Unsound Design Principles for Church Audio
30 sure-fire ways to create an overpriced, confusing new sanctuary

By Joseph DeBuglio

It is fascinating to me that whenever a church starts a new building project, renovation or addition, it is always with the best intentions. However, by the time the budget committee finishes its task, many of these churches end up making the following 30 mistakes in the hope of saving money. Their approach: "Cut back what we can't see." Truly unique churches stick to their convictions, avoid the misinformed principles listed here, and take a leap of faith.

• Myth #1: Always design a church that is square. Square churches create standing waves, making music sound very boomy in the bass range. The early reflections do a good job of confusing speech, and using a sound system makes it worse.
• Myth #2: Always design a church with parallel walls. Parallel walls lower intelligibility and degrade music, adding to the confusion, and a sound system cannot correct this problem. Yet somewhere out there, someone is no doubt trying to prove me wrong on this.
• Myth #3: Always design the roof low over the audience and high over the pulpit. This is the best way to kill music from the front of the church. It forces you to use only long-throw narrow beam speaker horns, which sound terrible.
• Myth #4: Be sure the roof is less than 20 feet high. This is the best way to make all of your music programs sound louder--much louder, and not in a good way.
• Myth #5: Always accept the RT60 measurement at 1K (1000 hertz). What happens with bass or treble sounds does matter.
• Myth #6: Always make the back walls of a church as flat as possible. Flat back walls increase musical effects, throwing off musicians' timing techniques.
• Myth #7: Make sure that the ventilation system is within 25dB of the person speaking. Since clear speech occurs 25dB above background noise, a poorly installed ventilation system ensures difficulty hearing. If vent noise is loud enough, it can be recorded on the service tape.
• Myth #8: Follow the commercial standards normally recommended for air systems. These standards do not account for congregational singing, which creates humidity problems inside the sanctuary. Commercial standards call for one ton per 1,000 square feet but churches need one ton per 500 feet.
• Myth #9: Church lighting in a nutshell: 25-foot candles for seating and 60-foot candles for the front of the church. The problem is, churchgoers really want to be able to read their Bibles.
• Myth #10: Churches with thin walls cost less to build. Road or aircraft outside noises can be reduced with a yet-to-be invented Electronic Large-Format Random Noise Canceling System. These systems should be ready for churches in the year 2097--maybe.
• Myth #11: Rating intelligibility of a sound system has no bearing on whether or not a person can hear the sermon. Intelligibility scores below 88% do not cut it in the church.
• Myth #12: Wide, fan-shaped rooms of a greater than 140-degree angle really draw the crowd in. In these sanctuaries, people on the sides require video walls to see the minister. Also, when a room is overly wide, people on the sides always notice the latecomers. When the minister himself looks in any direction, he might see worshippers slipping out early, making him feel insecure.
• Myth #13: Place the organ and piano as far away from each other as possible. This separation makes playing together harder and creates a not-so-neat stereo effect--assuming you can hear the piano at all.
• Myth #14: The best place for the choir is under the organ pipes or organ speakers. This arrangement ensures the choir will be drowned out.
• Myth #15: Pianos should be in a pit or against a wall atop carpet. Even though an organ can play louder, you still need the piano.
• Myth #16: Build a six- or eight-sided church with equal-length walls. This creates the same complications inherent with square rooms (See Myth #1).
• Myth #17: Design the balcony so low and deep that people under it cannot see the ceiling over the pulpit. What happens under a balcony does have bearing on the acoustics of a church.
• Myth #18: Plan a bulkhead over the front of the altar or chancel area. This feature makes it hard for the choir, organ and piano to be heard. Bulkheads can reduce intelligibility and hamper a sound system's ability to do its job--not to mention, they look terrible. (Note: Deep proscenium arches or an arches in front choirs cause the same complications.)
• Myth #19: It's okay to paint over acoustical materials. Paint does affect a room's acoustics. If a wall material is soft or you feel the need to paint unpainted block, don't. This can hurt the brick. Those stories about people sandblasting after they painted a wall by mistake are true.
• Myth #20: Construct foyers with the hardest materials available. The echoes from this area distract musicians, the minister and anyone near the doors.
• Myth #21: If your church is using drywall, only one-half-inch thickness is necessary. Thicker drywall is not just an added, meaningless expense.
• Myth #22: Insulating interior walls is an unnecessary practice. Noises from hallways and office areas are intrusive in a church setting.
• Myth #23: Inside walls can all be built with two-by-fours. Two-by-eight-foot interior walls are better for privacy within the sanctuary.
• Myth #24: Install wiring and amplifiers in the organ loft next to the relay switcher. The clicking sounds of the relays--amplified through the sound system--do not add "color" to the overall sound of the organ.
• Myth #25: Go on the Internet, find all of the church builders, and hire one that makes no mention of audio or acoustics in their mission statement or anywhere else on their site. Don't "faith it" on this one.
• Myth #26: Hire the most expensive consultants. Nowhere is it written that the glossier the brochure, the better the sound system will work.
• Myth #27: Don't bother checking past client references.
• Myth #28: Follow local commercial building codes. These are the minimum codes for short-term construction--by definition, 20 years or less. The money saved following local commercial building codes will not enable you to rebuild the church before it wears out in 15 years.
• Myth #29: The "sweet spot" audio theory is a myth. There is a spot in every church where acoustical sound broadcasts further than any other spot before reflections begin to interfere with the original sound.
• Myth #30: When building a new church, don't visit local churches built in the last 15 years to create your wish list. Today, CAD computer programs mean you can do a drawing in six to 10 weeks, but take the opportunity to learn from the mistakes made by other churches. Interview the custodians. Although they are not architects, they do fix anything that goes wrong with the new building all the time.

