NorthRidge Church Reaches Expanding Community with Custom-Designed Portable Systems from PCI

north-ridge-church-auditorium.jpgBUENA PARK, Calif.⎯Portable Church Industries (PCI) recently designed several portable AV systems for the NorthRidge Church in Saline, Michigan for space they are renting at a local public high school. The main campus, located in Plymouth, has a congregation of over 11,000, and in order to meet the needs of their growing community NorthRidge Church needed to take on additional space. The church called upon PCI to custom design portable systems for the rented facility. For over fifteen years, PCI has custom-designed portable church solutions, and the company's president; Peter van der Harst said the systems required for NorthRidge Church were quite substantial. Initial conversations began in October of 2008, followed by the design and production in May of 2009 with delivery in August.

The majority of the audio portion of the project included Yamaha Commercial Audio products, with the balance of the system in the form of video capture/display, lighting, trussing, musical instruments, power distribution, bookstore/point of sale, children's gear, food service, vehicles to store the systems when not in use, casing, information technology, security, aesthetics, signage, large format graphics, FFE (furniture, fixtures and equipment), training services, smaller auditorium electronics for age-appropriate children's presentation spaces. Quite the undertaking.

For the purpose of the NorthRidge Church set up, the newly constructed, modern school facility's main auditorium is used for adult worship, the Band Room as an elementary large group room, the Choir Room is used as a pre-school large group room, and the Black Box Rehearsal Room for middle school worship.

“We faced some unique challenges with the design of these systems,” states Ameen Kadri, design consultant, and now Campus Technical Director for NorthRidge Church. Because we are using a public school facility, which has no on-site storage available to us, we had to design systems that can be setup and taken down quickly and easily by volunteers. We chose Yamaha products because they reach a unique balance between cost-efficiency and being volunteer-friendly.”

“The Yamaha M7CL digital audio console was chosen because the user interface is very well-designed, says Kadri. It allows us to show volunteers how to operate the console very quickly. We added Yamaha SB168-ES Stage Boxes because we wanted to integrate the whole audio system over Cat5 cable. We are using a 4-pair Gepco Cat5 snake to facilitate EtherSound for send and receive audio signals. Aviom is used for on-stage monitoring, and a Hi-Q network for amplifiers and EQ."

northridge-saline10small.jpgIn addition to the Yamaha M7CL console used for the adult worship, Yamaha MG mixers are used for the pre-school, elementary, and middle school rooms. A Yamaha STAGEPAS portable system is used for nursery audio. “We really wanted to be able to achieve a sense of continuity between the different sound systems for volunteer growth,” notes Kadri. Trying to keep system integration simple and costs down, Yamaha MSR Series speakers are used for the pre-school and elementary audio systems.

The adult sound system also includes a line array, Aviom tied to Shure PSM700s for monitors, Shure ULX wireless mics, and Horizon sub snakes and cabling. The PCI-designed systems also include a Neumark iDec for the middle school, Raxxess iPod docks for several systems, Tascam for CD playback/record, and AKG wireless for all youth systems.

At the conclusion of Sunday services, the four separate systems were designed so that they could easily be packed up by volunteers in about one hour, rolled into trailers, hauled off and stored until the next Sunday service. The four entire systems including video and lighting components fit into six cargo trailers with ramp doors.

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About Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems, Inc.:

Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems, Inc. (YCAS) provides a full line of integrated professional audio products offering complete systems solutions for the broadcast, sound reinforcement/installed sound, touring, commercial recording, and post production markets. With the purchase of NEXO loudspeakers by Yamaha Corporation Japan, the company remains the official U.S. and Canadian distributor for all NEXO models. YCAS offers comprehensive in-house and field product training for its customers, a dedicated dealer network, and 24/7 technical support.