Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should. I'm Talking To YOU Yamaha.

I'm all for progress and pushing the boundaries, however putting a touch screen on everything doesn't need to be the answer for everything, Sometimes, you just need something physical like a dedicated knob, fader, or button. Everything doesn't need to be condensed into a touchscreen replacement.

Before we dive any deeper I just want to address what this is even about. I'm talking to you Yamaha DM 3/7 series!!!

I'm not alone on this, a lot of other A1's I work with feel the same way. I'm sure the screen is very responsive, Yamaha makes wonderful workhorse consoles so I don't doubt the quality. That's not my issue at all. My issue is for the very specific instances where having quick access to a dedicated knob(s) has prevented feedback. I can't stress this point enough.

It might seem like a small detail but it's in fact a HUGE DEAL. Let me dive into a scenario I've had happen on the QL or CL series. Unlike the DM3/7 series, the QL and CL series have dedicated EQ knobs. They are in the same class of consoles and they are the new shiny replacements. So I find myself running Yamaha consoles up and down in the corporate world. Music - not so much. Honestly an M32's FX pack is nicer than the Yamaha's QL/CL series for musical applications. If they have the budget for it, they'll go with DigiCo for a festival, otherwise you'll probably be on a Midas. Your experience may vary slightly.

With that being said, Yamaha's are extremely capable consoles, and they are extremely nice for corporate events. I will stand on the hill with a QL or CL. They are absolute workhorses for corporate events.

One of the major differences between doing live sound for a music event versus a corporate event is that music events tend to very fast-paced and things don't have to be perfect. Theres a margin for error to some degree because the chaos in production always causes some surprises.

In corporate events, they're usually higher budgets and they give you more time to prepare and be picture perfect. With that time given comes with the expectation that IT WILL BE PERFECT. They give you that time so you have a perfect execution during showday(s). I can't stress how picky technical directors and project managers are. Specially when the client goes up to them complaining about something, then project manager is at the technical directors ear, and now the technical director is at your ear. You see the message cascade from the corner of your eye. The whole time trying to focus on figuring out what's going on, the source of the problem at hand all before you get distracted by technical director asking the same exact questions going through your head and now you have a team of 3 hovering over your shoulder if you're lucky. I say lucky, because if it gets to this point, then the entire audience is probably looking at you too now.

Anyone who's a head of department in production has experienced this pressure. It's absolutely crushing. Your reputation is on the line, a lot of us are freelancers so your business relationship with that particular company is now suddenly in jeopardy. The industry is small so if the screwup is big enough, everyone will hear about it. Yes, even across the country. We are roadies, word gets around. There's a lot of pressure when things go south. Sometimes it's your fault, sometimes it's not, but you have to deal with it. Your job is to make it work. They say you can throw a stone in any direction and hit a sound guy in the head.

I mean you can train a monkey to turn a fader. What a good audio engineer does is prepare extensively so you don't have the technical director or project manager talking down your ear.

Part of this preparation includes making sure your monitors (sound system) doesn't feedback all over the place the microphones get close to it in case a speaker walks next to one for whatever reason. Or maybe you need to turn up the gains on a microphone because the person behind the mic is standing 3 stoplights behind the microphone and using their library voice at the same time.

In any regard, we step into the wonderful world of EQ's. So part of this process of eliminating our arch-nemesis 'Feedback', we use our EQs and the wonderful dedicated EQ knobs that high-end consoles provide to our disposal. Or did.

When you're mixing in extremely challenging rooms and situations, sometimes where it sounds the best also happens to be right at the edge before you start to hear that 'ring'. And this is where having dedicated EQ knobs is absolutely essential.

When you're notching out frequencies, you can only affect an unspecified amount to an unspecified degree. Beyond that point, the waveform shifts and now you have completely new areas where those problematic frequencies stack. The result is an endless loop of having to redo your entire EQ's if you let this shift in waveform happens.

Bear with me here, my I'm almost to my point. So when you're in situations where the play before the waveform shifts is less than a decibel or only a couple frequencies away. This requires fine control over these parameters. Sometimes these parameters are very very very close to each other that they're almost on top of each other. I can only imagine a hell-hole instance where I'd have to use a touch-screen to select the right EQ point where they're practically stacking on top of each other.

There's certainly some rooms I currently mix in that are very finicky like that. One in particular has a cheap podium mic that requires a lot of doctoring to do in order to make it sound good and not feed back. I often find myself having to play with a couple EQ parameters by 1 or 2 decibels to prevent frequencies from stacking and creating feedback when I find myself having to push the input gains and the presenter is speaking like a mouse while also being 6 feet away and turning his head away from the mic.

So the execution of that move is partly relied on the ability to select the right frequency and also having quick access to it (a dedicated EQ knob for that frequency range).

This ability is seemingly entirely eliminated on the new Yamaha DM3 | DM7 series. Plenty of buttons, no knobs.

Sure there's the channel knobs that are assignable to whatever parameter you touch but that is not suffice. We require a dedicated knob for every frequency parameter option. Its an essential part of our workflow.

Pinching a screen is fine for your smartphone, it's not fine for selecting your EQ's curve. I don't always have 30 seconds to select the right frequency parameter when I have multiple close to each other, this is not progress. Sometimes, you just need the physical option. Specially in a pinch, and when your livelihood depends on you executing the event flawlessly.

With that being said, I'm pretty disappointed with the lack of that feature, specially when you consider a $14,999 price tag for the QL 1/CL 1 equivalent the DM7 C (Compact) and even the $29,999 full-sized DM7. Now that I got all that hate out of my system, I'm still excited to run into it in a production lol.

- Bay Phoenix