GC Pro and Greenhill School

The gymnasium at Greenhill School in Addison, Texas, pictured with QSC WideLine line array modules sourced through GC Pro and installed by integrator Trinity Group International.

— Greenhill School in Addison, Texas, needed a sound system makeover quickly for a 9/11 observance ceremony, and GC Pro was able to do the job right, quickly and efficiently —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, September 24, 2012 — Greenhill School, founded in 1950 and whose 14 buildings are situated on 75 acres in Addison, Texas, places a good deal of emphasis on both athletics and civics, so a scheduled memorial ceremony for the anniversary of 9/11 was important to students, teachers and parents. However, the sound system in the school’s gymnasium wasn’t up to the task anymore. But Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, was able to fix that, and quickly, too. Once GC Pro’s team had evaluated the situation, made their recommendations and bid, and brought in a member of their GC Pro Affiliate Services Program as the systems integrator, the new sound system was put up and in place within a single day, ready for the observance ceremony. Integrator Trinity Group International installed a GC Pro-provided QSC WideLine line array sound system consisting of two hangs each with subs attached below.

“The show went off without a hitch, in part because the installation was done so quickly and so well,” recalls Jeffery McDaniel, Senior Account Manager based at the GC Pro office in Dallas, Texas. McDaniel notes that Trinity’s installers were able to access the school a day earlier to run cabling and establish hang points, prepping the job site for what would be a record-time one-day installation of the entire sound system. “It’s a pretty big system, but as soon as the purchase order came through, we and Trinity were on it, because we knew how important this event was going to be for them.”

McDaniel says that Greenhill School received several bids on the project, and ultimately awarded the job to GC Pro. The school’s IT director made the decision to go with GC Pro because, as McDaniel puts it, “They simply had more faith in us, that we could do it in time and with the right equipment that would last them a long time into the future. I’d say they made the right decision.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

GC Pro Part of Texas Church’s Ongoing Upgrades

Assembly of Yahweh 7th Day near Cisco, Texas, featuring upgraded AV sourced through GC Pro and installed by Affiliate Program member Malvicino Design Group.

— GC Pro has been regularly working with the Assembly of Yahweh 7th Day near Cisco, Texas, and after providing systems and installation services for the church’s most recent AV upgrades, it’s now in the plans to build a dedicated recording studio —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, September 20, 2012 — The last three years have been busy ones for the Assembly of Yahweh 7th Day near Cisco, Texas, and the Dallas-area office of Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. In that time, GC Pro has helped the church and its pastor, Farris Wilks, and his family build a recording studio at the Wilks’ home in Cisco and significantly upgrade the church’s AV. In 2011, after initial plans, GC Pro contracted Horacio Malvicino, Managing Director of the Malvicino Design Group, a Forest Hills, New York-based GC Pro Affiliate Services Program member, for design and construction of the studio. GC Pro sourced and supplied technology including a 32-channel Neve Genesys digitally controlled analog console, an Avid D-Command, a Pro Tools HD system and an Ocean Way HR2 monitoring system. After the studio was finished, GC Pro then was asked to update the church’s AV systems.

In 2012, GC Pro brought in GC Pro Affiliate Services Program member Omnicoustics, based in McKinney, Texas, to install new Robe and Chauvet lighting systems; Panasonic video cameras and live-video switcher; a NewTek Tricaster video switcher for recorded video content for post production applications; and Eiki video projectors.

Jeffery McDaniel, GC Pro Senior Account Manager, says this is the second major systems upgrade that GC Pro has done for Assembly of Yahweh 7th Day – In 2010, GC Pro upgraded the church’s sound system with a JBL Array Series system paired with an Avid VENUE SC48 digital live sound console and an Avid Pro Tools LE system, as well as a new complement of microphones, a new Aviom in-ear monitor system for the church band, and other related equipment -- and it underscores the kind of relationship that GC Pro has with many of its customers. “We come to know our customers pretty well, because so many of them are repeat customers,” he says. “We have a pretty good idea of what their needs are and how best to meet them.”

