CHURCH ACOUSTICS

1 A guide to better CHURCH ACOUSTICS What is ACOUSTICS ? How to identify acoustic problems in a CHURCH ? Planning and implementing an acoustic treatmentUnderstandingCHURCHACOUSTICSA coustic Sciences Corporationby Arthur M. NoxonAcoustic Sciences Corporation4275 W. 5th Box 1189 Eugene, OR 97440 Phone: 800-272-8823 Fax: 541-343-9245 Email: Site: Free Help: (800) 272-8823 acoustic Sciences CorporationA guide TOCHURCH ACOUSTICSC hurch ACOUSTICS . It usually begins with complaints like We justcan t hear what s going on , or sometimes with a dream, If wecould just build a better CHURCH , more people would come. Nomatter what the reason, a committee member is eventually selectedand sent out into the world to collect information and bring it backfor evaluation. We hope this guide helps provide some of the infor-mation needed to get the job done most CHURCH projects, the talent to get the job done lies rightthere in the congregation.

2 But CHURCH ACOUSTICS is not like mostprojects. You ll do it once or twice in the life of the CHURCH . That swhy it is important to have a guide . We work with churches everyday and hope to provide you with a practical guide to help you getyour CHURCH acoustic project started off on the right M. NoxonAcoustical Engineer President of acoustic Sciences CorpMarch 2001 Copyright 2001 acoustic Sciences Corporation. All rights reserved. No part of this book, with theexception of the Questionnaire on page 35, may be reproduced or transmitted in any form, by any means(electronic, photocopying, recording or otherwise) without the prior written permission of the of ContentsAcoustics What it is, and what it isn t 4 Where to Start 6 Budget 8 Elementary Introduction to room Acoustics1 0 The Multi-purpose Sanctuary1 4 Gymnatoriums1 6 Circular Churches1 8 Big Rooms with Beam Ceilings2 0 Praise Bands vs.

3 The Pipe Organ2 2 Folk Singing in Churches2 4 The Traditional Church2 6 The acoustic Church2 8 How to Proceed from Here3 0 Appendix A: ACOUSTICS & Sound Quality Questionnaire 3 1 Appendix B: ASC Format for acoustic Analysis3 2 Appendix C: Drawing a Floor Plan3 3 Appendix D: Photographing your Room3 4 Appendix E: Doing an (RT-60) Test3 5 Appendix F: Glossary of acoustic Terms3 6 Toll Free Help: (800) 272-8823 acoustic Sciences CorporationChurch ACOUSTICS - What is it and what it isn s begin this guide by defining CHURCH ACOUSTICS . It is generallythat which manages the sound in the CHURCH (the room itself, andobjects within the room ). It is not about making sound. Churchacoustics is what happens to the sound after it has been launchedfrom the speaker, to insure that the people who are supposed to hearthe sound, actually get to hear it.

4 CHURCH ACOUSTICS is a purpose builtspace, dedicated to getting the right sound to the right person, fromthe right direction and at the right time. It is not easy, but it can are many things in a CHURCH which make sound : loudspeakers,musical instruments, air conditioners, people talking and moving ..Once a sound source launches sound into the air, the ACOUSTICS of thechurch takes over and processes the sound, for better or worse, untilthe sound dies CHURCH ACOUSTICS helps people to hear better what they do wantto hear and to hear less of what they don t want to , good ACOUSTICS can t make something sound good thatbasically sounds bad. The old saying is: GIGO-Garbage in, gar-bage out. If the piano s out of tune or the soloist can t carry one,having better CHURCH ACOUSTICS won t help.

