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Jim Weiveris, Feedback Fighter

DSP: One Church's Story

Several years ago, we devoted an entire issue of Shure Notes® for Houses of Worship to DSP in an issue that attempted to break it down for our readers. (It was called "DSP Made Simple" and you can view it right here.) In revisiting the general subject, we decided to tap into the real-world experiences of someone who might be a little like you.

Jim Weiveris, self-proclaimed "tech-geek", found himself with more faith and commitment than real pro audio experience. Still, he managed to help his church, Bayside Chapel, make the transition from portachurch to permanence.

How do you control feedback in an all-steel building where even the chairs have to perform an acoustical function? A solid sound designer and Jim figured it out (with a little help from digital signal processing).

Can you tell us a little bit about your church and the community it serves?
Bayside Chapel is in Barnegat — right on the New Jersey Shore. For about twelve years, Bayside Chapel was a porta-church, meeting at a local school. In June 2006 we moved into a new construction, all-steel building with classrooms and office space.

Our main worship space is a multipurpose room, often nicknamed a "gymnauseatorium" for the poor sound characteristics. Without the chairs (which are part of the designed sound treatment) you can stand near a corner, clap your hands and hear about 15 to 20 echoes before it dies out.

What kinds of services do you hold there?
Our services are primarily contemporary (Paul Baloche, Lincoln Brewster, Matt Redman, etc.) Our normal Sunday offers two identical services, with about 900 in attendance. The room is also used by many other groups during the week. Use of the room almost always includes the sound system, often without a properly trained operator. Youth group meets two nights a week, along with two large bible study groups, a local chapter of Alcoholics Anonymous (over 100 per meeting), and choir practice – those are just a few recurring uses.

How did you get involved?
Shortly after I moved to this area in 2003, I began helping out with portachurch setup and breakdown. As time went on, I became more and more involved as I learned more about how things worked. During that time, design and building were underway for our new facility.

The stress involved played a part in burning out the person who was then in charge of sound and I was asked if I would take over once we were in the new building. I started by taking as many classes and learning as much as I could so that I could do my best to serve Him.



What's your background?
Is this a full time job for you now or do you volunteer your services?
I am retired. Always been something of a tech geek, including computers, electronics and radio. It is kind of a personality type, I guess. Some weeks the position is more than full time, but it is a volunteer position. Like most of the tech teams out there, we are the first to arrive and the last to leave nearly every event.

Do you head an audio team? Are they new to sound reinforcement or seasoned vets?
I head up the audio (and just about everything technical) team and without the other dedicated volunteers I alone would not be able to do any of the things that we do. There are three of us who regularly run the sound board, although only two for Sunday services. We also provide the people to run video projections, CD burning and duplicating, and lighting is a project we are currently upgrading in a big way. We have not started video recording (yet).

Image: (Sound desk) Caption: Sound Desk at Bayside Chapel One of our sound techs came to us from a church in Maine where he ran the recording mix. Everyone else has been trained in-house. Our primary requirement is dedication to the Lord and translating that into responsible service. We can teach the rest. The team is fantastic. Our group is small, but everyone gives 200%.

DSP

What led you to DSP?
With the room sound characteristics, feedback was going to be a problem. My predecessor got a really good designer involved and he specified a Shure DFR22. They ran the pastor's wireless mic and the podium mic channels through it. With the DFR22, feedback in those channels is pretty well eliminated.

Our pastor can walk anywhere in the room (Countryman E6 mic on a beltpack) and we don't even worry about it, nor do we have to reduce levels. Speech remains perfectly intelligible. Unlike trying to control feedback with a 1/3 octave equalizer, we are not removing huge chunks of the audio spectrum with each cut.

"With the DFR22, feedback in those channels is pretty well eliminated."

Did you have experience with signal processing before?
When we were a portachurch, feedback was always waiting to happen. Actually, thinking back on it, there were probably few services where feedback wasn't a problem. We didn't even have an equalizer.

You have a DFR22 – that's a Shure product. How did you end up choosing this solution?
Our designer chose it. We've yet to find a piece of equipment he's specified that hasn't been great. Because of the expanding use of our system, we have actually budgeted to add another DFR22 unit to cover two additional channels.

How about the learning curve?
I only watched as they did the initial setup. Our sound system designer used a measuring mic and spectrum analyzer. He ran the system into feedback, measured that feedback frequency, then had the unit cut the offending part.

"If you don't have all the fancy equipment, the unit will store frequencies that feed back and you can accept or reject them."

If you don't have all the fancy equipment, the unit will store frequencies that feed back and you can accept or reject them. You can use a computer (serial port required) to view and change settings. What is really great is that you can set "scenes" for each microphone and corresponding components have their own unique combinations.

For example, on the podium channel, we normally use a Crown LM301A microphone, but we can also change that to a Shure SM58® if the Crown mic failed. Each will feed back in entirely different patterns and ranges. We have the scenes set up so that one scene is for each mic model. Last minute changes in equipment become easier to deal with; you just press the button for the scene you want and you are set to go.

Were there any problems it was able to solve for you that you weren't expecting? Surprises?
With so many untrained users on our system, we find that the automatic capture function often has some "new" feedback points. It's great to know that the unit has captured these and will now help protect our system. All of this is done automatically and without affecting speech intelligibility or clarity. The person talking sounds just like he does in a face to face conversation.

"Let's face it, feedback is annoying. More than that, it's damaging to expensive equipment."

In your opinion, what's the real benefit?
Let's face it, feedback is annoying. More than that, it's damaging to expensive equipment. Cooking a driver alone is not just the cost of a driver: it's the downtime, maybe renting a lift, getting someone to come in for a repair, all of that. It adds up to far more than the cost of one DFR22.

Good stewardship of God's provisions is not always how much money you save, but how to wisely and proactively spend what He has provided.

How much does inconvenience cost? You and your time are valuable. I always come back to this question: "Why do we never seem to have the time to do it right, but we can always find the time to do it over?" Make that question about money and it's still true.