St George’s tames the dragon of poor sound

[ST GEORGE’S CATHEDRAL in London, seat of the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Southwark, was built in 1848. Badly damaged during the Blitz of 1941, it was restored and reconsecrated in the following decade. The high, vaulted ceilings, numerous pillars, large leaded windows and expanses of smooth stonework, all present challenges to effective sound reinforcement.

Thanks to their long experience delivering quality house of worship AV installations, Cunnings Recording Associates were recommended to the Cathedral Dean as being able to help and, for the past five years, have been carrying out a rolling programme of upgrades.

“The cathedral had an ageing sound reinforcement system, but it had never been properly commissioned which meant that the congregation had difficulty in hearing services clearly,” said the company’s Daniel Cunnings. “No delays or equalisation had been set up for any of the loudspeakers, meaning speech intelligibility was poor. As well as services the cathedral also hosts a range of other events but the existing system was not easy to operate, so another intention behind the upgrade was to allow them to use their audio facilities to their fullest extent.”

The cathedral commissioned a two-stage upgrade to the sound system, the first being to quickly and radically improve the sound quality for the spoken word. That meant replacing the existing audio processors and programming the right amount of equalisation and delay for each output. "The cathedral wanted the system to be as simple as possible to operate, so the use of automatic microphone mixing was essential,” added Daniel.

The second stage of the project saw new speakers and amplifiers installed to further improve the sound, and new wireless microphones to avoid unwanted interference. There are 25 loudspeaker locations throughout the cathedral covering the congregation, side chapel, choir, clergy and organist which have been replaced with aesthetically pleasing column loudspeakers to better control the sound and reduce reverberations.

A touchscreen control panel in the sacristy allows microphone levels to be individually adjusted as necessary although, for most services, the system is left to operate automatically. A wireless iPad control app allows comprehensive control of the system and eliminates the need for an analogue mixing console, which previously had to be brought in for music events and recitals.

The visual system was next to be tackled with new LCD screens installed below the loudspeakers on every pillar. The screens provide a clear view of the sanctuary to the congregation sitting in the aisles who would otherwise have their view obscured by the pillars. Two more screens in the sanctuary provide the same view to the choir. The organist benefits from a separate screen showing two camera views side by side. A simple control panel beside the organ allows him to choose which cameras are displayed.

Most recently a high definition camera has been installed at the rear of the cathedral to enable services and events to be streamed to YouTube. The camera is controllable from the sacristy and can zoom to show a close up of the ambo, wider views of the sanctuary or processions from the entrance doors. A dedicated streaming encoder allows live streaming to be started and stopped at the touch of a button.

“The cathedral team are very happy that the whole congregation can now see and hear the services clearly, whether online or in person,” said Daniel, “and we have been pleased to help take St George’s into a new era.” q www.ecclesiasticalandheritageworld.co.uk 13