Originally on the site of the present-day church there was a Catholic Hall built in 1934.  A small chapel was added two years later at a cost of £100 and further expansion continued until the war years halted all development.  By 1958, following fund-raising over a period of 22 years, the expansion of Our Lady Immaculate Church in Tolworth was complete.  One of the fund-raising schemes had involved families buying a brick for 5 shillings on which their names were inscribed.  These bricks were placed in the east wall behind the high altar so the names of the first parish members are literally enshrined in the fabric of the church.

When OLI’s Parish Priest contacted Clarity to ask about upgrading their audio system there followed several visits and discussions to ensure the desired result was achieved.

A cabinet was installed to house all the control equipment including radio microphone receivers, audio sources and amplification.  The cabinet is lockable for security as well as helping protect the equipment from dirt and dust.  The cabinet we supplied was slightly larger than necessary to allow space for future expansion of equipment.  A fully labelled, custom connection panel was included allowing audio from a computer and other external audio sources to be connected easily with the supplied cables. This panel houses all the cabinet ins and outs, alleviating any confusion.  A lockable drawer stores useful equipment such as remote controls, microphones and cables.

Six new high-quality Yamaha column loudspeakers were supplied.  Two were mounted at the front of the Nave, and two shorter set of column speakers on alternate columns to fill in the sound towards the back of the Nave whilst avoiding columns holding consecration candles.

Four short column speakers were digitally delayed providing a consistent level of sound to the back pews avoiding the need to drive the front of the speakers too hard to reach the entire congregation.

We utilised a pair of mid-size column speakers to support the Lady Chapel reassuring the church that the left-hand speaker will provide adequate reinforcement to pass through the side arch so that the readers can clearly hear the service.

Two further column speakers were used for the balcony and two more for filling in the side chapel and for the sanctuary.

The hub of the installed system is a Yamaha digital signal processor, this helps to provide the optimum sound quality and clarity via the sound system.  The processor includes a limiter which protects the system from being overdriven, as well as a graphic equaliser to fine tune the sound system.  Included in the processor is a feedback suppressor, used to gain additional volume from cabled and radio microphones before feedback occurs.

However, the most important feature for the church was the inclusion of the “Dan Dugan” automatic mixer.  Using the four Dugan channels of the MTX3 makes it possible to have a simple presentation system that does not require an operator.  When the Dugan auto-mixer is used, the volume of up to four microphones is automatically increased when in each one is in use, while the gain on microphones not in use is decreased in order to reduce ambient noise leakage and the possibility of feedback, this enhances the clarity of the sound.  No specialised technical knowledge or skill is required—the mic gains are adjusted automatically!

The digital processor was programmed by a Clarity engineer and software protected to prevent unauthorised modification to the settings.  There are no user controls on the processor, once programmed, it does not ever need to be touched again, the system is controlled either by the remote-control panels fitted to the trolley or remotely via an iPad.

The system is powered by compatible Yamaha power amplifiers, pre-loaded with speaker parameters to get the best performance from the system.

A professional Denon CD/media player was included which we mounted into the cabinet.  This player also includes SD, USB and an auxiliary input for a computer, MP3 player or a Smartphone plus Bluetooth wireless connectivity (for up to 10 devices) and a radio tuner. The Bluetooth receiver has a long range.

Control of the audio system is via a simple to operate, wall panel mounted just inside the Side Chapel. This is a fully programmable unit which can be configured to meet the church’s particular needs.

We provided a 4-channel radio microphone system with a mix of handheld, lapel and head-worn microphones to suit the church’s requirements.  This system can be expanded at a future date if more microphone channels are needed.

The church already had an induction loop in place but it was very old and due for replacement. A new inductive loop amplifier was included in our installation and our engineers laid replacement cable where gaps in the system were found.

As part of the installation process Clarity engineers removed pews to enable work in the nave requiring high-level access and timed the work to finish towards the end of the week so the pews could be reinstated for the weekend.  

Upon completion of the installation work we ensured members of the church’s technical team had a good knowledge of the operation of the new system.

“The sound production is fantastic”Father Ignatius Edet