Formed by the merger of Nativity of Our Lord and St. Elizabeth Ann Seton parishes
in 2009, Divine Mercy Parish recently dedicated its brand-new sanctuary. Located a
dozen miles northwest of New Orleans, the 19,600-square-foot church seats up to
950 parishioners and features a lovely interior with exposed trusses and a high,
vaulted, wood deck ceiling; a stained-glass window wall that separates the narthex
from the nave; and several additional stained-glass panels.

Though it might be a heavenly place to worship, the new sanctuary is acoustically
challenging. Hard and parallel surfaces abound. Adding to the challenges, the church
hosts both traditional and contemporary mass, the latter featuring amplified
instruments. So when Technical Services Group, Inc., of Baton Rouge, designed and
installed the church’s new sound system, owner/president Arthur “Bo” Hoover knew
that keeping reflected sound to a minimum was critical. TSG’s solution: Renkus-
Heinz IC Live loudspeakers with steerable beam technology.

For the front main system, the TSG team selected a pair of ICL-FR steerable arrays,
recessed into the wall behind the altar and aimed in an “x” pattern. The ICL-FR
features a slim enclosure that enables the arrays to blend in visually-an important
consideration. Its individual driver control and exceptional vertical pattern control
made it a perfect choice for delivering intelligible speech in Divine Mercy’s
reverberant sanctuary.

“We had to get a little bit more of a criss-cross angle with the mains than we
initially expected,” Hoover recalls, “because there was a bit too much energy hitting
an opposing wall. But once we made one or two mechanical adjustments and
tweaked the beam steering, it worked great.”

To fill the first few rows, the TSG team embedded a pair of Renkus-Heinz TRX61
point-source speakers in the steps going up to the elevated stage. In the far rear of
the sanctuary, they installed a pair of delayed ICL-FR-Dual arrays to serve as rear
fills. The double-sized ICL-FR-Dual arrays, which have considerable throw, are
recessed into columns, making them barely visible.

With the system installed, Hoover’s team addressed the next challenge –
programming the system. As Hoover observes, “the church holds traditional mass,
contemporary mass with an amplified band, Spanish-language mass, and other
events, and we had to figure out the acoustics of the room and provide setups for
each situation.”

The TSG team installed a Symetrix Radius 12×8 EX DSP system with a Symetrix xIn
12 input expander. “We programmed seven or eight profiles that set the system for
each type of event, so a lay person can walk in and, for example, choose the
‘Spanish mass’ profile, and the front-of-house and monitoring are automatically set
up. It was pretty extensive,” says Hoover.

Everyone has been delighted with the new sound system. “The Renkus-Heinz IC Live
system is doing a wonderful job,” Hoover asserts. “The support from Renkus-Heinz
was fantastic; they even helped set the beam steering during the commissioning
process. Now this beautiful new church has a sound system their parishioners can
be proud of.”