Miami, FL (March 8, 2021)—Christ Fellowship Miami has a half-dozen South Florida locations and three of those sites—Palmetto Bay, Doral, and downtown Miami—recently updated their audio with L-Acoustics Kara sound systems designed and integrated by Colorado-based Summit Integrated Systems.
Christ Fellowship Miami multisite production director Garrett Siljee oversees all AVL-related matters for the church, including campus technology design planning and tech staffing. “One of my primary responsibilities is crafting the weekend experiences at all of our locations, and sound is a big part of that,” he notes.
Siljee says he was first introduced to L-Acoustics at a product demo staged at South Florida’s Miccosukee Resort & Gaming venue; impressed, he invited Summit Integrated Systems to demo a Kara system for the church’s leadership and staff at its Palmetto Bay location.
Systems for the Palmetto Bay, Doral and downtown Miami campuses were designed by Summit using L-Acoustics Soundvision modeling software. “The church wanted a high-output sound system in all of its locations, to support its music and high-energy worship style, and Kara was the perfect choice for all of these campuses,” says Summit’s director of projects, Deron Yevoli.
The concrete walls at Christ Fellowship Miami’s 500-seat Doral location keep the roar of nearby Miami International Airport at bay, but their reflective surfaces can present an acoustic challenge, so the Kara system’s directivity was applied to keep sound focused on the audience and off of the walls. The Doral campus’ new system comprises 12 Kara(i) enclosures flown across two arrays, with eight floor-mounted SB18 subs, plus eight ultra-compact 5XT and two short-throw X8 deployed as outfills. All are powered by one LA12X and four LA4X amplified controllers.
The nearby Palmetto Bay campus, which features a more traditional Baptist-type church design, also serves as Christ Fellowship’s broadcast center. There, 24 Kara(i) are now divided and flown in four hangs, with 12 SB18 subs on the floor, a dozen 5XT as frontfills, and eight X12 for delay, all powered by a 12 LA4X.
Worshiping Together While Apart
The downtown Miami location, a former cathedral that is now being renovated, is the largest of the three sites Summit has worked on with Christ Fellowship. Scheduled to open by Christmas 2021, the church’s third campus will feature an L-Acoustics system and be comprised of 18 Kara II and eight KS21i subs. In addition, eight 5XT provide frontfill while six X8 serve as underbalcony fills. The subs are powered by one LA12X, while seven LA4X drive the rest of the loudspeakers.
“Multisite churches tend to want to have cookie-cutter buildings so that the looks and the sound are the same everywhere, but that’s not easy to do in the Miami area, where the rents and the costs to own are so high,” Siljee explains. “Having the L-Acoustics systems sound very differently in each location was my biggest initial concern. Even though none of these spaces are at all similar, Kara provides very consistent sound for all of the rooms we’ve heard them in.”
“What everyone, including our membership, has commented on is that the sound no longer hurts. Our old system was very harsh sounding; the new Kara system is anything but. Now, our churches can create the kind of energetic worship experiences we want and it sounds great. Kara turned complaints into compliments.”
Christ Fellowship Miami • www.cfmiami.org
Summit Integrated Systems • www.summitintegrated.com
L-Acoustics • www.l-acoustics.com