Sound system proposal - James Burke

A Proposal Letter

__________________________

A Sound System Proposal Presented to Brent Gibson The Instructor for CHURCH TECH AND MEDIA Summit Pacific College __________________________

In Partial Fulfillment Of the Requirements for the Course CHURCH TECH AND MEDIA MUSI 355 ___________________________

James Burke October 7 2015 Box 54

Burke

1

Dear Pastor, thank you for enquiring about a sound system for your church of 60 to 300 people. The necessary components that you will want to for your church will be a soundboard, two mid range speakers and two subwoofers, monitors, a snake, about 15 XLR cables, 6 wired and 2 wireless microphones, 4 DI-boxes, and microphone stands.

The first thing to consider is the type of soundboard you want. We highly recommend going digital. Currently there are very expensive digital boards out there as high as $20,000 or more. Though over the past few years Behringer has been in the market with digital boards at very affordable prices. The one we recommend for your church would be the Behringer X32 Compact. The price for this board is $2,800.00, which is very competitive with today’s analog boards—though its capabilities go far beyond an analog board. One downside is there may be a bit of a learning curve for those who already know analog boards. On the Brightside once you have learned the board well enough you can mix in instruments and vocal chords to the dot, even on an iPad; removing any distortion. Also the board has many built-in rack effects, such as gates, compressor, EQ, reverb, and many more. If your church does any recording it can also record straight on the board and be mixed separate later on with just a USB stick plugged in. You can also premix channels and save them on the board so you have quick mixes for Sunday mornings. The second board you could go with is a analog board. The

Burke

2

Mackie Onyx 32.4 costs around $3,212. It has 32 channels, with 4-band perkins EQ, 6 Aux sends with pre/post switches, and 100mm Panasonic faders. This is an ideal board for general use. One down side to this board has basic features, so a stack of effects would be recommended if this were purchased.

The speakers are the second component to consider, our recommendation for your two mid range speakers are Yorkville PSA-1; priced around $1975 each. For the subwoofers we recommend are Yorkville PSA1’s for $1975 each. Yorkville speakers are currently Canada’s industry standard speaker; they are known for their clarity and reliability. One reason we recommend these specific speakers is because they are active, so you will not need preamps to power your speakers. Also you have to choice to hang your mid speakers by themselves or in a series or you can also have them on the floor on posts with the subwoofers. Also, the parts for these speakers are easy to find and replace so if anything ever goes wrong you wont need to replace the speakers. The only limitation with these speakers is that they need a power source nearby. Another good mid range speaker to consider is the Yamaha DXR15 priced around $900 each. These are powered speakers and were the industry standard for years. You are able to hang these or put these on posts, so you have some choice if you need space. One of the downsides they cannot be hung in series like the other speakers.

Burke

3

The third thing you want to look at is your monitor system for your band. The options that you have are wedge monitors and in ear monitors. Each of them have there own benefits and limitations. For wedge monitors we recommend four Yorkville NX55P-2 speakers. The price for these monitors is around $940.00 individually. Two downsides to having the wedge monitors might be stage volume or not having enough space. These are powered speakers, so you may need to consider stage plugs for power.

The other option you have is in ear monitors. The in ears we believe you should consider getting are Sure PSM300’s. These in ear monitors are one of the top of the line in ears that can get, that pick up the proper frequencies needed for all your musicians.

You will most likely need at least six to start. The price of these monitors is around $899.00 each. One of the great things about them is that they save you space on the stage and help for give more direction to the bad when playing with click track.

Although, one of the limitations is that you might not have enough monitors for everyone to use.

The fourth component to your sound system is the snake. With the two boards recommended you can look at digital snakes and regulars snakes. This is how the board will be wired to the front of the room with the instruments. The Behringer S32 is a

Burke

4

digital snake we recommend. This will mean you do not need to run as many bulky wires from the back to the front of the room, just one Ethernet cord. One downside to this is the cost is $2,300. Although the upside is that it runs a digital connection so it setting this up wont be as difficult. The regular snake recommended is two Rapcon Horizon Stage Series 100’16 channel snakes. The main reason we recommend these is because they are reliable and cost very little. They go for about $500 each, so it will be about $1000 to run them. One upside to this is you can run them on both sides of your stage. The down side is that they are not digital and are limited in how far you can run them.

Looking at the fifth component to the sound system is getting XLR cables to run to the bands instruments and vocals. The best cables you can get are with gold prong’s because they give the best connection, but are not necessary. The ones recommended by us are 25 foot cables that at about $20 each by Neutrik. To start off, think about a minimum of 15 cables. Neutrik makes reliable cords that have silver prongs. Silver prongs are the second best connection (still really good).

The sixth component is the type of microphones your church wants to use. Most churches have at least two wireless microphones and six wired microphones. The first

Burke

5

type of microphones we recommend are all made by Shure. For wired microphones you will want four SM58’s for vocals, two SM57’s for guitar and ambient. The wireless microphones recommended are also SM58’s which are a all around good microphone.

