d&b Soundscape creates an immersive environment

USA:

InteRise has chosen a d&b Soundscape setup for the Reservoir Campus of Mississippi’s Pinelake Church to solve issues created by the building’s low ceiling. Opened in 2003, the campus originally had a traditional, full choir and orchestra style of worship but this had transitioned to a more contemporary style in recent years. As a result, the weaknesses and age of the old sound system became evident and led Pinelake to contact Nashville-based InteRise and ask for guidance on designing and installing a new system that would reconnect the worship ministry to the congregation.

“There was a huge challenge with sightlines because the roof is so low relative to the size of the room and seating sections, so we had to come up with a solution that created quality audio coverage across the room but also did not obstruct the visual space,” said Philip Hagood, general manager at InteRise. “We looked at a number of different manufacturers but, ultimately, d&b Soundscape rose to the top of our options because it checked so many boxes.”

Many of Pinelake’s other campuses and facilities have d&b sound systems so the church knew it had chosen a high-quality product to be installed by InteRise. Before the project began, the InteRise team went onsite to take a 3D measurement of the space with a Leica BLK360 image lasering scanner in order to produce renderings that would show what the new sound system in the space would look like. The d&b Soundscape system gives Pinelake the tools to mix the audio into the room in a way that creates an engaging and visceral experience, while also removing distractions created by traditional speaker systems, so the message is clear.

“Soundscape in this application at Pinelake brings the benefit of being able to mix with space and size that’s compelling to the audience, while representing every seat in the house equally, which we refer to as object-based mixing,” explained Nick Malgieri, d&b support team member. “This allows the sound engineer to place objects in space and then the sound system re-renders these objects, so everyone hears the sound with proper localisation to where the performers are onstage.”

Pinelake has stayed consistent when deploying Yamaha consoles at each of their six campuses. To increase workflow efficiency while mixing, the Yamaha Rivage PM7 console was selected to drive the d&b Soundscape system as the higher channel and bus count allowed more flexibility while mixing the audio.

“With the new system, the band sounds amazing and the vocals are easy to understand. That’s so important in worship music to be able to hear the lyrics and sing along and the same thing is true for the message,” concluded Kevin Hoober, director of worship technology at Pinelake. “The Soundscape system gives us all of those things wrapped up together.”