Hurrairah bin Sohail speaks with Jacob Abraham about how Rontek Systems drew on its experience to deliver an audio system that blended with the St. Stephen’s Orthodox Cathedral’s architecture and delivered on function.
St. Stephen’s Orthodox Cathedral, located in Kerala, India, is a church that has been designed along the line of Byzantine architecture.
But architecture alone does not
a house of worship make. For
its audio needs, the Cathedral
appointed Rontek Systems as
the integrator for the job.
Jacob Abraham, founder of
Rontek Systems, talks about how
the integrator came on to the
project: “We were referred to the
client by the architect, with whom
we had worked on a project
previously, St. Augustine Forane
also located in Kerala. That was a
successful project for all parties
and put us in good stead for the
St. Stephen’s Orthodox Cathedral
project as well.”
Both the architect and the
client had envisioned specific
outcomes. Abraham details: “The
architect’s specific instruction
was that the speakers and other
audio equipment should be
unobtrusive and should blend
into the design of the church.
The client’s requirement was that
sound for both speech and music
should be of the highest quality.”
Shibu Mathew Kunnithottathil,
general convener, construction
committee, St. Stephen’s
Orthodox Cathedral, gives the end
user perspective: “A sound system
becomes an integral part of the
infrastructure of any building that
holds functions or provides any
form of entertainment. When it
comes to a church, it becomes a
vital part for the congregation to
feel good as prayers and songs are
resonating through it. Be it
10 or 1,000 people inside the
church, the sound system should
not cause any disturbance in the
form of echo or mic distortions.
The clarity of the sound system
should be consistent when
listening from anywhere inside
the church.”
These requirements are
not unfair but matters were
complicated by the project site.
Abraham details: “This is an
Eastern Orthodox church, and
this meant that the ceiling
and the walls would be high.
Additionally, we knew from the
start that the architecture was
such that acoustic treatment for
the space would not be possible
so we would have to contend with
the space as it was provided to us.
There are also no pews or benches
which would mean the acoustic
properties of the space would
change based on how the
congregation would situate itself
in the space. All in all, there were
a lot of variables that needed to be
factored in.”
Abraham drew upon his
experience to help tackle the
design challenges. He says: “I’ve
designed and delivered audio
systems for Eastern Orthodox
churches and also for different
denominations of churches. I am
familiar with the style of worship
and the expectations of the clients
and I drew on these experiences
as a starting point for the audio
design for St. Stephen’s Orthodox
Cathedral.”
The main front-of-house [FOH]
speakers are column array
speakers that stand almost 7ft
tall with eight 6-in LF drivers
and two compression horn
drivers from Eminence. The
column arrays are tailored for
St. Stephen’s Orthodox Cathedral
as Abraham details: “The
Eminence drivers are housed
in custom, CNC-manufactured
cabinets that have been
tailored exactly to the client’s
requirements. Even the paint
job and the finish of the grill is
customised to match the aesthetics
of the space and address the
requirements of the architect. We
made sure that the speakers would
be unobtrusive and blend in with
the aesthetics of the space.”
The FOH also consisted of two
15-in subwoofers. The HF, LF and
subwoofers were tri-amped with
crossovers set in external DSP.
Two smaller speakers with
low frequency drivers and a
compression horn are used as
fill speakers.
Abraham provides further
details: “Being a Cathedral, there
is a huge altar area with five altar
thrones. Each of the thrones was
installed with a white surface
mounted speaker from Apart.
The speakers were driven by
Crown and Rontek power
amplifiers, all Class D. The client
was particular that the audio
equipment must work without
manual intervention during
regular worship sessions held
through the week and that the
equipment must be installed at the
back-end. We used two DSPs from
Driverack and a Shure 8-channel
automatic mixer to do the job. The
speakers were time-aligned and
crossovers set in the DSP. We relied
heavily on the dependable
automatic room correction,
parametric equalisation and
automatic feedback suppression
built into the Driverack 360 Venu.
The system rack was built in a
room provided along with UPS
and other equipment. The server
rack included the Aviron power
management system designed and
built by Rontek.”
Regarding audio capture,
Abraham says: “The main
microphones are all dynamic
cardioid type except the main
altar which has a gooseneck
condenser microphone and these
are connected to the automatic
mixer. The output of the
automatic mixer is connected
to a 12-channel analogue mixer.
The output of the analogue
mixer is then connected to
the loudspeaker management
systems and the signals are
sent to separate amplifiers for
High-Mid-Lows to fill speakers,
corridors, altar and other areas.”
Usability was front and centre
in Abraham’s consideration and
he says: “You have to understand
the user and the application.
The operators for the systems
are volunteers and they might
not have the highest levels of
training. With this in mind, the
system has to work every single
time with the push of a button.
We cannot expect the operators
to be able to change the system
or fiddle with the settings to get
their desired outcomes. To make
the lives of the operators easier,
Rontek has programmed a
number of presets for the audio
systems. These presets take
advantage of the speakers and
microphones that are deployed
and help the audio system as a
whole adapt to the requirements
of the Cathedral.”
With the audio system designed
and deployed, the last hurdle
was to calibrate the end results.
Abraham narrates: “Our only
request for the client was to have
an hour of time with no noise and
volunteers to ensure that the
Cathedral had 50% occupancy.
This allowed us to tune the audio
system effectively by using the
calibration features on the DSP
as well as a little bit of tweaking
on our part. At the end, we
were able to ensure that all the
different speakers were time aligned and that the sound in the
Cathedral was exactly according
to the client’s specifications.”
Kunnithottathil from St.
Stephen’s Orthodox Cathedral
concludes: “During the Holy
Consecration of the church,
approximately 10,000 people had
assembled inside the church the
sound system worked perfectly
well and the congregation
commented about it.”