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Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church
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Houses of worship are rapidly realizing a need for combinable rooms in parish halls, as well as in the sanctuaries themselves. These sacred spaces are oftentimes large but house functions that do not always require a large space, such church meetings, Sunday school and smaller receptions.
Our Lady of Mount Carmel Church in Newport News, Va., found itself in a similar predicament - the parish wished to optimize space in the newly constructed St. Michael Hall and Conference Center. Originally, the project was designed with elaborate touchpanel controls in each room; however, due to budgeting cutbacks, the parish could not afford the expensive control systems. Seeking a solution with appropriate functionality under budget constraints, Our Lady of Mount Carmel turned to The Whitlock Group in Virginia Beach, Va., for design guidance.
"Our Lady of Mount Carmel presented a problem experienced over and over again in the audio/video industry - a long wish list with half the budget," explained Rodney Coronel, Account Manager for The Whitlock Group. "Ultimately, we needed an inexpensive solution that addressed the parish's needs while conforming to the environment. And conforming to the environment proved no easy task - one third of the area contained a carpeted floor and standard drop-tile ceiling, whereas two thirds of the area contained a tiled floor and a vaulted ceiling."
Based on the environment and typical projected use patterns, the parish decided to divide St. Michael Hall into four combinable room groups. The area with carpeted floors and drop-tiled ceilings would be broken into three separate rooms, each about 20'x50', whereas the remaining area, the 75'x70' ballroom with tiled floor and vaulted ceiling, would be the fourth room group. All rooms would have floor boxes for local microphone and source inputs.
To complete the task, Rodney Coronel suggested an eclectic package of audio/video equipment, including a Crown CTS-8200 eight-channel commercial power amplifier, a Kramer VP88 8x8 RGBHV/stereo audio matrix router, Christie Vivid projectors, EV ceiling speakers, a Marantz CD changer, Shure SM-58 microphones and an Intelix MARC 16x8 audio room-combining matrix mixer complete with mic/line preamplification card. The Intelix MARC would be the heart of the parish's AV room-combine environment.
"We had never used an Intelix MARC audio room-combine system before," explained Melanie McCaleb, Systems Programmer for The Whitlock Group and Project Manager for the St. Michael Hall install, "and frankly, I was a little worried. By the time we ordered and received the MARC system, alterations were made to the project's design, and time was running short. We definitely could not afford to waste resources reprogramming a matrix mixer."
The Whitlock Group was allotted about two weeks for the entire audio/video portion of the installation - the Intelix MARC mixer, however, needed to be operational in under one week.
"I spent about four days intermittently working with the Intelix MARC and MARC Designer Software," continued McCaleb. "The software was surprisingly simple on the first try, and I was able to make all the design changes quickly and efficiently. The MARC Designer Software Wizard really helped me to walk through the installation by ensuring everything was correct and complete."
Today, the Our Lady of Mount Carmel parish has an operational four-room-combine system complete with selectable background music. Volume control is provided from a versatile Crestron MiniTouch control system package, whereas room-combining control is provided from a MARC source panel located in an AV rack stationed in the parish's administrative office.
Hart Smith, the parish Director of Facilities, controls all of the room-combining and audio/video functions. "The system is user friendly and has been very successful. The Whitlock Group performed an excellent install."
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