Another reason that GC Pro clients are so loyal is the lengths the GC Pro staff is willing to go for them. When it turned out that the dongle sourced for the new lighting system didn’t have the right amount of channels, McDaniel set out to find one that did, working under an extreme deadline. The only vendor who had what they needed was in Canada. As the event for which the lighting controller would be critical drew near, McDaniel told the Canadian supplier to use FedEx’s premium same-day delivery service – the supplier got the new dongle to their local airport at 11 a.m. the same day, and it arrived at FedEx’s freight station at Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport that same evening. McDaniel then drove it the three hours to Cisco, arriving at 11 p.m., and had it ready to use for the church’s worship service the next morning. McDaniel also helped participate in their first service, running their newly purchased computer program to display the music’s lyrics. “Whatever it takes to make it work for the customer, that’s what we’re willing to do to make it happen,” says McDaniel.

That same philosophy will apply to the new recording studio, named Seven Pillars Studios, that GC Pro will help design, build and equip, for a planned opening in 2013. Much of the equipment that GC Pro provided for the Wilks’ home studio will migrate to the new facility, which is also being designed and commissioned by the Malvicino Design Group, and which will feature two control rooms around a single large tracking room, with an SSL AWS948 console in the B studio. “We really get to know our clients,” says McDaniel. “And they really get to know us, which means they know we’ll be there for them year in and year out.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

Metro South Church in the Detroit Area

D.A.S. Aero 12A powered two-way, mid-high line array modules, sourced through GC Pro, at Metro South Church in the Detroit area. Photo credit: Jamie Mink.
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, September 18, 2012 — Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, was recently contracted to design and install a new sound system at Metro South Church in the Detroit area. The church, a non-denominational Christian church located in the suburbs south of Detroit, is a growing and vibrant congregation that serves more than 1,500 people each weekend. Recognizing the importance of delivering their message in a clear and appealing manner, church management recently elected to install a robust sound reinforcement system. After careful evaluation, the decision was made to deploy a new loudspeaker setup drawn from the Aero Series 2 catalog of Valencia, Spain-based D.A.S. Audio.

GC Pro Account Manager Paul Johnson, working in conjunction with Guitar Center Sales Associate Paul Long and D.A.S. Audio Regional Sales Manager Steve Trimble, oversaw the project. Ultimately, the new sound system included a sizeable contingent of D.A.S. Aero 12A powered two-way, mid-high line array modules along with LX-215A and LX-218CA sub bass enclosures.

Johnson discussed the project: “Metro South Church is a very modern organization with a contemporary worship experience that really engages the congregation,” Johnson explained. “Music plays a vital role in their worship services because it’s a great way to be relevant to their congregants. They have a praise band—Alive—that reaches out to hundreds of high school students. The sanctuary is approximately 124 feet wide by 124 feet deep, has a 22 foot high ceiling, and seats roughly 850 people, so it’s not a small space. In order to deliver a high level of speech intelligibility and first-rate music reproduction capability, we determined that a line array system, augmented by multiple subwoofers, would be the most effective means of providing coverage. After coordinating three product demonstrations, the decision was made to go with the D.A.S. equipment.”

The house mains for Metro South Church’s new sound system consist of an LCR loudspeaker configuration. The system comprises fifteen D.A.S. Audio Aero 12A enclosures, with six elements each on the left and right hangs and a center fill cluster consisting of three modules. Low frequency support is provided by a combination of two D.A.S. LX-215A powered band-pass subwoofers and eight LX-218CA high performance powered subwoofers. “We stacked the subs on both sides of the stage, and this was done in a cardioid setup with some sub enclosures turned around in order to reduce standing bass on the stage,” Johnson said.

In discussing the challenges of the project, Johnson noted that D.A.S. Audio was competing against a number of prominent loudspeaker manufacturers and, that in the end, the decision came down to sound quality, design, and value. “Our client was looking for a system that delivered incredible sound and presented a clean, unobstructed view of the stage area so as not to be distracting. Given the self-powered nature of the D.A.S. system, we were able to accomplish this at a very competitive price point. By going with a self-powered system, we eliminated the requirement of having to house a rack of power amps, and since the power is integral to the enclosures, it’s optimized for each loudspeaker model. As a result, each of the three loudspeaker clusters was able to run on a single 15-amp circuit, making this a very efficient setup.”

