I sent word to my agents worldwide that I would pay well for any information on the Yamaha PM1D, the newest contender for the crown in the 21st century recallable live console sweepstakes. Would it leap to the forefront of the market, and make everyone forget about the Showconsole, the Innovasons, and the Cadacs?

An American claimed to have heard, from a source in England, a wild tale of a catastrophic PM-1D failure in the middle of a high-profile concert. But then he added, to be fair, that some of the most successful products ever made for concert audio had their own glitches and stumbles when they were first sent out into battle.

Marc Lopez of Yamaha

But what was I to think, when another undercover traveller returned from Musik Messe in Germany, and confidently stated that thirty European touring acts were using the desk, without crashes! I sent a fee into each of my spies' Swiss accounts, and cursed the disparity of their answers. Then one of my very best field men, under deepest cover, reported back to me after the Grammies, saying that every act, except Madonna, had received their monitor mixes from a pair of PM1D's, and that a redundant backup set had never been resorted to.

Now, I may have forgotten how to use a slide rule, but I can do simple math. I can add the worldwide viewing audience to the fact that half the music business is in the audience at the Grammies, and I can come to the conclusion that the people running the audio there are under just about as much pressure as post-industrial society can produce.

So, are those engineers going to use an undependable console, for any reason? No, of course not. I leapt to my feet and rang for my Two-Fisted Systems jet to be prepared. I would go to NSCA and look at this controversial contraption for myself!

Yamaha made an appointment for me with a highly placed individual, code-named "Larry Italia." I exchanged password and countersign with him. (Me: 'Huge friggin' logo on kick drums and keyboards." Him: "What's it to ya?")

Marc Lopez was summoned, who is the Commercial Audio product manager for software. Marc did a great job showing me around the functions of the desk. I quickly began to feel that the design was logical and usable, and the result of an effort meant to make the learning curve navigable to any reasonably experienced live mixer.

Training sessions typically involve four or five attendees for each of five consoles. Yamaha has scheduled two-day sessions for both the East and West Coasts.

One thing I was happy to see was that there is a fader for every channel, in 48-input mode anyway. Every so often in my career, something has happened, like the Supersuckers' guitarists putting their boots up on the wedges and railing a sustained set-ending crescendo, where I just need to grab a bunch of faders at once, and make Martian noises swooshing them radically up and back. Can't do that with a mouse!

There is also a 'flip' switch, that changes inputs 1 through 48 into 49 through 96. The basic engine runs 48 channels; the 96 channel option can be purchased with a console configured that way, or added later as an upgrade.