Many people ask how the panels will look before looking at how they perform when it comes to acoustic solutions. Here is a short video compare two acoustic treatments that can get similar results and the cost differences without looking at the aesthetics issue. Our experience shows that most church members change their opinions on aesthetics when the acoustical fix does a great job at fixing the room. Congregation members of most churches do agree with one idea. It seems that if the acoustic system fails at improving congregational singing, the panels on the wall have to look good as wall furniture. If the acoustic treatment improves congregational singing, how the panels look doesn’t matter. The aesthetic issues disappear. If you have any questions or comments, please post them below, and we will respond to them right away.
Half Round Diffusers vs. Phase Gradient Diffusers
Posted by jdbsound on May 20, 2021
Many people ask how the panels will look before looking at how they perform when it comes to acoustic solutions. Here is a short video compare two acoustic treatments that can get similar results and the cost differences without looking at the aesthetics issue. Our experience shows that most church members change their opinions on aesthetics when the acoustical fix does a great job at fixing the room. Congregation members of most churches do agree with one idea. It seems that if the acoustic system fails at improving congregational singing, the panels on the wall have to look good as wall furniture. If the acoustic treatment improves congregational singing, how the panels look doesn’t matter. The aesthetic issues disappear. If you have any questions or comments, please post them below, and we will respond to them right away.
Posted in Church Acoustics, Church Sound Systems | Tagged: Acoustical Blue print, acoustical management systems, acoustics, Acoustics of Solomon's Temple, Church acoustics, Church sound, Church Sound Systems, Passive acoustics | 2 Comments »
How to EQ your Church Sound System
Posted by jdbsound on April 26, 2021
Here is a safe way to Equalize a church sound system when the system becomes unstable.
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The great church carpet debate!
Posted by jdbsound on April 23, 2021
Should churches have carpet in the sanctuary and should there be padded seating?
Here is our latest video on this important issue.
Here are the details of how those values came to be.
The standard for a worship space to have a signal to noise ratio of 20 to 25dB and a flat response from 80 to 8000 Hertz comes from studying worship styles and working on hundreds of Churches. First, you have to look at all of the various elements of worship. They include:
- Main Elements (Based on Scriptures and by Jesus Example)
- Reading of Scripture
- Preaching and Sermons
- Questions and Answers
- Prayer
- Celebration of communion
- Congregational singing
- Offerings
- Secondary Elements (items that churches have added to worship after the reformation period.)
- Choir or choral music
- Music to support congregational singing
- Music lead by a worship team
- Announcements
- Sharing of testimonies
- Sharing of prayer requests
- Singing performances
- Music performances
- Music Rehearsals
- Child participation
- Congregational meetings
- Event Elements (non-worship uses of a sanctuary.)
- Weddings
- Funerals
- Teaching Events
- Conferences
- Concerts
- Fundraising events
- Music Lessons
These are all of the main elements of how the church sanctuary is used over its lifetime. Not all churches will practice these elements, but the first seven elements in the main portion are universal. Now here is an aspect that is least understood. If you have the ideal acoustic conditions for the first seven elements, the worship space can support all of the other elements that all churches will practice at one time or another.
For the rest of the article, here is a link to the PDF file on Carpeting in Churches.
Article by Joseph De Buglio
Posted in Church Acoustics, Church Sound Systems | Tagged: Church acoustics, Church carpeting, Church sound, Church Sound Systems | Comments Off on The great church carpet debate!
There is only one way to solve sound problems in a church, God’s way or the other guys’ way.
Posted by jdbsound on April 16, 2021
If you don’t want to see the video, you can read the story below.
God has a plan to manage and solve every sound problem apart from technical issues such as bad wiring, blown up speakers or damaged microphones. However, God’s plan for church sound does solve all of those performance issues most churches run into.
The other guys’ plan for church sound is to make church sound good enough for entertaining people and good enough to make people think that your sound problems cannot be fixed or you can’t afford to fix them. The other guy wants churches to be great entertainment facilities to attract people who like the idea of being a Christian but never knowing what a real relationship with Christ is.
The other guy likes to make church sound good enough for people to hear a false message and yet be bad enough to confuse people if the full Gospel message of Jesus Christ is spoken.
