.
‘The old 100V system was coming to the end of its life,’ says NoiseBoys Director of Technologies, Phill Beynon. ‘They wanted a solution that could handle both speech and music, and extend the coverage into different spaces to create a multi-zone system. Dynacord’s IX series networked DSP amps together with Electro-Voice’s EVC series speakers and LRC columns seemed like a really good fit for the project.’
With a history stretching back over 800 years and a claim to be the most visited parish church in the UK, the church is best known as the place where William Shakespeare was baptised and is buried. Alongside a historic location, it is also an active house of worship that needs reliable, high-quality sound for services, spoken word, contemporary worship and special events.
EVC-1082 loudspeakers now cover the main body of the church. Models with the narrow 90°x60° dispersion angle and rotatable horn for longer throw were selected for the nave, while wider 100°x100° variants evenly cover the side aisles. These are accompanied by an ELX200 subwoofer can be plugged in when required and removed when not enhances the full range coverage.
‘Having the EVC is really good because you can choose the dispersion on it,’ Beynon confirms. ‘It allows you to tailor the coverage a little bit more to these super reverberant spaces that were not designed for electronic reproduction.’
The LRC-1100 Line Radiator Column loudspeakers provide fill and delays for the choir stalls and chancel. In architecturally sensitive areas, the sleek enclosures and the compact SwifTilt mounting system of the LRCs keep the columns discreet and as close as possible to the wall
‘For historically significant areas like the chancel where Shakespeare’s grave actually is, being able to use just use LRCs in that room was really good because they blend in with all the old dark woodwork in there,’ Beynon says. ‘They’re generally used for music playback during the week and then just largely speech reproduction. They’re good for filling in those areas where you need something discreet to do that job.’
A pair of Dynacord IX30:8 and a further IX15:4 amplifier power the system, with their line inputs utilized as Dante break-ins. Control is split via the amplifiers’ built-in mixer and an external sound desk, the former providing simple control for day-to-day use, and the latter hands-on mixing for services and events.
‘What it allowed us to do is use Dante both ways instead of just one way,’ Beynon explains. ‘So instead of just pushing it from the mixing desk to the amps, we can take inputs on the amps through their Dante card and then feed them into the desk. And with the IX amps you can bring inputs and a mix in and split it on Dante between the amps as well, so you retain all the zoning control. No matter which control system they’re using, they’ve got whatever they need, wherever they need it, which is really handy.’
SoniCue Sound System Software was used to set up the networked Dante system and design a custom GUI for the TPC-1 touchpanel controllers, allowing staff and volunteers ready access to the main controls and the ability to switch between different operating modes.
‘To be able to use the touchscreens controlling the amps directly and to use Dante to split it between that and the desk just made perfect sense really,’ Beynon notes. ‘They’ve got the touchscreen TPC-1, which has got a diagram of the church on it, and they can mute and unmute certain parts of it as they need to. All they have to do really is turn it on and push one preset button and it’s ready to go during the week.’
With the system installed, the response has now been gauged: ‘It was a once-in-a-lifetime upgrade for the people dealing with this, and they were so keen to get it right,’ Beynon says. ‘We had an email after the first week of services to say the new system is excellent and they’ve had great reports back. It was a massive relief to the church and is exactly what you want to hear as an installer.’