With any project of this nature, quality customer and technical support services are critical and, in this regard, Johnson gives D.A.S. Audio high marks. “D.A.S. was very patient with what turned out to be a somewhat time-consuming project,” he said. “We actually started system demonstrations during the construction phase. In an unprecedented move, D.A.S. sent us the entire system and allowed us to keep it on site for three full demos during different stages of the build out. This was key to closing the sale. In the end, they flew in Ramon Franco, their systems specialist, and tuned the room so we could have the most accurate representation of the system. Both the client and all of us at GC Pro were very impressed.”

Johnson adds that, since being placed into service, the system has impressed the client: “Church management is very happy with the new system. Everyone we’ve spoken with believes they now have one of the best sounding worship services in southeastern Michigan. They are very proud of their new D.A.S. system. Equally important, D.A.S. has become a valued business partner. I expect to be working with D.A.S. for many jobs to come. It was an overall pleasure, and I’m glad to have had the experience.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

GC Pro Lends a Hand to Stonehand Studio

Engineer/producer Chris Jones at his Florence, Kentucky-based Stonehand Studio, pictured with some of the gear he has acquired through GC Pro.

— New music facility in northern Kentucky aims for an organic sound with carefully chosen technology, sourced and installed by GC Pro —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, September 12, 2012 — When Chris Jones does something, he doesn’t do it halfway. The engineer/producer is about to open his own music studio in Florence, Kentucky, near Cincinnati, and he spent considerable time and effort researching how to achieve what he wanted in the way of sound. Jones’ wish list was long and detailed, but it was just what Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, loves to do: help audio professionals bring their visions to life.

Stonehand Studio, which will open in the fall of 2012, is conceived by Jones as a natural-sounding space where acoustics and technology combine to create a wholly organic ambient environment for music recording. “I want it to be a place where people will enjoy taking their time, choosing microphones and picking mic placements to get exactly the sounds they’re looking for,” he explains. Stonehand’s equipment list was put together to help achieve what the studio’s acoustics will bring about naturally, and Jones has a clear rationale behind each piece. For instance, he says he selected the Vintech 473 4-channel mic preamplifier because it approximates the sound of vintage Neve pre amps, and the API 3124+ 4-channel mic pre for what it brings to drums, guitar amps and vocals. Jones researched these and other specific pieces of gear, looking for the combinations that would give him the kind of sonic sensibilities he wanted, but he also consulted with the GC Pro office in Cincinnati, where Account Manager Jim Kinney helped Jones narrow his choices, sourced products and helped him get competitive prices.

And when the time came, they also helped commission the studio, too. Marcin Nowak with GC Pro Technical Services handled the Pro Tools 10 software and Universal Audio Nevana software installations, PCIE card installation, Apogee Symphony installation, RAM upgrades and Apple Mac Pro computer set-up and registrations. GC Pro’s Pres Maxson was invaluable behind the scenes, making sure all the pieces were ordered correctly and arrived on time.

“GC Pro has an awesome team mentality, and it really shows when we get to work on a project,” says Kinney. “Chris was willing to do whatever he could to get the highest performance for his budget from every aspect of the gear. He had clear goals for himself and wanted expert help getting there. We spent a lot of time discussing many options and he seemed to value my input and considered my advice in his equipment decisions.” Jones agrees. “When I started researching, I talked to a number of retailers, including GC Pro,” he says. “But as it went along and the project grew, I found myself talking more and more to Jim at GC Pro. He was always on the job, always there when we had a question, and he always had an answer – they were very, very knowledgeable. GC Pro understood what I was going for, what I was trying to achieve, where I wanted to go with the studio. Those guys have been there themselves, so they know how to help me get where I want to go.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

GC Pro Outfits Mother of Perpetual Help

DAS Aero 8A Line Array Boxes, part of a new sound system at Mother of Perpetual Help Parish Church in Garland, Texas, outfitted/installed by GC Pro and Affiliate Program member DJ Sound & Lighting

— GC Pro’s unmatched inventory translates into a full sound system design adapted exactly for the customer’s needs, and installation from one of GC Pro’s Affiliate Program integrator partners results in another successful project —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, September 10, 2012— Mother of Perpetual Help Parish Church in Garland, Texas, serves the vibrant Vietnamese Catholic community in the Dallas and Ft. Worth areas. The church recently constructed a new auditorium with a multi-purpose mission: as a place to hold conferences and seminars, and as the venue for the elaborate wedding ceremonies and receptions that are part of Vietnamese culture. And all of these applications would require sound that could accommodate the full frequency range of music and the high intelligibility demands of spoken word. That’s why the church turned to Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, to fulfill this multi-part mission. Working with a budget typical for non-profit organizations like houses of worship, the Dallas GC Pro office was able to draw from a wide range of vendors that could not only provide cost-effective equipment and technology solutions but also offer design capability that would assure the system perfectly fit the specific needs of the church. The project also drew upon the deep installation base offered through GC Pro’s acclaimed Affiliate Program of highly qualified AV systems integrators to execute the design.