The other guy wants you to hear a substituted sermon that includes an indirect feel-good message. The other guy wants to make the pastor fearful about telling people that they were born sinners in need of repentance, and before becoming born again, you need to acknowledge that speaking such words will make people flee the church. That is a lie. The truth is, those who don’t come back are the people who will never let go of their sinful nature. Those who stay understand their sinfulness and have come to love God more than sin – more than the other guy.
God’s way of managing sound begins with worship spaces that will give you a better building at no extra cost. There is no better way to manage church acoustics at any cost doing it God’s way, and the results are guarantee by Him. God’s way to manage sound works every time. You can trust God. The evidence speaks for itself. Do you really want to trust the other guy? God’s way of doing sound solves all of the problems any existing church may have apart from really bad building design. Yet even in a bad building, applying God’s method of managing sound will give the worship space 100% of the performance the room design can offer, which is better than putting up with such an inadequate space.
The other guy convinces churches to build expensive buildings that don’t support speech or congregational singing. The other guy doesn’t want you to fix the room because a room that doesn’t support real congregational singing discourages those who want to hear the truth from going to such places. Instead, it makes the room appealing to those who are left behind who have itchy ears. A room that makes you feel all alone during congregational singing is the ideal room for entertaining people as they do in rock concerts where people sway to the music, raise their hands, mouth the words and become caught up in the moment – that is what you do in a secular concert.
Real congregational singing is when you can hear yourself and your neighbours around you. Real congregational singing is where you can sing and hear four-part harmonies in every seat in the worship space. Real congregational singing is when the congregation can sing louder than the sound system or drown out the piano and organ, whenever the audience decides to do so. Real congregational singing is when you don’t need a worship team and song leader to encourage the people to sing. Real congregational singing is hearing every word and message clearly when sung.
Real congregational singing doesn’t need a song leader to whip up the audience into a trance-like state to subdue the audience to become receptive to any kind of message. Real congregational singing doesn’t need repetitive words and phrases to get a subversive message across. Real congregational singing does not make people feel alone, as if they are the only ones singing praises to the Lord.
God’s method of managing sound is a tool that helps in the preaching of the Gospel message. The other guys’ method of managing sound causes sound system instability, hotspots and deadspots and subpar intelligibility where words are misunderstood. The other guy wants words that are misunderstood to create chaos and confusion that can eventually cause division within the church. The other guy works hard in making everyone from the pastor, the church leaders, the church board, and members feel insecure. The other guy wants churches to have confidence in relying on programs to try to fill the pews. The other guy wants the church to water down the gospel message to make the sermon confusing to the unbeliever. The other guy wants to fill the church with unbelievers who think they are Christians to displace the true believers.
The other guy likes to divide the church by driving the believers into small groups, cell groups, and home bible study groups so that their words will fall onto deaf ears. Smaller cells are dividing the true believers until they are no longer the influencers of the congregation and where their words are never heard by the others.
The other guy likes his church pastors to be elevated above others, to be protected because of their imaginary supernatural gifts and the phony hyper connection to God and the Holy Spirit. The other guy likes his pastors to proclaim the subtle messages of new age teachings of which the other guy, Satan, began in the Garden of Eden. Genesis 3:4-5 “The serpent said to the woman, “You certainly will not die! For God knows that on the day you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will become like God, knowing good and evil.”” The other guy is a seller of the kind of fruit that promotes the message of elevating self. Promoting self includes wealth and prosperity and a fake feel-good born-again experience. The other guy is the father of people being “holy” on Sundays and living like sinners Monday to Saturday.
God’s way of managing sound in a church does a better job at separating His sheep from the G.O.A.T.s. God’s way of managing sound helps to build HIS church, not the other guys’ churches. God’s way of managing sound helps people to be confident in the Word and to let their light shine every day of the week. God’s way of managing church sound prevents bad sound from getting in the way of the message.
Church sound affects everyone, whether you realize it or not. You just read how God’s way of managing sound and the other guy’s way of managing sound works. Do you know whose method you are following when it comes to church sound? Did you get your information on church sound from the Bible? If not, what are you going to do about it?
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There is a saying that makes its rounds from time to time and it goes like this.
“Never be afraid to try something new. The “Ark” was built by Amateurs but the Titanic was built by professionals.”
Seriously? Who designed the Ark? God designed the “Ark”, not man. Who designed the Titanic? Man designed the Titanic. When it comes to church acoustics, shouldn’t we be using the acoustical system as shown in the Bible – a design guided by God over all other acoustical systems?
