If you are in charge of your church's production team, you have to be able to rely on your gear and the tools at your disposal. I was in a role like that for years at my church back in Harrison Township, Mich. I had to make one small PA work for the youth room, the single ministry, and for any other special event that was indoors or out (which there were at least two per month). The system that I had to work with was not designed for travel. It was bulky and cumbersome and made my days twice as long. Enter the Yamaha's StagePas 600i. Designed to travel well without breaking your back (or your wallet.) I was able to test this small system out and here is what I found.
The StagePas system consists of two speakers and a removable mixer that lives in the back of one of the speakers. In the back of the other speaker is a space to store cables. Each speaker is home to a two-way loudspeaker system consisting of a 10-inch low-frequency (LF) driver and 1.4-inch high-frequency (HF) driver. The speakers weigh only 23 pounds, which is impressive because the system provides 680 watts of power and produces up to 129 dB of SPL. The built-in mixer can be used while attached to the back of one of the speaker or alternately you can detach the mixer and mount to a mic stand. The mixer is home to four microphone XLR inputs and six mono/three stereo ¼-inch line level inputs. One of these line-level inputs also has RCA inputs; another also has an 1/8-inch input designed for iPhone/MP3 use. There is even a USB input that will play and charge your iPhone while plugged in.
Through its paces
My friend Nathan was in town leading worship for a group of co-workers for the ministry event that he was a part of. They met in a room that fit about 150 people and I found the perfect test case of the Stage Pass 600i in the field. Packing up the StagePas 600i was incredibly easy. It's nice and light and doesn't take up too much room. We were able to fit the system into his compact car with ease. This was going to be a fairly simple situation, just an acoustic guitar, vocal, and a bit of background music for before and after the event. Once we got in the room, we were set up in about three minutes. It was really a breeze, just one power cable and two speaker cables and the system is up and running. We connected the acoustic guitar and vocal mic and I began to check out the system.
SOMETIMES THESE SMALL SYSTEMS CAN SOUND HARSH…. BUT YAMAHA HAS DONE A GREAT JOB OF MAKING A SYSTEM WITH A WELL-ROUNDED SOUND.
Each channel on the mixer has a simple three-way EQ (low, mid, hi) that worked just fine and was able to carve out the vocal the way that I needed. The last XLR channel on the mixer is a XLR ¼-inch combo connecter with a Hi-Z switch designed for uses with instruments like guitars and basses that have high impedance. I used this for the acoustic guitar and it worked very well. It was really simple to find a great sound with this system. Sometimes these small systems can sound harsh because it's easy to make a system loud, but Yamaha has done a great job of making a system with a well-rounded sound. I was able to turn things up and fill the room without losing any warmth from the vocal and guitar.
In application
You can use the StagePas as two mains or as one main and one stage monitor. The speaker is designed to be placed on its side and it will provide a 50-degree angle, great for monitor use. Because it was just Nathan playing we decided to not use a stage monitor setup. Nathan set up between the speakers and just a bit in front of the speaker line so that he could hear himself. There was just a hint of feedback starting to creep in and so I turned on the built-in feedback suppressor and the problem went right away. Nathan started playing and I walked the room. The sound was nice and even, easily filling up the room that we were in. The StagePas was perfect for this application and later after the gathering, I received many compliments on the sound from the organizers.
There are four different digital effects built into the mixer and an effects send knob on the first four channels of the mixer that controls how much of the effect you hear. There is a hall, plate, room and echo setting to pick from. The way that you select and modify the effect is pretty neat. There is one master effects knob that is split into four quarters between the four modes, and each effect type has range of variables that you can increase by turning it clockwise. As you turn the control on the reverb settings the reverbs lengths get bigger. For the delay settings as you turn the control the delay time increases. I found a nice great sounding plate setting that worked for the room and it gave the guitar and vocals some nice space.
I had no problem filling up the room that we were in. In fact, I played some music off my iPhone and really cranked it up and was impressed with the overall sound and how loud it can get. There is a master volume on the mixer as well as a global EQ control that turns between “Speech,” “Music,” and “Bass Boost.” I found that this works like a tone control going from bright to warm tones. I dialed the knob back a bit towards the bass boost and it was just the right touch. I should point out that there is also a subwoofer output jack on this that provides an unpowered output filtered at 125 Hz and automatically high pass filters the main speakers when connected. If you want more low end, this output could be used in combination with a powered sub woofer and you could really get the room rocking. In addition, there is a stereo monitor output with control for the output. You could use this for a record feed, or to feed another system.
The StagePas 600i was exactly what I needed for this application and I would be happy to use it is again. As simple as this system is, it has a lot of well-designed and useful features that make it amazing. When the need arises for a simple but effective portable sound system that won't take a day to setup this is what you need could be your solution. If you've been doing it all yourself and making a non-portable system work for various applications, do yourself (and your church) a favor and take a look at this Yamaha StagePas 600i system. At $900 street price it is an investment that will save you time and energy that you can better spend elsewhere.
