Wouldn't it be an amazing world if every church had a team of experienced pro audio volunteers and the financial wherewithal for a high-end sound system that always met expectations for high production value? And it would be awesome if that system made it convenient to record services to create podcasts and exhibited the versatility to accommodate every conceivable scenario, small to large. Well, we don't all have a team of seasoned pros or piles of money, and recording is a challenge, as is accommodating all our audio needs with a single, monolithic system. Line 6 set out to develop such a system that addresses all of these issues head-on—compensating for a lack of professional chops, delivering exceptional quality, facilitating painless recording, and presenting extraordinary versatility. They tackled the challenge of delivering this demanding wish list at an affordable price, and the result is the Stagescape system. I evaluated one to determine whether they actually accomplished this wish list, and I was truly impressed.
Inside the system
The center of the system is the Stagescape M20d digital mixer, and to describe this device as unique would be a vast understatement. Physically, it's only 16 inches wide, 13.3 inches deep, and 4.7 inches tall. One would expect to find faders, pushbuttons, and pan pots on a mixer, but there are only 12 small rotary encoders below the main touch display and one large master level encoder knob to its right. There are five pushbuttons to the left of the display, and two large mute pushbuttons to the right of the master knob. Most control operations happen via the mixer's seven-inch resistive touch screen. Its inputs and outputs are simple, but effective: 12 balanced XLR/quarter-inch mic/line inputs, four dedicated quarter-inch line inputs, four XLR monitor outputs, stereo XLR audio outputs, quarter-inch headphone output with a level control, two footswitch jacks, USB output to computer, USB media port for stick or hard drives, eighth-inch auxiliary input, L6 Link output, and an SD card slot. The mixer is aesthetically pleasant, even pretty hip, but it's vastly different from any mixer I've ever seen.
The system's speakers are the L3 series, comprising the L3t, L3m, and L3s, which are a principal full-range speaker, slave full-range speaker, and subwoofer, respectively. The full-range speakers present an effective frequency response of 40 Hz-19,000 Hz, and feature two 10-inch low-end drivers and a one-inch-exit compression driver in an internally tri-amplified topology, for a total of 1,400 watts. The L3t's counterpart is the L3m, which can be combined with an L3t to create a stereo image. The L3t offers rear panel controls over input gain, three-band EQ with sweepable mids, acoustic guitar modeling, reverb, modulation effects, and feedback suppression. The L3m is virtually identical, but lacking the rear panel controls. These speakers, to be blunt about it, sound insanely good. The amp/speaker pairing is spot on the money, and the internal DSP yields a clean, clear, powerful, and punchy output.
The center of the system is the Stagescape M20d digital mixer, and to describe this device as unique would be a vast understatement.
The addition of the L3s subwoofer fills in the deep low end perfectly. It features two 12-inch low-end drivers, each with its own amplifier, for a total of 1,200 watts. Its usable frequency response is 38 Hz-910 Hz, and it's intended to be crossed over at 80 Hz. When I brought all three of these speakers online, I was simply floored at the quality of the sound. The frequency response is smooth and flat across the spectrum, the highs are clean and clear, and the low end is full, round, and punchy. Mids are also very smooth and not even the tiniest bit honky, presumably owing to the extended upper range of both the subwoofer and the low-frequency driver in the full-range speakers. I was able to drive commanding SPL without any audible distortion, as well. These speakers simply sound great.
The product in action
Bearing in mind the unique physical attributes of the system, let's move on to examine operation, which is where the system is truly unique. Line 6 recognizes that many churches have few or no professional audio engineers available, and rely on musicians or volunteers to handle sound based on the limited exposure they've had in that domain. One difficulty faced by many such non-professionals is the actual process of connecting the system together. Line 6 tackled the issue with a completely automated system—plug mics or line-level instruments into the main inputs, and the mixer recognizes them and automatically configures the console for each. Plug speakers into the mixer via Line 6's proprietary L6 Link protocol, and the mixer recognizes which speakers are connected, the quantity of each, and the physical orientation of each speaker. Upright speakers are automatically deemed to be front-of-house; [put] speakers on their sides and the system recognizes them as monitors, and the mixer feeds signal accordingly. Similarly, if one or more L3s subwoofers are connected, the mixer automatically inserts a crossover between it and the full-range speakers already connected. This process is so amazing as to nearly seem like magic. I was truly amused and amazed to see the system self-configure as I connected inputs and outputs.
