Yes, we need to be involved. Music is an integral part of the liturgy, it's only natural that at least one musical mind be involved in building a church.

I am going to be "Frank". The "Sound Engineer" has no place on your building committee. It is atrocities like this that steer the church away from her patrimony. We don't need the ignorant, uninformed and uneducated to dictate one of the most important aspects of church architecture who have no idea how the proper architecture supports and promotes authentic sacred music.

Have your pastor call me if you want. I will politely explain the ins and outs to him in a professional manner.

Keep up the good work.

donr

At your service. I have acted as a consultant for various rebuilds and installations over the years.

Talk with the Allen dealer, if that is the brand you want. They should be able to help you. If you prefer another brand, talk to that dealer. If you have friends in AGO, look there for information.

http://www.riedelassociates.com

The sound engineer for the project has been trying to convince us that we need carpeting, padded pews and sound deadening boards on the walls and ceiling.

...He has also stated that you don't want an active room because the trend in Catholic Churches is more contemporary music with guitars, smaller choirs and a digital organ maybe but no pipe organ.

I had a visceral reaction to this similar to the one Adam had when I posted about how someone told me children shouldn't be singing in foreign languages. UGH.

I am SO pleased to hear of a new church built in a Gothic style. I was afraid we were doomed to octagons and Pringles for the rest of eternity.

Don't believe me about the Pringles? Google Image St. Athanasius in Reading MA.

My parish is now paying for the decision (made in the 90's) to build a dead church -- lots of carpet, padded everything, way too many microphones needed. A choir simply cannot function as a choir in such a space; it is a collection of soloists. Intelligent microphone placement helps (crossing the "fields of fire," if you will), but we have experimented every which way and it just can't sound good. Actually, it can, but only when there are 10 or fewer people in the congregation.

The bigger issue is that everything in our church building was built either without foresight or in an obviously temporary fashion, and now it's all falling apart at once. Carpet gets dirty, it wears and tears, and when your parochial vicar spills lit coals on it, it's doomed. Pew pads have 2+ decades worth of various bodily fluids soaked into them. The parking lot was paved before the ground settled; now it has sunk severely and needs to be completely repaved. The pipes throughout the building were built with cheap materials and needed to be replaced because they starting bursting. The sound system, supposedly "state-of-the-art" in the early 90's, had been obsolete and breaking FCC codes for several years until we recently replaced it. The main church lights were built in an extremely impractical fashion and created hotspots to the point that they became unusable; a new lighting system was recently put in (but it is too expensive right now to remove the huge old fixtures). The roof (no different than the shingle roof on my townhouse) is currently being completely replaced.

We are now raising money for several more renovations to the inside, including hardening up the floor, adding marble (or something similarly worthy) to the sanctuary, and getting a new organ. A lot of money and headache could have been saved simply by patiently building a worthy building the first time.

A small pipe organ is not very much more expensive than a digital, much more worthy in the long run.
Check out APOBA to find a genuine pipe organ builder in your area. A real builder, not someone who sells digital sounds.

Clearly, as everyone has pointed out, the sound engineer is an idiot.

BUT ALSO: the firm who hired him doesn't know what they are doing, either.

Alarm bells need to be sounded, quickly. There is money being wasted.

ALSO:
No one wants to listen to contemporary music played in an acoustically dead space, either. The sound engineer isn't thinking about churches or even concert venues but recording studios and movie theaters.

The guy mentioned a digital organ doesn't need an active room? When I talked to the guy at the nearest Allen location, he mentioned things like needing to get rid of carpeting! Also, I was in a church with a very large Allen and the organist there mentioned that the church would be getting rid of the sound-deadening boards (acoustic tiles as he said) because they were detracting from the organ.

Thanks Ben, but 30' deep x 60' wide seems like a lot of space. We are initially going to build 500 seat church. The architect is designing the building to be able to increase the space to 1000 seats in the future. I want to make sure the loft is large enough but we have to consider costs as well.

Build for the right size pipe organ NOW. Even if you initially purchase a TEMPORARY digital organ, or simulacrum as MJO puts it. This means the proper steel beams to hold up the organ that will eventually be installed. An organ builder can give you some basic info that should be shared with the architect. In fact, the organ builder can TELL the architect exactly what will be required in terms of how many tons the choir loft will need to support. Don't let this get away from you. THIS HAS TO BE PLANNED FROM THE VERY BEGINNING!

I will do that, thanks

its a nice space.

And, I hope and will pray that your dream of an organ is fulfilled! Perhaps you should arrange for one or more organ representatives to address your committe so that they are not limited in their information to the spiels of synthesiser salesmen and women.

Very good advice, but only if you also invite one or more organ representatives of pipe organ builders so that you they are not limited in their information to the spiels of pipe organ salesmen and women.

It is essential to understand one thing. All that matters is what you hear. There are miserable pipe organs that were very expensive, there are digital organs that were very affordable and lovely to listen to.

Better yet, invite only people who represent a company that has built successful installations of pure pipe organs and also digital organs. For they have, as I once heard it explained, have no axe to grind.

Whenever anyone tells you not to buy an organ built by xxxxxxxx, immediately seek out xxxxxxx and ask to hear their organs. When people really, really dislike an organ that means something, for people to feel so strongly. Experience it yourself that you may grow in knowledge or see through the person who advised you.

There are a myriad of pipe organ and fewer digital organ builders. Some are lesser than others. Some will bow to an architect's whims, a sound engineer's deadening of the room, an organist's foolish requests for a 32' pipe rank on a 10 stop pipe organ...others will walk away.

Grab the ones that walk away. They have integrity. Ignore the others.

The question to ask? "Have you ever refused to build an organ?" And then listen to the explanation. Question them in detail. This may be a keeper.

Here are some new pics of the choir loft.