St. Mark's Lutheran Church

Even though the building is far from complete it is very important to get an idea of what the acoustics of the Nave are so that we have an idea of what sound reinforcement will be necessary (or not necessary) and to do that I am conducting a series of tests. These tests are then sent to an audio engineer friend of mine in Ontario who is working on this with me as well. I have a pretty decent knowledge of Audio recording and sound issues, but Acoustics specifically is a different specialty. I have a bit of knowledge but it is good to have some expert help. 

Until this test about 3 weeks ago I had never heard any music in the church. Now it may sound silly, and I should have checked before I decided to purchase the church and do this project, but I just never did it. I did not know what I was walking into. I brought in a portable Korg keyboard that has pretty decent speakers inside of it, and just started to do some testing. I was shocked. The acoustics of this room are excellent. I do not want to get over enthusiastic because there are some issues - there always are - but I was stunned by the sound, and in particular by how little amplification in that space really generates a loud sound. There is a natural reverb in the space - which I did know when I bought it, but sometimes that can be a real problem for music - sound starts interfering with itself - and part of this test is to see how much of a problem this may be.

This test is miked from the center of the Nave - dead center (we measured it). There is not intention here to mike for a real recording at all - the intention here is to get an idea of what the sound would be like for an audience member - so the recorder is sort of where an imaginary audience member would be - the recorder is on a tripod at the same approximate height that an audience member sitting would be. The question we are working with is "what would an audience member hear in this room?" you very much hear the "room" which is one of the points of the testing.

So the sound clip here is an unedited test. Usually when you allow the public to hear these things they are edited down, but since this site is all about the history of the Church - old and new, I think it more appropriate to give it to you unedited. This is not a proper test in the sense that there is a lot of equipment that we should have but do not have to do what is called "pinking" of the space - but there isn't any of that just yet. For now I just wanted to explore the reverb and the general acoustic environment. Several of the tests that you will hear relate to that - particular the percussive sounds and the single notes on different scales - I am trying to understand what are called the "harmonics" and the general frequency response and curve of the auditorium. Again, I do not have the proper equipment to do this, but I am sort of improvising and getting something to start with.

This was a digital recording recorded at 24 bits  / 44.1 Khz as a .wav. I made a Mp3 for the web site because it is smaller and people are likely to be able to play it back - not all computers will be able to deal with the full file and file format. So for any audio enthusiasts out there - just use your ears, analytics will not work well on a .mp3 compressed file! The original recording is 4 channel, I recorded stereo in the front of the recorder and the back so that we can hear the sound bouncing back to the recording point (what your ears would hear). I am only giving you the front stereo pair here. This was recorded on a Zoom H2 using the internal Microphones - no filters, levels intentionally a bit low - peaks should occur during percussive tests - there should be no clipping. 

By the way the voice you hear is mine - I am intentionally talking as I am walking around and from different positions so that I get an impression of what the sound is likely to be when someone gives a speech or if a play was put on. That is one of the "tests" that may not be obvious. After the tests there are different music tracks being played - note this is NOT me playing - I wish it was. This is the "demo" mode of the keyboard playing back internally - sort of a player piano. On this particular instrument the dynamics are pretty decent - and I think you will enjoy what you hear! The point of playing the music is to get an acoustic feel for the room and to do some analytics (with the .wav file only). I hope you enjoy it!