Kevin Deal, Account Manager at the Dallas GC Pro office, brought an understanding of the church’s needs to the table, as well as a long relationship with Kahn Nguyen, the church’s music consultant, who is responsible for operation and maintenance of the church’s sound systems. “We listened to what they were looking for, and we also were aware that the church was considering other bids,” Deal recalls. “But we knew that we had a much broader range of options we could choose between, from which we could put together a system that would both fit their budget but also perfectly fit the needs of the room and the applications.”

GC Pro presented a solution that used a DAS sound system consisting of 15 DAS Aero 8A Line Array Boxes, 6 DAS Avant 118A Subwoofers and a DAS DSP 4080 Processor. On the stage, eight DAS Avant 112A floor monitors would be managed by DBX 220i loudspeaker processors. Live sound is mixed through an Allen & Heath iLive T112 large-format analog console with an Allen & Heath IDR48 mix rack. Zoned sound is provided through DAS Arctec 26T speakers managed by a DBX ZonePro® 640 and powered by QSC CX108V amplifiers. DAS agreed to provide a detailed design plan for the system that precisely covered the entire auditorium, and it was all expertly installed by GC Pro Affiliate DJ Sound & Lighting.

Deal points out that the competing bid would have used a more expensive system that, based on the church’s budget, would have resulted in some areas insufficiently covered for sound. “The church had given us the CAD drawings of the auditorium and DAS worked from those, so there was a custom system perfectly suited for this project before they had even spent a penny,” Deal says. “That gave the church an enormous amount of confidence and gave us a huge competitive advantage.”

DAS and GC Pro arranged for a DAS systems specialist to fly in to tune the PA system after it was installed, to maximize its performance, at no additional cost to the customer. Kahn Nguyen was more than pleased with the entire project. “Myself and the church have been customers of Guitar Center for a long time, so we knew to expect the utmost from GC Pro,” he says. “And it's been great so far. Kevin has been very professional and knowledgeable.”

That kind of service – intimate understanding of the needs of a client through patient listening, the ability to source that widely for cost-effective solutions offering both products and services such as design, and the capability to bring installation as part of a turnkey package would be considered above and beyond the call of duty for any other pro audio retailer. But for GC Pro, “’Above and beyond,’” says Deal, “is what we do every day.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

GC Pro Helps the Bridgeway Community Church

The FOH position at Bridgeway Community Church in Columbia, Maryland. Bridgeway has been relying on GC Pro for its wireless systems and related products.

— Substantial changes in the ways wireless spectrum is allocated have led to upheaval in how wireless microphone systems are used, and GC Pro helps its clients find their way through the new reality —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, September 4, 2012 — The “White Space” issue has changed the way the wireless world works. As a result of the transition to digital broadcasting over the last three years, the region of the RF spectrum where wireless microphones have worked – mostly between the 700 MHz to 800 MHz range (aka the “White Spaces” between analog channels) is no longer available. That’s meant that wireless microphone users have had to replace their systems with new ones that comply with the newly constricted spectra available to them, beginning at 470 MHz up to about 698 MHz, and a small band above 900 MHz. House-of-worship users have been particularly affected, as many churches today rely on wireless audio for everything from worship services to theatrical and music performances. That was the case at the Bridgeway Community Church in Columbia, Maryland, a nondenominational, multicultural house of worship that puts an emphasis on dramatic presentations and music concerts and uses up to 24 channels of wireless for them. So when the new regulations governing the RF spectrum came into being, the church turned to their long-time collaborator for keeping its AV systems working at peak performance: Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Working with Mitchell Shaivitz, Account Manager at the GC Pro Baltimore area office, the church’s Technical Director Derwent “D” Williamson was able to source all of the wireless systems and products he needed to keep the church’s productions at the cutting edge of technology and regulation.