Posted in Church Acoustics, Church Sound Systems | Comments Off on There is only one way to solve sound problems in a church, God’s way or the other guys’ way.
When to Equalize the sound system of a new church
Posted by jdbsound on April 6, 2021
Whether a new church, after a church renovation or when converting a commercial building into a new church, the sound system is susceptible to humidity changes. The speed of sound changes as humidity changes. Learn about how humidity affects the performance of a church sound system and what you can do to keep your system in peak performance.
Posted in Church Acoustics, Church Sound Systems | Tagged: Box Store Church, Church, Church acoustics, church growth, Church Sound Systems, churches, independant churches, Mega Church, sound management system, Sound Reinforcement System, Store Front Church, Warehouse Church | Comments Off on When to Equalize the sound system of a new church
How to Test the Performance of your Church Speaker System
Posted by jdbsound on March 27, 2021
Is there a way to know how much performance you really are getting out of your church sound system? After testing a number of churches, would it surprise you that many churches are getting only 10 to 20% out of their sound systems performance during worship? We show you how to test your church speakers.
Posted in Church Acoustics | Comments Off on How to Test the Performance of your Church Speaker System
Church Sound Video’s
Posted by jdbsound on March 24, 2021
Starting to create teaching video’s on church sound and acoustics. It is our hope that these video’s will help churches in making better decisions and choices in their future plans. We are not going to do trouble shooting video’s, there are plenty of those. These video’s are going to be about how sound interact with a room and to help people to know when technology can help solve a problem or when managing the acoustics is the better solution.
Here is the link to the first two video’s.
Please let us know what you think in the comment section.
Joseph De Buglio
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Do Churches that build what they want, get what they need?
Posted by jdbsound on January 19, 2021
When it comes to houses of worship, there is one fundamental question that Christians need to be honest with themselves. Do we design houses of worship based on what we need or what we want? The evidence that we can see and hear as a person visits houses of worship is that Churches are designed and built around what they want, and after they move in, they expect the building to give them what they need. Many Churches seem to spend unlimited amounts of money after they move in to make the room give them what they need, and the results almost always come up short.
Since the edict of tolerance by Emperor Constantine, there has been a search for the perfect house of worship. It is supposed to be an ideal place for Christians to gather, hear the scriptures, study the Gospel and sing praises to God. After building millions of churches around the world since then, that perfect worship space has been elusive. When it comes to worship space design, it looks like the church is following a world view of thinking, which is similar to those who believe in evolutionism, materialism and atheism. The evolutionist believes that if we keep building enough churches with random designs, we will eventually get it right over an endless period of time. The materialist believes that there is a yet to be discovered equation that can explain to us how to create the perfect sound for worship. The atheist believes that we can design churches without needing God. Not one of these world view designs has created a building that meets all of the needs of Christian Worship as detailed in the Bible. Yet, every church, church board, and building committee prays to God for help in designing new worship spaces, but they don’t turn to God’s Word for answers as part of the process. No one is answering the question of whether we are to design for what we need or what we want!
Why are Christians looking for answers to this problem outside of the Bible, the book that changed their lives? The Bible, a timeless book, has a design for a house of worship that does give the Christian church everything that they need – yes, even in these modern times. The Bible teaches that the scriptures are sufficient to give us what we need and not what we want. God is our loving heavenly Father, who wants to take care of His children. GOD gave us a blueprint pattern to follow, which was designed by HIM through David in the Old Testament. It is a perfect space for Christian Worship today. Shouldn’t the Christian community follow the Bible in what we need as a house of worship and leave the idea of what we want to our personal lives?
Posted in Church Acoustics, Rants | Tagged: Acoustical Blue print, acoustical management systems, acoustics, Acoustics of Solomon, Acoustics of Solomon's Temple, Church, Church acoustics, church sound system, De-coding Solomon's Temple, room acoustics, Solomon's Temple Secrets, Solomon's Temple | Comments Off on Do Churches that build what they want, get what they need?