Also keep this in mind: A church built for speech is ideal for all music, and a church built for music is usually very good for speech. It does not matter if you are building a church for classical music or Christian rock-and-roll. A church can have a very long RT60 if it is well diffused, but many musicians are of the mistaken belief that the length of an RT60--and nothing else--matters.

Likewise, a church can have a short RT60 and still sound great for both classical music and Christian rock-and-roll. For example, one of North America's best concert venues is the Boston Symphony Hall. This space is just as suited to rock-and-roll as it is to classical music. Its simple rectangular shoebox shape includes more than a dozen acoustical features, including diffusers, bass traps and deflection surfaces in the right places. Adding these features to a church does not cost much (the added costs are often recovered in the first year), but the rewards are huge. A church can be a rectangle--like Boston Symphony Hall --and be used for multiple purposes and any style of worship. A fan-shaped sanctuary can be used for concerts and contemporary music but it will not work for classical music unless acoustical features are added.

Bear in mind that acoustics are not a do-it-yourself endeavor; however, they are not necessarily expensive either. A million-dollar sanctuary project should logically be able to ante up $50,000 for acoustics. This includes consulting, modeling, acoustical installation or construction, and tuning of a room. That's right, tuning a room.

Historically (from 1350 to the 1870's), churches were built to include acoustical features that could be tuned after the church was finished and occupied. Only a few people in the world know enough about this art to do it today, but one commonly known technique was the construction of pillars. After a church was finished, the pillars--usually hollow--were cut near their tops with either holes or slots and then filled with sand to "tune the room." In a modern church, plaster pillars can be tuners, but sand is too heavy, so alternate materials need to be used.

Church acoustics is both an art and a science. Scientifically, everything can be calculated. Artistically, you have to know which combination of acoustical features work best in the shell of the room.

Joseph DeBuglio represents the Church Sound Network and JdB Sound Acoustics--www.jdbsound.com. He is the author of Why Are Church Sound Systems and Church Acoustics So Confusing? DeBuglio can be reached via e-mail at jdb@jdbsound.com or by calling (416) 248-9007.