AFRICA NEWS

JOBURG HOUSE OF WORSHIP INVESTS IN ASTERA TITANS

MARANATHA COMMUNITY CHURCH PURCHASES TWO SETS OF ASTERA TITAN TUBES AS PART OF ITS ONGOING COMMITMENT TO DELIVERING TECHNICAL EXCELLENCE.

Johannesburg’s Maranatha Community Church has invested in two sets of Astera Titan Tubes for its busy 3,000-seater auditorium in Kempton Park.

Maranatha’s Head of Media, Nereen Bradshaw, and Senior Pastor, Leonard Stone, were looking for new technology to enhance the church’s many productions when they came across the Titan Tubes being used on an album launch by resident church band, Direction. “We wanted something extra special for this event,” explained Bradshaw.

The church had bought other kit including Robe moving lights from Astera’s South African distributor DWR Distribution in recent years, so when DWR’s Robert Izzett came onsite and demonstrated the Titan Tubes, both Bradshaw and Stone were suitably impressed and went on to order two sets, 16 Tubes in total.

The Titans are hung above the stage area attached via carabiners to different length catenary wires and add depth and dimension to the performance area. This setup means the Titan Tubes can be easily moved around. Currently they are programmed to run in pairs in a four-pixel configuration, from the house lighting console.

“They bring a completely new dimension to the stage and give it a real modern edge, which is great for engaging younger members of the congregation and for presenting more energised and invigorated musical segments,” Bradshaw commented. “Conversely, using very slow colour or intensity effects has brought a gentle ‘raining’ kinetic experience, so they can be used for upbeat praise as well as quieter worship.”

In the future, Maranatha intends to use the Tubes in other creative ways, including as hand-held illuminated props for dance items at special services such as Easter and Christmas celebrations. Within the next month they plan on using the Tubes in a hall with a wet concrete floor, for light effects while recording another music video for the band. Photos: Maranatha Youth www.astera-led.com

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HOLOPLOT COMPLETES MASSIVE EGYPTIAN MOSQUE INSTALL

THE BERLIN-BASED PRO AUDIO COMPANY PROVIDES AUDIO EXPERTISE AS WELL AS AN X1 MATRIX ARRAY SOUND SYSTEM FOR AFRICA’S LARGEST MOSQUE.

Occupying an area of 10,000 sq m, Egypt’s brand-new Misr Mosque is the largest in Africa and among the largest in the world. With a capacity for over 12,000 worshippers, the massive venue is central to the development of the country’s new administrative capital outside of Cairo.

The cavernous space presented the unique challenge of delivering clear, intelligible speech to a large congregation without compromising the architectural integrity of the building’s mainly marble interior – a task that HOLOPLOT’s X1 technology was more than a match for.

While a conventional sound system may require upwards of 30 positions to achieve sufficient coverage and intelligibility within such a space, HOLOPLOT provided audio coverage throughout the mosque, requiring only nine loudspeaker array positions.

Each array is mounted as high as 23m above the floor, concealed at a significant distance from the listener behind painted cloth or metal. The entire audio system is rendered ultimately invisible to worshipers.

Central to HOLOPLOT’s unique approach is the ability to perfectly control and shape sound in both classic and more complex environments, manoeuvring highly reflective spaces with unprecedented accuracy. In this instance, X1 handled an existing reverberation time of six seconds, caused by both the marble interior and 60m-high dome, managing not to excite the reverberant field – directing energy away from reflective surfaces and preventing the need for large amounts of acoustic treatment.

Speaking on the project, Emad El-Saghir, Fellow at HOLOPLOT, said: “This grand mosque is an example of X1’s technological capability. We introduced several brand-new system concepts that are not attainable with any other technology. The X1 Matrix Arrays utilise advanced optimisation algorithms to generate uniform coverage in tightly defined zones with minimal spill to dedicated quieter areas or reverberant surfaces. This way, speech transmission and the direct-to-reverberant ratio were increased to record values. A steerable-line-array-based solution would have required the deployment of far more arrays to achieve anything comparable.”

Emad Shenouda, Projects Director at integrator Audio Technology, added: “I’m pleased to say that together with HOLOPLOT, we met the client’s brief of creating a fully integrated system that satisfies all stakeholders. The project was full of challenges, starting from the size of the mosque, the room acoustics and of course project deadlines. Thanks to X1’s ability to not only control sound in the vertical but also horizontal it achieves unbelievable intelligibility, thought impossible in a space clad in marble and featuring a huge dome at its centre. HOLOPLOT exceeded our expectations in both the quality of sound, and in hiding the equipment in such a way that it blends in seamlessly with the interior.” Photo: HOLOPLOT www.holoplot.com