Video and Audio Systems for Anastasia Baptist Church

The Christian Life Center, a 15,000-square-foot sanctuary holding up to 1,200 worshipers, at Anastasia Baptist Church in St. Augustine, Florida, featuring new video and lighting systems sourced through Guitar Center Professional.

— Working with GC Pro Affiliate AV integrator Sound System Engineering, GC Pro continues assisting the church in refining its media systems and enhancing its ability to communicate its message —
WESTLAKE VILLAGE, CA, April 14, 2016 — The St. Augustine Lighthouse has been a beacon for Florida mariners since it was built in 1874. Similarly, the Anastasia Baptist Church, also located in what is the oldest city in the United States, describes itself as “a spiritual lighthouse” for its members. Guitar Center Professional (GC Pro), the business-to-business (B2B) division of Guitar Center providing highly customized service for professional accounts, has been a partner with Anastasia Church for the last three years, helping it keep its message clear and articulate.

The church’s main campus houses its Christian Life Center, a 15,000-square-foot sanctuary holding up to 1,200 worshipers. To enhance the worship experience in the sanctuary, Eli Higginbotham, the church’s Technical Director, again sought GC Pro’s help, and GC Pro responded. Jeff Aldrich, GC Pro Account Manager of North Florida at GC Pro’s Jacksonville office, recommended a new video system consisting of four Sony EVIH100V HD cameras, a Sony RMBR300 EVI BRC PTZ VISCA remote control unit, and a Roland V-40HD multi-format video switcher integrated into the churches existing video platform. The project also saw two 80-inch Sharp LCD monitors installed in the main sanctuary as well as 60-inch Sony monitors in two classrooms on the campus. In addition, a second, smaller sanctuary that seats 600 for more traditional worship services, had a JBL CWT128 8-inch 2-way loudspeaker system suspended above the orchestra area. Sound System Engineering (SSE) was the approved GC Pro AV system integration Affiliate that assisted in the systems’ design and performed the installation.

To illustrate the church’s 2016 sermon theme around mountains, the church suggested a custom LED lighting strip that would outline a mountain background lining the rear of the stage in the Christian Life Center. Lighting was addressed in a unique way for this systems upgrade: the installation of a 400-foot run of Aspect LED RGBW strip lighting tape to line the mountaintops that were designed and built by Doug Brown, Florida School of the Arts Technical Director.

“The church wanted to enhance their media capabilities and the overall worship experience,” Aldrich explains. “We’ve been working with them for the past two years, helping them do exactly that for all of their AVL needs.” Each and every component of the systems that GC Pro recommended was tailored to the church’s specific needs. For instance, the 180-degree dispersion pattern of the JBL CWT128 was what Aldrich calls “a phenomenal fit” with its programmable wave pattern. “One speaker for the entire choir and orchestra monitoring system,” he says.

The smaller sanctuary at Anastasia Baptist Church in St. Augustine, Florida, which seats 600 for more traditional worship services, featuring a JBL CWT128 8-inch 2-way loudspeaker system sourced through Guitar Center Professional.

Higginbotham notes that the relationship between himself and Aldrich goes back nearly a decade, to a time when Higginbotham worked as a manager for several Guitar Center store locations in the Southeast. “Jeff was one of my reps, and he was one of the best, so it was natural for us to continue this relationship when I came to the church,” he explains. Higginbotham says Aldrich’s astuteness is characteristic of GC Pro’s approach to dealing with clients, starting with the installation of new video cameras at the church two years ago, the results of which he described as “spectacular.” “They took care of everything then just as Jeff did with this most recent project, including sourcing the electrical contractor for the new lighting,” he says. “The great thing about working with GC Pro is, you never have to go anywhere else. They have it all.”

And as good as the technology has been for the church, it was the reaffirmation of the relationship that will be most enduring, and of the most benefit to the client. “The intangibility of a trusting relationship is really what GC Pro customers are experiencing,” says Aldrich. “I’ll always be there for them, and that means that GC Pro, with its huge depth of resources and its pricing power, will always be there for them. No one else offers that level of support.”

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.

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.