Another major feature intended to help non-professionals is the graphical user interface of the touch screen on the M20d digital mixer, which visually represents mix stage elements as images—guitars, drums, keyboards, horns, vocalists, and so on. Setup of the stage blocking is simple, and once completed, can be stored as a preset. Presets include all details of the entire system, including the speakers connected in addition to the inputs, signal flow, EQ, dynamics, and effects processing. The process of mixing was extremely intuitive to me—to adjust a female vocal, for instance, I tapped on her on-screen avatar, bringing up the details of her channel. A four-quadrant display known as “quick tweak” represents EQ, dynamics, and other effects. I dragged a dot around that display to adjust EQ, with each corner representing a different type of tone: project, clarity, full, and air. This is a quick and easy way to get to the basic EQ I would want on each channel.
When I brought all three of these speakers online, I was simply floored at the quality of the sound.
But as a professional engineer, I wanted access to the traditional parameters, so I tapped the “deep tweak” button, and a traditional EQ display appeared, showing boost or cut across the frequency spectrum, along with bandwidth. Similarly, the quick tweak quadrants for the channel's compressor are punch, pump, open, and control. This gave me a fundamental control of dynamics, but as before, I wanted traditional control, so tapping “deep tweak” gave me the input vs. output X-Y graph that professionals are accustomed to seeing, along with control over threshold, ratio, attack and release times, and make-up gain. There are quick tweak and deep tweak displays for all the effects available on the mixer, so beginners and professionals alike can use it effectively.
Among other powerful features, the system facilitates full-bandwidth, multi-track recording of services to several different media—namely SD card, USB drive, or to a traditional computer-based DAW via USB cable. Recorded sound can be played back through the mixer to facilitate sound checking if the musicians are not all available when the check needs to be done. Again, this is made very simple for the benefit of non-professionals—a very welcome feature. Another powerful feature is the capacity for the entire system to be controlled remotely via WiFi with an iPad. I love being able to walk around and tweak EQ, for instance, and this is made easy. More than one iPad can connect remotely at a time, and each can represent distinct attributes of the mixer's operation, so multiple musicians can simultaneously use iPads to create their own individual “more of me” monitor mixes. The system has automated feedback suppression as well, helping to eliminate that difficulty and, again, giving an assist to a non-professional at the controls that could otherwise cause huge frustration and headaches.
Summation
Line 6 clearly spent a great deal of time pondering the needs of organizations with little or no technical prowess and developed this system to meet those needs. In that, they have succeeded wildly. From the standpoint of set-up, the system virtually appears to be magic—automatically changing system configuration as necessary when devices are connected. From the standpoint of configuring the graphical user interface for the benefit of an untrained volunteer, the process is very simple. And considering the feedback suppression, the capacity for musicians to mix their own monitors remotely, the fundamentally high quality sound that the system delivers to begin with, and I would submit that the Stagescape “ecosystem” is just about as “volunteer-proof” as possible given the current state of technology. Yet, it delivers amazing high quality sound as though an old pro set it up, configured it, and is sitting at the controls.
It sounds very, very good, it's easy to place and configure, it's easy to operate, and it's easy to get a recording with it, as well. In addition to these positive attributes, the system is not terribly expensive, and a modest initial system can be inexpensively scaled up as necessary, a moderately important issue for growing churches. I am very impressed with this system, to say the least. Those who look into this system may wind up wondering how they ever got along without it.
