Martin Audio will hold three days of special training for its award-winning Multi-cellular Array (MLA) technology loudspeaker system in the Chicago area from September 15^th through the 17^th.

The training sessions will be held at the Aloft O’Hare Hotel in the MB Financial Park in Rosemont, Illinois. They encompass a 3-day certification program with two days of classroom instruction and one day of practical application covering the concept of MLA, current versions of the MLA including MLA Compact and MLA Mini, Display 2.0 and VU-NET control software.

Instructors for the training will be Jim Jorgensen, UXM and MLA Product Support Specialist for North America, and Andy Davies, Martin Audio Product Support Group Leader for UK and Europe. Classroom sessions will run from 9:00am to 4:00pm with breakfast and lunch included with practical instruction in the field from 10:00am to 3:00pm on day three.

Commenting on the training, Jorgensen said, “These instruction sessions are intended to provide designers, consultants, engineers and system techs with a full understanding of how to design, implement, deploy and maintain an MLA system. We’re fully committed to providing as much education as possible about this breakthrough technology.”

For more about Martin Audio, please click to www.martin-audio.com.

Assistive Listening and the Law

Too often, congregants with hearing loss stop attending worship services because they cannot connect to what is important—the message. Assistive listening systems help people with hearing loss connect to sound in all kinds of environments, including houses of worship.

What Does the ADA Say?

The Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) requires certain public spaces to provide assistive listening devices. Just like access ramps help people in wheelchairs, assistive listening devices help people with hearing loss in public spaces, venues, and assembly areas. Most houses of worship are not required to provide assistive listening devices to their congregants—under the ADA, houses of worship have exemption status. However, this is not the case everywhere. California and Texas both require houses of worship provide assistive listening systems to their congregants.

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Monday, August 24 at 11:00am (EDT)
Monday, August 31 at 11:00am (EDT)

In this free webinar, we will take a comprehensive look at the numerous cutting-edge solutions Kramer Electronics provides to the PRO AV and Digital Signage industries.We will examine each product group, their primary functions and features, the problems they solve and the type of customers currently employing these solutions.We will also cover collaboration solutions, control system solutions, presentation switchers and scalers, installer solutions, and extension and distribution systems.

We will not be looking at individual products, but rather the application of Kramer products in solving you or your customers’ signal management needs. Come see how Kramer solutions can save you time and money in setting up or designing your next system!

Dave Haar, Kramer’s VP of Strategic Partner Sales, will be the presenter. We hope you will join us!

This webinar is limited to the first 100 attendees to register, in order to allow for an effective Q&A session at the end. This webinar is being recorded and is part of a series that will be repeated again later in the year. If you wish to receive a copy of the recorded webinar, please reply to this email directly. Click on the above date to register for the webinar of your choice.

Founded in 1946, St. Bridget Catholic Church dedicated its current building in 1988. The 1000-seat sanctuary’s original sound system, installed behind panels above the altar area, was typical for its day, but never really addressed the hall’s acoustical challenges.

“The room is about 124 feet in diameter, with a high ceiling and windows around the perimeter,” explains Jon McDowell, owner of Rockford, IL-based systems integrator Jonny B Enterprises Inc. “The views are lovely but reflections were a critical issue. Ceiling reflections are not as bad as you might expect but the windows are incredibly reflective. There also were acoustic dead spots in the room. The old system was hidden behind panels, which was sort of like trying to fire sound through a tank driver’s window. On top of that, service was a nightmare: You needed 20 feet of scaffolding just to get to the grills and an extension ladder on top of that to get to the speakers. It was time for a change.”

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Church Locality: New Rules for Church Buildings in a Multisite, Church Planting and Giga-Church World

by Jim Tomberlin & Tim Cool

Forward by Greg Surratt

I remember the feeling in my stomach when our local government said “no” to our request to build a larger building for our rapidly growing congregation. What were we going to do? How will we possibly move forward? We were doing five services in cramped facilities. Our staff was exhausted. The idea of starting yet another service in a less than desirable times slot was not appealing.

Fortunately we met a group of church leaders grappling with similar issues, one of whom was Jim Tomberlin. We agreed to meet together twice a year for the next two years to see if we could find some solutions to what more and more churches were facing: growing congregations and fewer opportunities to expand on existing properties. Out of those gatherings came a loose framework for what has now been called “the multisite revolution”. What started as a desperate search for immediate solutions has morphed into a growing movement that is changing how church is being done in our generation.

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Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, is holding a series of seminars across the country focused on audio, video and lighting for house-of-worship facilities.

The event serving the Chicago area will take place in Palatine, Illinois, at New Life Church (1200 W. Northwest Hwy.) on Wednesday, September 9, 2015, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

The event serving the Detroit area will take place in Taylor, Michigan, at Metro City Church (21080 Penn St.) on Friday, September 11, 2015, from 12 p.m. to 6 p.m.

Join us for a technology seminar, covering the latest techniques and products in stage lighting, sound reinforcement, audio mixing and video for house of worship live production. GC Pro personnel, including account manager Paul Johnson, will be on hand to lead the event and answer questions. There is no charge and everyone is welcome to attend.

For more information, please visit http://www.guitarcenter.com/GC-Pro-House-of-Worship-g28238t0.gc.

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A New Horizon

By Mark Shrimplin

Woodmen Valley Chapel is a 35 year old, non-denominational community church with a contemporary flair that reaches a wide demographic range of people. Over 6,000 people, including a lot of military personnel, join us every week between two campuses.

We have 80 technical volunteers between two campuses, and rotate them on a monthly basis: 20 volunteers per weekend, scheduled once a month for our Saturday night service and two Sunday morning services. Between those two campuses, we have over 60 wireless devices, mostly microphones but also IEMs, guitar tuners, etc. We were spending over $25 per week replacing old batteries, or around $1,300 a year. We knew there had to be a better solution than merely replacing old batteries with new.

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