Headed up by Pastor Abraham Alex Tanuseputra, this is one of Indonesia's largest churches, able to accommodate gatherings of 30,000 in one sitting. Tri Tunggal Abadi's André Bonang has carried out several previous installations for the Bethany Church in Indonesia, including the Bethany Manyar.
Michel Brouard, L-Acoustics' sales manager Asia, initially visited the Graha Bethany Nginden church in March 2010 and met with Pastor Tanuseputra. "My first visit to Surabaya was really amazing," he says. "It was really a privilege to visit such a unique house of worship and to be welcomed and informed about the project by Pastor Tanuseputra and music director Canessa Christian Lawanto."
Following his visit, L-Acoustics' tech support engineer Germain Simon and head of installation support Cedric Montrézor carried out an acoustic simulation using the Soundvision programme.
The system consists of two hangs of 12 K1 WST line source boxes with six K1-SB and six SB28 subwoofers in cardioid mode. Two clusters of four Kara boxes provide stereo in-fill, with a further two used for out-fill and four ARCS medium format WST line source cabinets for front-fill.
Five hangs of two Kara boxes provide first delay under balcony, together with four hangs of two 12XTi coaxials and four hangs of eight 8XTi coaxials in white, from the Architectural Series, providing discreet integration into the church's interior. Four hangs of three Kiva ultra compact WST line source cabinets have been installed as a delay system for the second balcony. The system is driven by 35 LA4 and LA8 amplified controllers.
In addition, three Kivas and a Kilo cover an on-stage VIP section, while four 115 XT HiQ coaxials driven by an LA8 amplified controller provide the Pastor's main monitor system, and two 112Ps are used for both side fill and choir monitors.
"This was a very interesting installation as it dealt with almost all of our product lines, with different purposes for each of them," explains Germain Simon, who tuned the system. The large, architecturally complex venue restricted the location of different clusters due to its many pillars. We spent time prioritising the best location for each part of the system with the right orientation, levels and delay. Then we worked on fine-tuning the system, experimenting until we found the most appropriate contour for the type of music and preferences of the church followers. We wish to thank all the Bethany Church sound engineers for their valuable help and support."
(Jim Evans)
