Once exclusively a recording business designed to give young musicians a leg up in the industry, Front Row Seat Productions has evolved to include a wide array of audio and video production services for clients of all types. Today, that includes specifying and installing equipment at houses of worship throughout Pennsylvania, New Jersey, and surrounding regions. Among these are Pendle Hill Retreat Center in Wallingford, Pennsylvania, and St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Gladstone, New Jersey, where the Front Row Seat Productions team deployed DPA Microphones.

Like many houses of worship in recent years, leadership at both Pendle Hill and St. Luke’s needed a way to connect with members remotely. The live streaming format remains strong for these and other houses of worship, which have found that members unable to attend in person—due to distance, age, illness, or other reasons—have come to rely on this remote connection.

Pendle Hill Retreat Center, a Quaker study, retreat, and conference center, “seeks to transform lives and foster peace” through a meditative style of worship. Quaker faith traditions bring members together in a silent service where any participant is welcome to stand and speak when moved by the spirit. This worship style means Pendle Hill requires bidirectional communication for its live stream, which is accomplished through Zoom video conferencing.

At St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, the ministry is considered participatory, with members encouraged to join in hymnal singing, a hallmark of the Episcopal and Anglican traditions. Offering both traditional and contemporary worship styles, the church also hosts outdoor services during warmer months and moves into its parish hall during the colder Northeast winters.

“The team at St. Luke’s wanted to offer an immersive-style video livestream to its members and needed a mobile AV system for outdoor services,” said Bullington. “We had previously installed an audio system for live streaming at Westminster Presbyterian Church in Wilmington, Delaware, and we applied what we learned there to St. Luke’s. For this project, we installed a network of microphones indoors, including a 4006A omnidirectional mic in the most critical spot, pointed up the middle of the chancel; 2006 Twin Diaphragm mics for ambient capture; and 4097 choir mics hung above the two opposing sides of the choir. This setup gives the church a beautiful, immersive sound for the live stream on Facebook and YouTube.”

Bullington and Antonini also created a second system for St. Luke’s contemporary services, held in the courtyard and parish hall. “The church members have affectionately nicknamed the system R2D2, and it integrates DPA’s 4099 instrument microphones for the piano and two guitars,” said Bullington. “We also deployed DPA 2028 vocal microphone capsules on a Sennheiser wireless handheld system for the pastor and vocalists. We project everything through RCF loudspeakers, and the combination of these solutions has resulted in pristine audio for all participants.”

In addition to live streaming applications, Bullington has also specified DPA mics for smaller projects, such as integrating a pair of 4098 goosenecks at the lectern and pulpit at Trinity Episcopal Cathedral in Trenton, New Jersey, which is the seat of the Diocese of New Jersey. “That is a huge sanctuary with a lot of resonance, and they have had very differently statured bishops over the years, which were two sticking points,” he explained. “The 4098 has very accurate, dependable off-axis rejection, so I was able to find a fixed position that works for any speaker. Trinity previously had so much trouble with spoken word applications, and the short boom version of the 4098 has solved all their problems.”

Similarly, Bullington sold a single 4098 mini gooseneck for use on the lectern at St. Luke’s Episcopal Church in Metuchen, New Jersey. “I went to install cameras, audio mixers, and other live streaming equipment and found they were using a little consumer pencil mic at the lectern,” he said. “I plugged in the 4098 I had on hand to show them how much better their system could be. They were smitten. The one DPA microphone that St. Luke’s Metuchen has is the 4098 at the lectern, and my contact, Chuck, gushes about it anytime it’s mentioned.”

Bullington also uses DPA microphones in Front Row Seat Productions’ concert recordings. “So many of the concerts I record are done using the DPA 4015, which has a very accurate sensitivity pattern that you can trust and does a great job of capturing width,” he said. “Then, I’ll flank the conductor with a pair of 4099s on mic stand adapters. Doing this in combination with the 4015s allows me to capture all the beauty of the room and the singers.” Bullington has also deployed DPA lavalier microphones for various AV applications, in churches and other venues alike.