Acoustical Proof of Worship Space Failures
Posted by jdbsound on December 30, 2020
Almost every church has a sound system. It is supposed to be a tool to preach the Gospel message with. When that goal is achieved, it turns out that such a sound system is also excellent for the singing portion of the worship. In a survey done a few years ago, most church sound systems failed at meeting all of the requirements for worship. During the survey, approximately 90% of the worship spaces were limiting the performance of the sound system. In some cases, where churches had expensive “State of the Art” sound systems with the latest digital technology, the acoustical condition of the room limited the performance of the sound systems to 70% or less.
These sound systems were limited in many ways, including even when the congregation can sing over 85dB, but if the sound system was even louder than 83dB, people vigorously complained that the sound system was too loud. Other issues included the need for expensive drum shields, which can cost thousands. Many churches are turning to In-Ear Monitors, and all of the hardware needed to go with the system that cost thousands. In many churches, they were limited in the number of open microphones that could be used, or everyone had to have headset microphones and so on. What is also distressing is that most churches are investing more money into technology and replacing the technology in cycles of 15 years or less- long before the equipment is worn out or obsolete.
What would happen if you could fix the acoustics of the worship space permanently with an acoustical system that can be repainted in future renovations to last the lifetime of the church building? What if that permanent fix could get 90 to 100% performance out of your existing sound system or any future system expansion? What would happen if you only needed to replace sound equipment whenever it failed because of age, rather than trying out the latest technology? What does the latest technology get you in a room that is underperforming acoustically? Does investing into the newest hyped up devices, making promises that can only be reached if the room is fixed in the first place, do anything to help people understand the Gospel better, or is it better to just pacify people through a better entertainment quality sound system? What happens if we turn to the Bible to look for answers? The only example of a worship space is in the details of Solomon’s Temple. That was an edifice that was built over 3500 years ago, and if it was truly The House of God, then why did God allow it to be destroyed?
Is there any proof or evidence that if a church is designed like Solomon’s Temple as it is detailed in the Bible, it would not be suitable for modern worship today? Are there any existing churches that have the same details of Solomon’s Temple, less the gold? If there is, how does it sound? If no place exists, then why isn’t there at least one? Does Solomon’s Temple have anything to offer modern churches today? How can a building that some say is just a myth, a building that is said to have never existed, be relevant today? What could ancient technology possibly be usable in an ultra-modern church? Was there something that was in Solomon’s Temple that is usable in churches today, even if the modern church doesn’t resemble anything close to Solomon’s Temple? If the technology of Solomon’s Temple is transferable into existing churches, what does it say about the existence of Solomon’s Temple? Can a myth fix modern churches? Has any of this technology been applied to existing churches?
Jesus gave us the last supper, the communion that all Christians celebrate. By that example, shouldn’t we follow the example of how to design a house of worship that Jesus designed – if we believe John 1:3 “All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made”? Why do churches go against what Jesus did for us in this issue? After all, Jesus is alive today. Why do we treat Jesus as someone who is exclusively from the past? When did Jesus and God stop being in the present?
In the Gospel of John, it begins with “in the beginning was the WORD and the Word was with God.” This is about the past and how all things came to be. At the end of the Gospel, after Jesus rose from the dead, John said, (John 20:31) “but these have been written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God; and that believing you may have life in His name.” Here, John clearly makes a transition where Jesus in not just the Son of God in the past, but is the Son of God in the present.
As a Christian, the teaching is that the whole Bible is the Word of God. The Bible is the word of God for the past – lessons from which to learn from; for the present – how we are to live day to day with God today; and for the future – to know where we go when we die and how the future of the world will be. Every part of the Bible has something to teach us today, and that includes what we should know about Solomon’s Temple. Was the destruction of Solomon’s Temple of God’s failure to protect His House, or was it to tell us that the details of Solomon’s Temple has valuable technology that is meant to be used in all churches after Jesus rose from the dead? Here is a link that teaches about how Solomon’s Temple is relevant to churches today.
Here is a link to photo albums of over 40, of the 400 plus churches that have already applied this ancient technology of Solomon’s Temple with amazing results. Any church can benefit from this technology today. The cost of such a system that can help save lives is priceless, but it is possible to add it to all churches, especially when it costs less than a typical sound system upgrade or replacement.
Please leave any comments you might have in the comment section below.
Posted in Church Acoustics | Tagged: Church acoustics, Solomon's Temple Explained, Solomon's Temple Secrets, Solomon's Temple | Comments Off on Acoustical Proof of Worship Space Failures
Welcome to the world of Church Acoustics 