USA - The Fresno Betsuin Buddhist Temple Dharma Center's mission is to promote peace and tranquility throughout the world, so it comes as no surprise that they embraced an elegant yet high-tech approach to upgrading their AV systems. Working with local system designer Tim McFarland of American Music, the Dharma Center chose the new Line 6 StageScape M20d smart mixing system to bring improved quality and ease of use to their presentations.
"After learning their needs, I thought the StageScape M20d was a good fit for the Dharma Center," says American Music owner Tim McFarland. "The system offers all this great technology, but without a big learning curve, which is important since they don't have any professional guys on staff. When I described the system to them in one of our meetings, they thought it would be perfect, so we went for it."
Greg Tsudama, a member of the Dharma Center and professional IT manager, has taken on the role of primary audio-visual technician. "When Tim McFarland told us about the StageScape system, it really seemed to address a lot of the issues we'd been having with our old analog system," he confirms. "When the rep came down and did a demonstration for us, we could see how quick and easy it is to use the touchscreen and visual cues to manipulate the sound. It takes away a lot of the intimidation of all the knobs and dials that our previous system had."
The Dharma Center was also enthusiastic about having the ability to control StageScape remotely via one or more iPad devices. "Because the temple keeps all its control equipment in a rack back in the office, having the full StageScape control surface accessible on an iPad was a key feature for them," says Tim McFarland.
The full project included several other component upgrades, including a video projection system, and the addition of secondary loudspeakers to improve intelligibility by reducing the room's strong natural reverberation. In addition, the temple's two outdated, single-channel wireless microphones were replaced with Line 6 XD-V75 digital systems, which operate in the license-free 2.4GHz band. "Again, my product recommendation was based on reliability and ease of use," McFarland explains. "The Line 6 wireless system was ideal for this situation, because it offers advanced technology in a very user-friendly package."