“We do a very wide range of performances here,” says Williamson, noting that the church’s location in a suburb of Baltimore means that it has to be acutely aware of changes to frequency allocation rules that particularly affect large urban areas that have a lot of sports, broadcast and entertainment venues that use substantial amounts of RF. “We’ve often had as many as twelve wireless channels going at once on stage, between actors and musicians. We need our wireless to be as reliable as possible.”

In the past, says Williamson, the church has had problems with dropouts, and the arrival of new regulations regarding wireless spectrum allocation meant it was time for an upgrade across the board. Working through GC Pro, the church purchased 14 channels of new Shure ULX-D wireless, including handheld transmitter and bodypacks, plus Shure PSM900 in-ear system and a Shure PA821A 8-channel antenna combiner.

The system was delivered in time for Williamson and his staff of technically astute volunteers to install it for the church’s annual Easter stage event. “We took a bit of a risk in putting such a new system to work on such a high-profile event on short notice,” Williamson says. “But on the other hand, we’ve been customers of GC Pro for seventeen years now, and we know that there’s a level of reliability and trust that would let us feel good about something like that. They helped us decide on what we needed, provided extremely competitive pricing and made sure they were delivered on time,” including most recently a TOA line array system and a Behringer X32 digital mixer for a multi-purpose room. “It’s a great feeling to know you have that kind of support behind you.”

For more information, please visit www.gcpro.com.

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.

New Avid Pro Tools|HD Native Thunderbolt

GC Pro is happy to offer you the brand new ProTools|HD Native Thunderbolt, a new generation of Pro Tools|HD system that enables you to compose, record, edit, and mix music and/or sound for picture with great speed and ease. Consisting of an HD Native Thunderbolt interface or PCIe core card, Pro Tools HD software, and Pro Tools HD Series interface, Pro Tools|HD Native harnesses the power of your Mac or PC to deliver pristine sound, incredible performance, and the lowest latency of any host-based DAW.

Choice of HD Native Thunderbolt interface or PCIe card
Unlike USB- or FireWire-based DAWs, which are inherently prone to latency, Pro Tools|HD Native employs either a high-speed Thunderbolt interface or PCIe core card to connect Pro Tools HD Series interfaces with your laptop or desktop computer. By eliminating distracting monitor latency while recording, increasing your I/O capabilities, and providing 64-bit floating-point processing for more headroom and a higher mix resolution, you get a professional native solution that meets the highest audio standards.

You can now choose an Avid Pro Tools|HD Thunderbolt interface that's best for your application... PCIe card for desktop systems, or the new Native Thunderbolt interface (perfect for laptop and mobile systems).

Pro Tools HD software
Award-winning Pro Tools software has been the industry-standard digital audio production platform for years. The software tightly integrates your HD Native hardware and computer together as one, delivering exceptional performance and reliability—even with large mixes. And it comes with all the tools, advanced workflows, virtual instruments, and plug-ins you need to compose, record, edit, and mix music and/or sound for picture.

One or more Pro Tools HD Series interfaces
Capture and play back audio in stunning clarity and easily work with a wide range of analog and digital gear. Whether you want to streamline your setup with an all-in-one interface, provide mic or MADI connectivity, or need a tightly integrated, flexible system that can handle complex productions with up to 64 channels of I/O, there’s a Pro Tools HD Series interface that’s right for you—choose one or more to complete your system and customize it for your needs.

GC Pro: Your Pro Tools Experts
For over a decade, GC Pro's reps have received special training in specifying the perfect Pro Tools system for your needs. From project studios to commercial rooms, post-production facilities, and more, Pro Tools is now more flexible and powerful than ever before.

Visit www.gcpro.com or call 877-704-2776 to find your local GC Pro representative and order your new Avid HD Native system today!

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
Founded in 2001, Guitar Center Professional is the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Its clientele includes recording studios, audio engineers, producers, recording and touring musicians, live sound venues, post production facilities and more. Emphasizing extraordinary individualized service via local account managers, GC Pro offers expert consultation and a comprehensive selection of the world’s finest equipment for music and audio professionals. More information on GC Pro can be found by visiting www.gcpro.com.