To celebrate this historic occasion, the church decided to invest in a thoroughly modern sound system - based around the first Martin Audio OmniLine system to be installed in a German church, powered by Crest Audio amplification with processing via an Architectural Acoustics Digitool MX programmable digital processor.
Christ's Church, Velbert is reputed to be one of the most significant 'Jugendstil' or art nouveau churches in western Germany. Designed by architect Carl Krieger with interior design by Franz Brantzsky, the 900-seater church affords worshippers a completely unimpeded view of the altar, font, pulpit and organ, thanks to the fact that Krieger avoided using any columns as internal supports.
Technical project manager, Thomas Meckel of art veranstaltungstechnik, explained that he strongly advised against a 'typical' loudspeaker installation as it would have meant having cables and loudspeakers compromising the architecture of such a wonderful listed building.
Thus he specified four OmniLine arrays, with six modules in each. Two were for the nave of the church, the other two covered the gallery so that the sound energy could be directed precisely to the area required.
"The fact that there are no columns in the nave of Christ's Church worked to our advantage, as it offered an ideal backdrop for the OmniLine system, which covers long distances very easily," he explained. "Furthermore, the natural sound impression is enhanced by the use of just a single column of loudspeakers as the sound comes directly from the speaker and not from a source beside the pew, which is extremely distracting for the congregation."
See Martin Audio at PLASA Focus, Leeds - 28-19 April 2009.
(Jim Evans)
