TEMPLE BETH EL BALANCES TECHNOLOGY WITH TRADITION

—New Sound System Incorporates Cutting Edge Digital Elements—

PROVIDENCE, RI (December 5, 2000)—Located in the historic East Side neighborhood of Providence, Rhode Island, Temple Beth El has served the city's Jewish community since 1849, when a small group known as the "Sons of Israel" gathered for daily services. Today, the Temple's founders would be surprised to know that their synagogue houses cutting-edge sound reinforcement technology, namely Yamaha digital mixing consoles and AMX automation devices.

Front of Temple, showing ark and bema.

"The need for a new sound system grew out of a series of upgrades to the Temple's mechanical systems, which began several years ago," explains Steve Basile of the Foxboro (MA)-based MaGuire Group, Beth El's mechanical consultant. "One upgrade always seems to lead to the next." Basile and MaGuire's Charlie Waskiewicz brought in A/V consultant Ralph Gibson of New Hartford (CT)-based Gibson & Associates; Eric Leineke of North Haven (CT)-based HB Communications as A/V project manager; and electrical contractor Henderson Electric of Pawtucket, RI.

A major consideration included providing zoned reinforcement while maintaining the aesthetic integrity of the interior spaces, which consist of a high domed roof, arched ceiling and cast concrete structure.

Beth El contains a main sanctuary flanked by eight classrooms with moving walls. These classrooms, when opened, can accommodate extra seating for special events and High Holy Days for up to 2,000 worshippers. At the front of the sanctuary is the Bema, the Ark for storage of the Torah, and a choir loft directly behind and above. Rabbi Leslie Gutterman, along with Rabbi Michael Cahana and Cantor Ida Rae Cahana, lead weekly Shabbat services and monthly casual-format family services. In addition to services, Beth El is home to celebrations of weddings, confirmations, remembrances, High Holy Days, B'nei Mitzvah and is also a concert venue, hosting traditional and contemporary Jewish musical events.

Beth El's 01V rack. The consoles are used for both services and live musical acts the Congregation hosts.

Gibson and HB Communications Tech Center designed the system around a main and distributed PA, two Yamaha 01V digital mixing consoles and an AMX Axcent 3 control system with AXD-CA10 10.4-in. color active touch panel. This color active-matrix LCD panel provides interactive graphic images that respond to the user's touch. "The sound system had to be transparent, and it had to be multi-purpose," explains Leineke. "The staff also wanted a system that was easy to operate and would be consistent. Those needs played a big influence on equipment choices."

He continues, "The AMX has various services imprinted in the memory—Bar Mitzvah, Bat Mitzvah, funeral and the like. It also gives the user a visual on the touch screen, so it's very easy to operate. When one of the staff members selects a service, the 01Vs' recall functions—mic inputs, levels, EQ—work in tandem and snap to a pre-selected setting, or 'scene.' We even took precautions, for example, the Rabbi's and Cantor's mics are on manual override, and all scenes can be re-adjusted by re-pushing the appropriate AMX button."

The AMX touch panel is programmed to control all 01V settings for various services and events.

The Yamaha 01V provides 24 full-featured channels, two stereo effect returns, six busses, six aux sends plus direct outputs on channels 1-16, moving faders and automation functions. Primary input channels (1-16) each feature a 4-band parametric EQ, limiter/ compressor/gate plus a 250 ms delay line. The 01V can store and instantly recall all mixer settings in 99 on-board snapshot memories, allowing the user to return at any time to a previous mix.

Components are housed in one 40-space rack and two 27-space racks from Middle Atlantic Products. The 40-space unit, installed in the choir loft, contains all amplifiers and speaker processing equipment. Henderson Electric installed a dedicated 100 Amp/120 VAC service for the rack and its components.

The 01V consoles are stored in one of the 27-space units and ride on sliding shelves for easy access. The second 27-space rack houses playback equipment consisting of a Panasonic SV-3800 DAT, Marantz PMD320 CD, Marantz PMD500 cassette and four Shure DFRII EQ units for equalization and feedback suppression.

Other control components in the system include an FSR lectern volume control, voltage controlled amplifier and FSR power sequence system (to prevent overload when the system is turned on), plus a line distribution amplifier, ST-MMX3 mic mixer modules and ST-MPA2 phantom power module from Radio Design Labs.

The center cluster, containing Renkus-Heinz TRAP 40/6K speakers.

"When Beth El hosts musical events, the Yamaha console rack can be rolled to the rear of the sanctuary via a 35-ft. ProCo snake," Leineke adds. "When the operator hits 'Spare' on the AMX, the settings on the 01Vs will null, allowing the console to be used as standard front-of-house boards. HB Rentals, the sound reinforcement arm of HB Communications, provides personnel and auxiliary equipment for those programs."

The system's main speech reinforcement and program playback speaker cluster consists of four Renkus-Heinz TRAP 40/6K biamplified speaker cabinets. Gibson provided data from his self-designed sound system modeling program which set the speaker cluster's vertical and horizontal angles along with height and distance from mics for maximum gain before feedback. "Gibson's 'model' was the guide in choosing specific speakers, microphones and power amplifiers," notes Leineke. "The program also predicts speech intelligibility, gain before feedback and speech sound pressure level at all listening positions in the Temple. The importance of this design method bore out when all the model's predictions were proven accurate during test measurements of the system. And, of course, the best proof was that the system sounded great—intelligible, natural-sounding speech at a comfortable level."

The distributed speech and program material speaker system consists of eight EV S40B cabinets in the side rooms, each with appropriate delay times. Two EV S40B speakers cover the lobby area. Five Renkus-Heinz TRC 121/9 cabinets provide stage monitors for the Bema, choir and visiting musicians. All cabinets are driven by a selection of Crest CKS Series amplifiers. Drive electronics include a Peavey IDL-1000 delay unit, Shure DFR-IIEQ5 equalizers and Shure SCM810 auto level mixer. The temple also maintains a collection of wired and wireless microphones from Shure, Vega, EV and Crown, complete with a variety of stands and cabling, to accommodate services and visiting musicians.

The project was scheduled to be completed in time for the High Holy days of Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, leaving only a four-week window. "That's four weeks to get the system installed and functioning," Leineke remembers. Due to the concrete structure, all conduits had to be surface-mounted and concealed.

"All parties really came together. A tight schedule will do that," he continues. "The electrical contractor had hundreds of feet of wire to run for the speakers and control systems, but they got all the conduits mounted, wiring pulled and mountings ready in a short time. HB was able to go in and install cabinets, racks, components and terminations and have plenty of time for Gibson Associates to do the testing, level setting and equalization."

He continues, "Now that the system has made deadline completion and is in general use, everyone is pleased. This was a well-coordinated team effort between the owner, consultant and contractors."

Finally, he states, "It's an interesting juxtaposition, having such high-tech equipment in this application, and such a historical structure. I think the founders would be amazed."

 

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Created By: Giles Communications LLC