…for churches, that is. See, churches tend to have wildly different requirements for good audio equipment than the rest of the world. Some facts to back that up:

1. Churches tend to be driven by inexperienced and under-educated (for their ministry), if well-meaning, volunteers.
2. Churches are restrained by extremely tight budgets.
3. Churches require very versatile equipment. It has to do live music, video and speech, sometimes all at once.

What do those things mean for companies looking to capture a growing market share? They need to make equipment that is:

1. VERY easy to learn and use, with good results.
2. Cheap and reliable.
3. Multi-role.

Disclosure time. I do not work for any music company of any kind, nor do I work in sales of musical equipment. I am not paid for anything I say (I do accept donations, though). I just really like the product that was released at NAMM 2012 by Line 6. Here we go…

The StageScape M20d

The quick: Imagine a touch screen mixer that shows you a virtual, color coded stage environment that you can interact with simply by pointing and dragging. Now imagine that mixer with total dynamics, EQ and FX control PER CHANNEL, including smart feedback suppression, all tweakable via an X/Y graph style interface instead of twisting virtual knobs. Now imagine that mixer with multi-channel recording capability via USB to your PC or Mac OR portable media, like a memory card or thumb drive. Now imagine that mixer with total recall capability, and a deep edit mode for the engineering freaks to do their fiddling. On top of all of that, make sure to remember that your inputs AND outputs automatically detect the equipment at the other end as you plug it in, and customize that channel for its use. Oh, and it can be remotely controlled via an iPad.

Keep all of that in mind.

The StageSource L3t and L3s

Speaker cabinets in a live sound setting can take many forms. Main PA speakers, acoustic and electric guitar amps, reference monitors, movie/music playback speakers, and keyboard amps. Each project sound differently for their use. Enter the L3t, which can (and does) digitally alter crossover points, frequency response curves, and then adds some modelling wizardry on top for certain applications. All at, you guessed it, the push of ONE button. 1,400 watts, tri-amped (2 cones and a central horn). Yes please.

Self powered.
Basic mixer and effects fully integrated.
Orientation and mounting sensors (for such things as virtual tiltback, since it knows whether or not the speaker is elevated).
“Flyable”.
Feedback suppression.

The L3s is the accompanying subwoofer, with more ridiculous flexibility. It can be used as a PA reference sub, with the option of more punch from the bass drum. It also has an additional 2 settings specifically for DJ applications, further bumping frequencies into the abyss of human hearing. Push-button polarity switching and your choice of 4 crossover points make for one flexible subwoofer.

But we’re not done yet. Each component can be connected with L6 Link, a digital connection through an XLR cable that allows each device to talk with one another. I think the word you are looking for is “synergy”. That is, of course, if you can wipe the drool off of your silly looking face.

Please refer to the above church criteria.

Now understand that for one mixer, 6 L3t cabinets (2 mains, 4 monitors) and 2 L3s cabinets, your cost, before taxes are applied for your area, is $11,700.

Seem like a lot? You forgot that you don’t need power amps, rack equipment of ANY kind (that’s EQs, compressors, effects, crossovers, etc) or a lot of training to use it all. Add it up folks…this is a bargain.

You’re welcome.