Going Live with the PM5D

SFL Director and Chief Engineer Mark Payne reports on the Yamaha PM5D Digital mixing Console

Background

SFL have provided sound and lighting services for the Salvation Army's Roots Conference in Southport for the last ten years. Our Audio Visual systems arm, 6th Sense Solutions, have also provided the visuals for the event for a similar slice of history!

The main big top has a capacity of approximately 2500. The music style is pretty "full on" funky gospel, but there are seminars and speaker presentations from lavaliere mics during the day (conference usage). 

At this type of event, the challenge is to deliver an emotive sound, giving priority to vocal clarity (worship is about words), but delegates still want to "rock out" a bit (well a lot actually!). The musicians were led by vocalist Geraldine Latty, with a full band, percussion and three piece brass section. Mark Payne and Colin Hounsome (monitors) had 40 channel line up's on the consoles.

Chief event sound engineer Mark Payne reports on the usage of the Yamaha PM5D digital mixing console:

Working with the PM5D

This is the first event I had mixed in anger on the PM5D. I spent two days sitting in the SFL training room with the console hooked up to some 24 track live band recordings to get familiar.

Be Prepared

There is so much that the PM5D can do, it takes a while to take it all in! I do like to be prepared so I took a little time up front to configure the DCA's (a digital version of VCAs), subgroups and matrix feeds. 

Although I always mix with VCAs I also like to have sub group assignments running so I can create alternative matrix mixes front fill, wide fill and rear fill speaker systems.

I'm a Big Boy, but I'm Scared

Because I was initially scared of the console (yes I admit it), and my policy is to trust no one and assume nothing, I took the option of configuring the channel assignments, routing, groups, DCAs and matrix config up front in our warehouse. I was able to add 31 band graphics to all my main matrix outputs (there are 8 matrix outs on the PM5D, being fed from the 24 mix buss outs and the main stereo outs). I was also able to set individual delays for each output if desired so I could time align the whole speaker system without any outboard processing.

No More Outboard

I had decided to totally rely on the Yamaha's onboard compressors and gates (on every channel and output) and the internal reverb and delay effects. There was more of everything than I have ever had at my fingertips before! The console looked very lonely without a rack of outboard and system processing stuff but the "naked" feeling started to go after a few hours usage. The preparation time I spent with the desk was not really about learning the digital user interface. This is very intuitive on the PM5D. The real effort was spent learning the sound and characteristics of a new set of compressors, EQ and effects.

Total Recall

Once I had arrived at my channel layout, naming and patch setup, I stored the scene away into console memory for the last time and packed it away ready for the show. The PM5D-RH version of the console remembers absolutely everything in the console scene memory including the gain structure of the mic preamps. After going through this process for the first time, I realised that what took me two days for fiddling about and manual reading could be done in 20 mins. Next time I won't get it out of the case until I get to the gig...

Going Live

Once in the venue, speaker system EQ and alignment was very easy. The onboard graphic EQ's map their "sliders" onto the desk faders so there is no poking around on menu screens.

It's Big

When it came to the soundcheck I found that running the board was just like any other! The main thing to get your head around is that the 24 channel faders are either mapped to channels 1-24 or 25-48 depending on the channel selection button. The action you take is like walking to the other side of the master section, except you stand still and press a button and the other side comes to you! The console has 48 standard channel inputs but then there are an additional 4 dedicated stereo inputs with full mic pre's. Then there are the four standard stereo FX returns in addition to this. It's big! Think of a 64 input console because that is what it is.

Put Your Sharpie Away

I found it helpful to not write my own sharpie idents on the channel strip. You need to take the (short) time to program in the four letter channel names and then the board tells you where you are in the world. The other habit to make is always hitting the "cue" button on a channel as soon as you start thinking about that instrument or sound in your head. This way, when you reach for the EQ, you are adjusting the thing you want rather than the last channel you played with. I made that mistake a few times at the start. I took no more time on the sound check than I would normally take. The mix came to me quick and easy. Having all those compressors was an absolute joy. By the end of the second day I even had the percussionist's toys mic on a compressor, just because I could! I will admit it took me until day two to realise there is a knee control on the compressors. I found my brass and vocals rode along better with a knee setting of three to four (softer) rather than the harder default.

Effects

The reverbs sound great and I had my main vocal delay set up on a user assignable tap button. The console takes an average of your last four hits on the tap so the delays were spot on (providing you remember to give it four taps!).

Headroom

In live use, the console has BAGS of headroom. You can use and abuse the gain structure of the desk and it still looks after you. The compressor thresholds can reach down to the weakest channel signals. Unlike other digital consoles I have used, you do not have to drive it to death to get noise performance. This is not a bedroom recording toy. Somebody at Yamaha thought "LIVE"!

Live Patching

We had a few "after hours" ad hock artists doing spots after the main events. As I had spare channels on the board I started to get into the habit of patching multi channels across to different channels to keep the main band mix untouched. I guess I could have stored and recalled but something (maybe habit) made me patch for it. I now realise that I did not open the back box of the desk once to do any of this stuff. The Y-splits that live in my personal kit were pretty much redundant!

eliability

Big tops are not good for fine electronics. Especially in Southport gigs where I have experienced more rainfall than anywhere else on the planet. We lost a Panasonic MX70 visual mixer to the damp during the weekend. So what of the PM5D reliability? I experienced not one glitch/error/pop or fault. Because I like to know "what happens if....." answers, I took the liberty of turning off both desk PSU's during some rehearsal time. The desk goes down without a sound, and comes back in 24 seconds (once power is restored) with an elegant unmute and a return to exactly the same state that it left the world of the living. Resurrection is quick and bullet proof. Don't go looking for a Windows PC and OS inside - there is no hard drive to bounce around. This is a piece of bespoke digital electronics. It runs up to full 96K and will not run out of processing, even with all the toys, inserts and effects turned on.

Conclusion. Do I like it?

Oh yes, I like it. Would I crash mix a festival on it? Yes bring it on! The user interface is like an analogue desk. You can get to everything you need. It sounds superb (the mic pre's are from the PM5000 on in PM5D-RH). There are more channels than you can shake a stick at and it has the biggest outboard rack in the world bolted inside it. What is there not to like? I am really looking forward to using this console more and introducing engineers to it. It's a digital console that I can believe in. One of SFL's hire/sales policies is that we "use what we sell and sell what we use". The PM5D is a perfect match.