CAMARILLO, CA — Dominic MacAller, director of liturgy and music at Padre Serra Parish, found the StageScape M20d visual mixing system by Line 6 to be an effective solution to the perpetual challenge of achieving pro sound quality with a staff of volunteers.
StageScape M20d, a compact, touchscreen-driven live sound mixer, is “very intuitive,” MacAller said. “It’s easy to create a really good mix, and there aren’t rows and rows of faders and knobs, which can be very intimidating.
“It has a full range of digital effects on board, including compressors, EQs, gates, delays, reverbs, and more, all of which you can adjust through the visual interface, or dig deeper and adjust the individual parameters,” MacAller continued. “It’s so much more powerful than anything we could do before, and much easier to use than having a big rack of outboard devices.”
Another feature that impressed MacAller is the free iPad app, StageScape Remote. When connected via an optional USB Wi-Fi adapter, the StageScape mixer can be accessed via one or more iPad devices, allowing mix and effects changes to be made from anywhere in the room — such as adjusting a musician’s monitor mix while standing on stage.
“It looks and acts just like the StageScape user interface, and you can hear the changes instantly as you drag your finger across the screen. The first time we used it, the bass player wanted to adjust his sound, so my wife went up on stage with her iPad, showed him his channel, and he just dragged his finger around and customized his sound without any training at all. That was a great moment.”
After the first week of services using the Line 6 StageScape M20d, everyone from the musicians and technical crew to the parishioners were impressed with the change.
“Even before we started applying effects and EQ, the whole system had improved clarity and definition,” said MacAller. “People commented that they could hear the individual instruments more clearly in the mix,” he added. That, combined with ease of use, makes it “a perfect fit for us,” MacAller concluded.
For more info on StageScape M20d, visit www.line6.com/stagescape.