The reason these are recommended is because they are industry standard microphones and still are today. In almost all churches you find these microphones. The wire ones sell for about $100 each and the wireless ones are $650 each. Another type of microphone to look at is Sennheiser. They make very comparable microphones to Shure.

For the wired microphones we recommend two Sennheiser e838’s for instruments and four e835’s for vocals and two wireless e835. The downside to these microphones is that they do not pick up male vocals as well as Shure’s SM58 microphones. The upside is that the Sennheiser e835’s and e838’s are about $80 each.

The seventh component is the DI boxes for the instruments. They take you instruments unbalanced signal to a low-impendence microphone level to a balanced signal to the board, so the sound does not get distorted along the way. We recommend four Radial Pro DI boxes, because it is one of the industry standards for DI Boxes. We would say to use it for keyboards, bass, acoustic and, electric guitar signals. They average to about $100 each in price. The downside is that they are a little expensive.

Burke

6

Though on the upside they are very durable and can also be used as a wedge for a monitor.

The eighth and final component we will think is important to consider is the type of microphone stands you buy. They’re many verities of microphone stands around, but the best ones to buy are by a company called Hercules. Nothing about these stands are made cheaply, so you can relay on them not to drop your microphones or instruments.

They are made for ease of use for each individual. We recommend six microphone stands around $80 each, three guitars stands about $75 each, and a KS400 keyboard stand that is about $180. I guarantee these are the better stands you can buy that will outlast all of the others brands. For price range in the options of stands I would not recommend anything else.

Looking at all these options it comes down to your budget for your church and your personal preference in equipment. The components that were recommended for you were decided by popularity, rating, and reliability of the gear. We look forward to hearing from you in the near future on you’re new sound system for your church.

Burke

7

To lay it out a bit simpler here is the equipment I recommended for the space for about 50-300 people. All that is in this estimate fits into the budget of $30,000. The prices listed come from Long and McQuade in Canadian Dollars. Long and McQuade should be able to order all of these items.

Main Sound System Components: Sound Board Behringer X32 Compact ---- $2,800.00 Mackie Onyx 32.4 ---- $3,212.00 (32-ch Digital Mixer, Built-in FX, Live (32-ch analog Mixer, 4-band Perkins EQ, Recording Capabilities) 6 Aux sends with Pre/Post switches, and 100mm Panasonic Faders)

Snake Behringer S32 Snake ---- $2,300 Rapcon Horizon Stage Series Snake -(32-Channel Snake, Ethernet Connection, $500 x2 with 4 TRS Returns, Optional Length) (16-Channel Snake, 16 XLR male/female)

Main Speakers Yorkville PSA-1 (Powered) ---- $1975 x 2 Yamaha DXR15 (Powered) ---- $900 x2

Subwoofer Yorkville PSA1 (Powered) ---- $1975 x 2

Monitor System Wedge – Yorkville NX55P-2 ---- 940.00 x In Ear – Shure PSM300 ---- $899.00 x 8 5

Direct Boxes Radial Pro DI ---- 99.99 x 5

Burke Cabling: Speaker Cables (XLR) 50 ft Mic Cable XLR Neutrik Gold Connector Mogami 2792 Low Noise Mic Wir -- $107.99 x 4

Microphone Cables 25 foot, Neutrik XLR Cables ---- 19.99 x 15 Patch Cables GLS Audio 20 ft Instrument Cable 1/4-Inch TS to 1/4-Inch TS Tweed Cloth Jacket -$39.99 x10 Microphones: - Shure SM58 ---- 99.99 x 4

Vocal - Sennheiser e835 ---- $89.99 x 4

- Shure SM57 ---- 99.00 x 2

Instrument - Sennheiser e838 ----- $89.99 x2

Wireless Microphone and System Wireless SM58 ---- $650.00 x 2 Wireless Sennheiser e835 - $450.00 x2 Drum Microphones Shure PGADRUMKIT5 Drum Mircophone Kit ---- $379.00 Stands: Microphone Stands Hercules Microphone Stand MS631B--- $80.00 x6 Hercules Guitar Microphone Stand MS540B --- $76.38 x2 Hercules Guitar Stands GS515B --- $60.00 x3 Hercules Keyboard Stand KS400B ---- $190.00 Speaker Stands

Speaker Roof Mounts

Pair of Steel Speaker Stands w/Bag - $139.99

8

Burke

9

Instruments: Keyboard Roland – 61 Key Music Workstation– Nord Electro 5 – 61 Semi Weighted -$1,599 $2,999 Sustain/Damper Pedal Roland DP-10 Damper Pedel – $85.99

Drums Roland Electric Kit TD-11K V - $1,299.00

Drum Workshop - Pacific Concept Maple Drum Kit - 20,12,14,SD - $865.00

Drum Throne Yamaha Medium Weight Throne --- $99.99 Extras: Electric Guitar Amp Orange – Tiny Terror Dual -- $999.99 Orange Cab 60W 1x12 Black Tolex -$499.99

AC30VR - 30 Watt 2 Channel 2x12 Valve Reactor AC30VR---- $749.00

PRICE:

Option 1 - $25,833.00

Option 2 - $26,877.00