Each Sunday, 5,000+ people in central Georgia gather at Southside Baptist Church’s Warner Robins Campus expecting to hear encouraging messages and enjoy a family atmosphere filled with excitement. But what they can also expect is great worship experience supported by live video projections and amplified audio thanks to Walthall & Associates Inc.

Based in Pensacola, FL and led by Chuck Walthall, the design consulting firm provides acoustical, audio, video, production lighting, and digital technology solutions. For the 18-month Southside project, Walthall & Associates designed the worship center’s audio, video, lighting, and acoustical program. To do this, the firm coordinated the audio visual lighting (AVL) and acoustical designs with the architects and electrical and mechanical engineers. “A major role we play is communicating with the owner and conveying those desires and needs into reliable AVL system designs that integrate into the building design and the electrical/mechanical systems,” says Walthall.

Courtesy of Walthall & Associates

This can be a challenging task in an industry where technology advances quickly. “As most A/V folks know, displays change about every three months, so keeping the design ‘fresh’ is always a challenge,” adds Walthall. “Designing the rigging system in such a manner that it would support newer displays 18 months out was a little challenging not to mention the main video array processor.”

The firm’s cost-effective solution included a “custom” designed video array using 24 consumer 65” displays to create an upstage display along with two IMAG projectors and a TVOne processor, as well as Meyer Sound loudspeakers with a flown subwoofer cardioid array. The TVOne CorioMaster was brand new and now, 18 months later, is available in numerous versions. “Thank goodness for standards like SDI and HDMI,” Walthall jokes.

Communicating Ideas with Vectorworks and connectCAD 

Communicating design ideas in a manner clients can visually comprehend is central to Walthall & Associates’ success, and they rely on Vectorworks Spotlight software and its partner product add-on connectCAD to get the job done. connectCAD enables users to track and integrate broadcast, IT cabling, AVL, and other connected systems into their Vectorworks designs.

With each project, Walthall & Associates’ designers aim to present the system design and construction documents to the contractor in a manner that is so simple to comprehend that few, if any, requests for information are required. Vectorworks and connectCAD allow just that – the generation of full construction documents and system schematics that are simple, intuitive, and straightforward.

“Vectorworks provides the power for designers to work in CAD, generate conceptual ideas, and present realistic images to the owner for review,” says Walthall. “Vectorworks saves our firm time and allows us to move from idea to computerized reality rather quickly.”

Walthall & Associates also saves time with connectCAD. “It’s easier to design using connectCAD than when we used paper for initial design and budgeting, and generic CAD programs,” says Walthall. He adds that the combination of Vectorworks Spotlight and connectCAD helps them create a valuable information model in each AV design. For example, building system designs and quickly running the numbers (MakeDeviceList + MSRP) quickly calculates all equipment pricing. Fine tuning the design (Check System) and confirming functionality is a valuable feature, not to mention cable list reports and numbering cables. As-built documentation can be generated in a matter of minutes.

To learn about some other projects keeping this firm busy, visit the Walthall & Associates Inc. website.

Click anywhere on the above image to download and view the details of this video schematic. Courtesy of Walthall & Associates.