There are three physical cables between the control surface and the engine, or as I like to call it, the “fridge.” One is a 34 pair SCSI III cable that carries digital audio to/from the “desk” and the other two are co-ax ethernet cables that allow the engine and the console to talk to each other. The BNC ethernet cables run at 50 ohms rather than video’s 75. The engine can be up to 200 meters from the control surface.

Continuing with the theme of self-reliance and as few added outboard boxes as possible, the PM1-D can be told to delay its stereo output in units of time, as well as distance and frames. I can see it now, heel and toe-ing my way from the mix position to the amp line and shouting back my carefully calculated guesstimate. I know, I am supposed to use a laser or a tape measure. I’m a hoodlum, what can I say!

The user can also delay the outputs for headphones or nearfield monitors, to match the propagation from the stage. I like that word, propagation. You could just say the “sound” from the stage. I think instead of saying I am a soundman, I am going to start calling myself a propagation man.

There is no hard drive in the desk, it uses ATA flash memory so, no moving, slow booting parts inside. There are clever little gutters so that liquid from an accidental spill is routed away from the action. The backside of the desk features an AES/EBU digital stereo output, a USB out, your MIDI, your RS-232, and your Ethernet, and two desks can be cascaded to talk and function with each other. There are inputs for six two-tracks – you know, I kept thinking, this could be a bad-ass studio board – two of which can be either analog or digital, while the other four are AES/EBU digital only.

The PM1-D is pretty robust if your AC voltage starts dropping – it will hang in there until you get down around 107 volts, at which point the phantom power will start to malfunction. Circuits will self-protect and if they fail, will fail in the “off” position, to avoid digital hash.

To show I wasn’t just some trained monkey who can be bought with a PM1-D shirt, baseball cap, and duffel bag (and some damn good deli sandwiches,) I asked about the fact that on an Innova Son, a user can change a setting, like for a singer with a sore throat, and have that change print through to all the scenes on the desk. That ability for the PM1D will be added in a future upgrade, I was told. For now, what you can do is put the sick singer’s channel in manual mode, or recall-safe, and have it stable, with the change in place, as the other channels change with the new scenes.

What about us Macintosh people? How come Yamaha went exclusively with a PC interface, just because 99% of the world runs that way? What’s up with that? A gentleman whose name I cannot reveal told me off the record that Mac users are controlling PM1-D’s with the Virtual PC program, successfully.

I walked back out by the swans, after two days of PM1-D school feeling like I had hoped to, that when I walk up on one at a show someday and the tech says “now, don’t be afraid of this, it’s really like a big SPX-90,” I will shove them aside and start confidently setting up C.K.’s Patented Auto-Pan. I should stop with the jokes – it was great to get the chance to go hands-on with this fascinating new mixer.
_____________________________________________________

Editor's Note: I would like to thank Yamaha’s Makiko Ichimura, for making the arrangements for me to attend the class, and Stan Miller for telling me that it existed, and encouraging me to go. Dan Craik was always available to answer our questions, and did not care if it was past the listed closing time. I have no idea how Marc Lopez keeps the architecture of the PM1-D lodged so solidly in his frontal lobes.

As a final editor’s note, one day over lunch, Dan asked me “should we build a 5K?” My answer was an immediate yes, with the proviso that they slap some better preamps in there. Like, for example, the preamps from the DM2000, maybe. See, as great as I think the PM1-D is for more regimented presentations, what about a band that doesn’t use set lists? I worked for one that didn’t, whose platinum record is just as real as anyone’s who does choreography to a click track.

You can teach an old dog new tricks, but he’s always going to love his chewed-up old water bowl. If I was going to run a show for Cirque du Soleil, yes, I would want a console like the PM1-D, with its step-through-scenes capability. If I was with a sound company that had to do those cursed radio fests, yes, the PM1-D would absolutely be a strong contender. It is an extremely inviting fantasy to get rid of multiple boards at FOH and monitors - I know that Audiotek, to name one high-profile outfit, has made a substantial investment in PM1-D’s, for the awards shows they do.

But a new 5K, for just making the cowboys and cowgirls get up and dance, with all the user comments from the last decade incorporated in it? Bring it on!