GC Pro Helps Burt Assembly of God After Devastating Fire

— GC Pro personnel in San Diego and Detroit teamed up to source a new sound system for the International Outreach & Training Center, an integral part of this house of worship in Burt, Michigan, and to act as the interface for the church with its insurance company’s claims adjuster —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, November 30, 2015 — When the Burt Assembly of God Church’s International Outreach & Training Center was heavily damaged by fire in 2014, the facility, located in Burt, Michigan, faced a devastating loss that also included the center’s music and sound systems. However, the loss was remedied, thanks to the national reach offered by Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the business-to-business (B2B) division of Guitar Center providing highly customized service for professional accounts.

GC Pro teams in San Diego, California, and Detroit, Michigan, acted as the interface between the church, still reeling from its loss, and the church’s insurance adjuster, assuring that the systems that needed to be replaced would benefit from the newest technologies and products. GC Pro analyzed the International Outreach & Training Center’s needs and specified a wide range of M.I. and pro audio systems and products, all of which were sourced through GC Pro’s massive inventory. These included a JBL PRX PA system powered by Crown amplifiers and mixed through a Soundcraft Si Expression 2 digital FOH console; Shure wired and wireless microphone systems; Pearl, DW and Zildjian percussion items; and other pro audio and M.I. products. The items were specified by the GC Pro San Diego office, which has had extensive experience dealing with insurance companies and adjustors and was able to help guide the church and the center through the difficult and often-confusing claims process. The eyes on the ground assessing the situation, and later the project manager for the installation of these products and systems, was the GC Pro Detroit office, which called upon HD2 Sound, a member of the GC Pro Affiliates Program, to handle the systems installation and integration.
 
“We worked closely with the church and with their insurance company’s claims adjustment service to determine what they lost, the value of that and the replacement values, as well as what the best replacement products and systems would be,” explains Kevin Hewitt, Account Manager at the GC Pro office in San Diego. “We also worked closely with our office in Detroit, the closest one on the ground to the church. Together, we were able to efficiently and effectively assess the situation and decide what would get them back on their feet.”
 
As Hewitt handled the logistics of the project, Paul Johnson, Account Manager at GC Pro’s Detroit location, handled system design, driving two hours each way to the work site, often several days a week. “When I got there, the building was a total loss,” he recalls. “I became the on-site project manager for the audio systems, measuring during the reconstruction process and letting Kevin know what the dimensions would be. We established timelines for deliveries and installation, coordinating between the insurance company, our vendors, our integrator, the construction crews at the site, and the church and center leaders. It was a huge undertaking, but the church was very excited to see that we could manage their project on a national basis.”

The church leaders quickly realized that GC Pro brings an enormous amount of power — in the form of resources and expertise, as well as our experience with loss claims — to a project. Especially for one like this, where they had suffered such a massive loss, GC Pro was the only provider that could manage this effectively from beginning to end. “Today, the church and the center are back,” says Johnson, “and it was gratifying for all of us at GC Pro to have played such an important role in that.”

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

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
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 City Church Expands with D.A.S. Audio

The view from the front-of-house position at the new Riverview, Michigan campus of Metro City Church, outfitted with A/V components sourced through Guitar Center Professional.

WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, August 24, 2015 — Several years ago, Metro City Church, located in the Detroit metropolitan area, outfitted its 900-seat sanctuary with a system of Aero Series 2 products from Spanish manufacturer D.A.S. Audio with assistance from Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users. Building on the success of that project, the church recently returned to GC Pro to purchase a second D.A.S. system for a new campus and its touring praise band.

Metro City Church is a very modern organization, employing the latest technology and media, especially music, to engage its congregation, which reportedly numbers about 1,500 people each weekend. According to Paul Johnson, GC Pro Senior Account Manager in Detroit, “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.” Alive is also the name of the church’s high school division, which meets every Sunday night and addresses the local Downriver community of ninth through twelfth grade students.

Toward the end of 2012, Johnson, together with Paul Long, a Guitar Center Sales Associate based at the Southfield, Michigan store, in collaboration with Steve Trimble, D.A.S. Audio Regional Sales Manager, designed and installed a new sound system for the church after carefully considering the available options. Long, who is also on staff at Metro City as the church’s lead sound engineer, explains, “The church is very active with music, bringing bands in as well as it sending its own bands out, for probably 10 years now, so we see a lot of the equipment that’s being used. There were really three major companies—the top three brands that we’ve worked with on tours—that we were looking at, including D.A.S.”

The new Riverview, Michigan campus of Metro City Church, outfitted with A/V components sourced through Guitar Center Professional.

The sanctuary at the church’s original campus in Taylor, Michigan, features D.A.S. Aero Series 2 powered line array components flown in an LCR configuration—three cabinets in the center with six hung at either side of the stage. Two D.A.S. LX-215A powered band-pass subwoofers and eight LX-218CA dual-18-inch high performance powered subwoofers are stacked to the left and right and are configured in cardioid arrays in order to reduce standing waves on the stage. A similar setup was ordered for the church’s new campus, located in the southern Detroit suburb of Riverview, including a total of 15 D.A.S. Aero 12A line array modules flown in an LCR configuration, and 12 LX-218CA dual-18-inch subs, along with dbx DriveRack VENU360 speaker processing. The systems at both the Taylor and Riverview campuses are similar, says Long, “But one thing that is a bit different is that we originally sold them Aero 12As and they have since modified and upgraded the system to include Aero 38As as well as Aero 12s. So it’s more of a hybrid system now.” The powered three-way Aero 38A module houses two 12-inch and two 10-inch speakers plus a 1.5-inch high frequency compression driver.
The latest upgrade also includes four Sennheiser G3 Evolution 900 series handheld mics, a pair of G3 wireless body pack transmitters and rackmount receivers and three DPA d:fine 4088 miniature cardioid headset mics. This purchase also includes band equipment, including Meinl cymbals and an Ampeg SVT head, and a variety of instrument microphones, most notably Shure Beta52A, Beta56A and Beta91A dynamics and an Audix DVICE drum mic mounting system.
In appreciation, the church made its facilities available to Guitar Center for multiple GC Pro Live Sound Expos in 2014 and 2015, featuring the latest products from many high-end manufacturers. “Metro City Church was the first to partner with us to do one of those events,” says Johnson. “That was a big deal—they opened up their church to us.”

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

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About Guitar Center Professional/Guitar Center
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.