Stone floors, lofty heights, hard-to-move pews – yes, yes, and yes. National Heritage listed – often. Constrained budget – certainly. Suffice to say that any kind of audio-video installation in a place of worship is met with a unique chain of challenges.
The unusual, however, is the everyday for 3:16 AV, whose primary focus is tech for churches. Alexander Dixon, who founded the company in 2018 with Olivia Stephen, explains: ‘It’s not out of the ordinary for us to be dealing with an ancient building with lath and plaster. Access is difficult, cable routes can be tricky, and the kit has to mould with the architecture.’
‘Each building has its quirks but we know how to deal with that. At one church, there was a grave in the middle of the floor we had to work around.’
With the COVID pandemic hastening online and video interaction, Alexander has witnessed a huge lean toward churches upgrading their technology to better serve and reach out to their communities. ‘Our ambition is to equip churches with the means to do this,’ he says. ‘We find that usually one of two situations exist. Either a church is antiquated with equipment that’s not really fit for purpose any more, or they’ve been sold a really good system they have no idea how to operate so it’s effectively redundant.’
Martin Audio to the Rescue
3:16 AVI began its relationship with Martin Audio beneath the tallest steeple in Inverness. It was 2022 and the existing PA system at Free North Church had limited coverage for speech only. It required a replacement if it was to march forward with musical and video content and attract outside organisations to rent the building.
A new system comprising an Allen & Heath SQ5 digital mixer, 14 Martin Audio CDD8 speakers, two Martin Audio SX118 Subwoofers, Power Amplifiers and upgraded cabling provided significant improvements. ‘It’s a big space in the middle of the city, it can seat 1,500, and it’s now picking up events like graduations for the University of the Highlands and Islands that it couldn’t do before,’ Alexander says. ‘This was our template going forward.’
Getting the Message Across Loud and Clear
Fast forward to 2025 and Buckie Baptist Church in the north east of Scotland is the latest to benefit from the 3:61 AVI and Martin Audio gold-star treatment. The church AV equipment was 15 years old and ill-balanced. One large pair of speakers at the front of the space produced too-loud sound in the front rows and too low at the back, and complaints were escalating.
First steps, says Alexander, was to take the speakers off the wall (they disintegrated in his hands) and model out a superior set-up for the space using Martin Audio 3D acoustic prediction and sound system design software. ‘It gave us the confidence that we could solve the problem of the sound travelling up the space. The software was a really good selling point because we could show the predicted sound coverage with one pair of new speakers, then with two and three.’
Buckie Baptist Church chose the optimal solution – three pairs of CDD8W Martin Audio 2-Way Passive Loudspeakers, ultra-compact and finished in white, alongside a slimline Direct-Radiating Subwoofer, all ordered from Leisuretec, 3:61 AVI’s go-to supplier. ‘We use Martin Audio because we can reach out and ask for our designs to be validated which is key for us. Churches are always tight on budget so we tend to use the lower range stuff but it’s really good quality for the price,’ Alexander adds.
New Live Streaming System
Previously, church officials had been video recording some services before spending three to four painstaking hours processing and uploading the footage. To eliminate the workload, 3:16 AVI introduced Allen & Heath’s QU-24 Digital Mixer with Wireless Remote Control, again sourced from Leisuretec. Easily connecting this to a streaming mixer, it instantly became possible to live stream anything from a bride arriving at the front door to a coffin leaving after a funeral with the simple touch of a button.
‘I’ve got a relationship with people at Leisuretec that I don’t have with other suppliers. I know that if I call they will get an order together pretty much instantly if I need it.’
Like Martin Audio, Alexander has faith in the Allen & Heath mixer, ‘a quality product at a reasonable price’ in his words. ‘The digital technology really helps us in a church environment where all our operators are effectively volunteers. The pre-sets and the ability to save and recall scenes is key. There’s a base level anyone can go back to if they need to.’
The planning and approval for the project took ten months and the installation then completed within a week along with suitable training for the staff and volunteers so they could get the best out of the new system. ‘Someone described the training session as we left as kids with toys at Christmas,’ Alexander concludes.
About Leisuretec
Established in 1990, we are Trade Distributors of Professional and Commercial Audio, Lighting, Video, Special Effects and Ancillary. Through our AV Hire Production, AV Installation and Re-seller customers we address the live entertainment, leisure, commercial, residential and retail markets throughout the UK.
We support our trade customers with immense stock holding across a vast choice of products, knowledgeable technical support, competitive trade pricing, speedy delivery and attentive after-sales support.