5 If the sound system isdistorting, better CHURCH ACOUSTICS won t make it sound ACOUSTICS only means that you ll hear whatever the sound is,better. In most situations, the sound system isalready just fine, the piano stays in tune and the choir sings in that means the improvements you make in your CHURCH acousticswill be amply ACOUSTICS starts with the sanctuary but it doesn t end is more to a CHURCH these days than a sanctuary, an entry and acry room . The fellowship hall has a pretty significant acousticrequirement. And so does the daycare/after school program. Thereis usually at least one wing of smaller rooms and spaces, whichprovide for staff and activities, all connected together by a noisyhallway. Some offices really need quality privacy, like the , the receptionist and office manager, might be more will be small teaching rooms, prayer rooms and even bath-rooms.

6 Each requires a certain quality of acoustic control and soundisolation. And so the other part of the job is noise control-keepingunwanted sounds types of adult and teen activities that a CHURCH hosts these daystends to require a lot more privacy in general than that of yester times, one room is hosting anAA meeting while next door is a Boy Scout troop meeting. Down thehall, a battered women s group is next to the teen club, and on The diversity of today s CHURCH reflects its dedication to pro-viding whatever is needed by the community to help them get better-both personally and in all this side-by-side diversity in space utilization also means thatsound and noise control is one of today s churches top Free Help: (800) 272-8823 acoustic Sciences CorporationSo, Where do I start?Whenever you are starting on a project it works best if you take stockof what you have and what you need.

7 CHURCH ACOUSTICS is to a verylarge extent about helping people to hear what they want to this is a great place to start. Make a long list of what person may represent a different aspect of the overall soundquality that should be considered when planning to improve thechurch ACOUSTICS . A typical input statement may go something likethis: I am _____ and represent the _____ aspect of the congre-gational process. I feel that the sound of the_____should be improved so that the _____ can _____better. Prob-ably we should _____but we should be careful not to_____. Some people will be able to represent more than one aspect, or havemore than one suggestion. Each variation of the statement is writtenas a stand alone statement. A person may be able to write 5 varia-tions on one basic is no expectation for anyone to be an acoustic wizard whengoing through this process.

8 The intent is not to ask them for possiblesolutions, but rather gain their assistance in figuring out what typesof problems do exist. We ask this because one of the ways peopleseem to easily express themselves is by talking about their ownneeds, desires and person who is asked to say what they think should be focusedon. This last statement serves a number of )It helps people know they have been )It provides independent clues to the problem .3)It formalizes the process, giving it )It creates a window of time in which to )It helps people formalize their )It creates a list for )It allows minority positions to be )It facilitates a community version of are some examples of but comments: We want to improve the sound but we don t want to buymore any speakers. We want to hear pastor better but we have to keep thereverberation for congregational singing.

9 The fellowship hall is too noisy for daycare but we alsowant to be able have choir practice in there. The praise band is just too loud but we love the sound of thechurch for speaking and singing. We know the large windows contribute to the echoes, but weshouldn t block out the view with curtains. If people don t explain what problems and concerns they have with aspace, then it is pretty hard to fix their Free Help: (800) 272-8823 acoustic Sciences CorporationBudgetEveryone wants to know how much will it cost. If you are workingon a CHURCH acoustic committee, the cost estimate is something youhave to come up with. There are two versions to a cost is to find people to bid the job. The other way is to look at yourfunding and figure out how much you have to always say that they don t know if they can afford an acousticproject because they don t know what one costs.

10 So, as hard as it is,the best thing to do here is to just talk about money. Acousticprojects for churches cost in the thousands of dollars, not small project will be around $1,000. A typical project will be inthe $3 to 5,000 range. A fairly large project will run $10 to 15,000and a big project will cost $25 to 50,000. This is just for the materi-als to do the job. Converting a big room that sounds like an emptygym into one that sounds like a CHURCH will cost about 20 cents percubic foot. (L x W x H)To the material costs, there is the cost of installation. This rangesabout 10 to 15 % of the material cost. Now that the basic costs of doing a CHURCH acoustic job has beencovered, you and the CHURCH committee probably don t know anymore about your project than when we started. But there is one thingwe can depend on, like getting most anything that is good and worth-while, completing the CHURCH acoustic will usually cost more than wewanted to spend.