GC Pro Helps First Baptist Church

First Baptist Church of Sebring, Florida, recently renovated and featuring a new sound system sourced through GC Pro.
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, October 30, 2012 — The First Baptist Church of Sebring, Florida, was founded in 1922. A lot has changed in the intervening 90 years, including the church’s move to its current location in 1987. Since then, the church has continued to expand its campus, adding a Fellowship Hall, kitchen, elevator, children's department, and the "ROC" (Recreation Outreach Center) for athletic events, social gatherings, and youth activities. One of the things that didn’t change as quickly, however, was the church sanctuary’s sound system, which was both old and ill-designed for the church’s dimensions, which are wider than long, causing many sound problems (for instance, the 60-person choir would miss many of the weekly sermons due to lack of intelligibility through the PA system). A change needed to happen, so the church reached out to Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the outside sales division of Guitar Center that focuses on the needs of professional users, for help. Today, everyone in First Baptist of Sebring can hear every word spoken by the Pastor and every note of music sung by the choir and played by the worship band.

GC Pro’s team assessed the church’s needs carefully, noting in particular the specification for a sound system with excellent horizontal dispersion characteristics, to address the building’s interior dimensions and lack of acoustical treatments. Commuting from GC Pro’s Tampa office, GC Pro Account Manager Mick Hall spent hours at the church, figuring out the best systems for its needs. These included a JBL VRX928 line array system configured as a center cluster, with two VRX dual-15-inch subwoofers.

“The old systems left a number of dead spots throughout the church,” Hall explains. “It simply didn’t have the reach, and as a result intelligibility suffered. Rooms with these kinds of dimensions need very specific kinds of system solutions.”

The new PA system was rounded out with a new Yamaha LS9 FOH console, Aviom in-ear wireless monitoring for the band, an Ashly NE24.24M matrix processor, a Sennheiser Evolution wireless microphone system, and a pair of JBL CBT 70 mini-arrays for the choir’s monitors. Hall also specified two Mitsubishi 8100 video projectors. “The big picture was to get even and consistent sound coverage for the entire sanctuary, which is something the church had never had,” says Hall.

GC Pro was chosen as the partner on this project based on the comprehensiveness of their approach, which included detailed design and consultation services and installation availability through its Approved Vendor Program, in addition to competitive pricing. “We let them know we would be their partners in this project, not just a vendor selling equipment,” says Hall. “That’s how GC Pro does it.”

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.