Yamaha White Paper: A New Age For Digital Sound Systems
In the past 10 years there has been a rapid expansion of the use of digital audio for live sound applications. This has been partly driven by advances in technology and partly by end users and systems integrators looking for new solutions to meet their needs.
One obvious example has been the emergence of the all-in-one mixing console which subsequently became the industry norm. There is no doubt that this type of product (combining the user interface, I/O and DSP within a compact console frame) is still in great demand for medium and small scale projects and this will continue to be the case for many years to come.
However, through our continuous dialogue with industry professionals, it is clear that for larger projects there is now a demand for higher levels of system functionality in terms of audio and control, distribution, DSP and user interfacing options. These are required to support the ever increasing size and complexity of live productions for music, theatre, broadcast and corporate events.
In addition to the usual prerequisites for a live audio product, such as “extremely high quality sound” and “total reliability” we have determined that the ideal scalable audio solution should also provide:
* Configurable component devices for designing specific systems for installations & / or rental jobs
* Variable system sizes with distributed I/O, DSP and user interfaces
* Integration of audio and control data in one core wide bandwidth network
* Bandwidth and DSP to support extremely high channel counts
* Extremely low latency – sample accurate across the network
* Open interfacing with other major audio formats and networks
* Redundancy for network, DSP & PSU
For some time engineers within Yamaha R&D have been working on the networking technologies, as well as hardware and software components necessary to develop not simply a traditional mixing console, but rather a complete audio systems solution.
By combining a brand-new, wide bandwidth, low latency network with distributed I/O devices, DSP and assorted user interfaces, it is possible to create not only variable sizes of mixing systems but also to create powerful routing systems with patching and DSP processing capability that do not require a console control surface.
Of course any original networking technology which is intended to be used for live audio will have to interface with existing audio and networking formats and thanks to the open connectivity which Yamaha has pioneered through the use of MY cards, existing analogue and digital audio products will be able to function seamlessly within the new audio environment.
This flagship component-based solution will not though be a replacement for Yamaha’s existing consoles such as PM5D, M7CL and LS9 which will continue in parallel. These powerful all-in-one mixers provide a great solution for both installations and the vast majority of general rental applications where their compact size, feature sets and crucially price makes them the ideal tools for the job.
In summary: a new age for digital live sound will soon be with us in which alongside the traditional mixing console, new component-based networked audio systems will enable consultants, installers, sound designers, rental companies and end users to configure the type and scale of mixing and routing systems they require to match exactly the requirements for their specific live sound application.
Yamaha Commercial Audio Website