DM2000 "VCA's"

P

Philip Roberts

Sophomore
Jan 12, 2011
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Southwest Michigan
I'm trying to understand (from the manual, with out a console in front of me) how the "VCA's" on a DM2000 work. I say "VCA" as from what I've read the DM2000 doesn't have real VCA's or DCA like the M7CL with which I'm familiar and that the fader groups can be tasked to work like a VCA/DCA.

I'm not clear however on what limitations this imposes?
- Does using "VCA's" cut into the 8 audio sub groups? (I think the answer is no)
- Does using "VCA's" cut into the number of channels that can be linked?

Is there anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks

Philip
 
Re: DM2000 "VCA's"

Philip Roberts said:
I'm trying to understand (from the manual, with out a console in front of me) how the "VCA's" on a DM2000 work. I say "VCA" as from what I've read the DM2000 doesn't have real VCA's or DCA like the M7CL with which I'm familiar and that the fader groups can be tasked to work like a VCA/DCA.

I'm not clear however on what limitations this imposes?
- Does using "VCA's" cut into the 8 audio sub groups? (I think the answer is no)
- Does using "VCA's" cut into the number of channels that can be linked?

Is there anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks

Philip
Click to expand...


Fader Groups are different than your normal audio groups. All outputs will still be available.

I'm not sure about pairing. I see no reason it would be impacted by the use of groups.

It can be a little tricky to get the groups to populate properly over multiple scenes. If I'm remembering correctly the combination of recall safe selections is not very intuitive. Sorry I can't be more specific, it's been a few years.

It's very tedious to program this way but I've done it for some fairly large musicals. I used the middle bank of 8 and then assigned reverbs and anything else I wanted on a fader to the remote layer on either side. I wish you could rename the groups but you can't so I would suggest some labels.

Jake
 
Re: DM2000 "VCA's"

Philip Roberts said:
I'm trying to understand (from the manual, with out a console in front of me) how the "VCA's" on a DM2000 work. I say "VCA" as from what I've read the DM2000 doesn't have real VCA's or DCA like the M7CL with which I'm familiar and that the fader groups can be tasked to work like a VCA/DCA.

I'm not clear however on what limitations this imposes?
- Does using "VCA's" cut into the 8 audio sub groups? (I think the answer is no)
- Does using "VCA's" cut into the number of channels that can be linked?

Is there anything else I should be aware of?

Thanks

Philip
Click to expand...

Hello Philip.

Yamaha's DM/0-style mixers' way of doing things have benefits and disadvantages.

If you go to the group menu you can assign output faders or input faders to eachother (not inputs and outputs combined in one group). What happens then is that by moving one fader you physically move the rest of the faders in that group and all the feeds from every one of the channels in the group are affected just like if you had moved every one of those faders by hand at the same time. Since any VCA basically remote controls fader outputs this makes perfect sense to me. One disadvantage is that you can only put a channel in one group at the time. If you hold SEL while moving one fader in a group you can temporarily "release" it from the group and hence move it on it's own.

If you additionally link all the faders in one group in a EQ group and/or a comp group, changing the EQ or comp on one channel will affect all other channels' EQ and comp in the same way effectivlely giving you EQ and comp on a VCA much like you already know from your BUSes. You can switch the EQ/comp link on after you have set your channels individually so you still have individual control from the start. If you need to change one channel EQ/comp individually mid-show it's a little more complicated as you'll need to switch off the EQ/comp link temporarily while you make the adjustment. There are several ways of doing this, including putting a link group on/off master switch on a UDK.

No, grouping does not affect your ability to also use BUSes exactly like you are used to. It's just an addition just like you might have both VCAs and audio groups on an analog mixer.

If you have paired two channels as a stereo pair there is no way to individually assign them to a fader/EQ/comp group. If you assign one the other follows.

Another cool use for groups is that instead of making the usual stereo pair you can assign just two channels to a fader group and an EQ group making it act as a stereo pair with just one important difference: Now you can send just the left keyboard channel to the left key wedge and just the right channel to the right key wedge. There is no way to do this with a normal stereo pair as all settings are copied from one channel to the other when you make the stereo pair, and all AUX adjustments from there on are equal for both sides of the stereo pair.

If you like to use the remote layer as a user assignable layer you can put your entire drum kit on a group and just stick one drum channel on the user assignable layer, saving available faders for other things. If you move that one drum channel the rest of the drum channels will track even if you don't see it visually in front of you. Of course, if you do this, and need to adjust the snare, you'll need to flip to the layer that has the drum channels on it and press SEL while you move the snare fader(s).

Another cool use for groups is to link output faders. You can make your AUX subwoofer output track the main master autmatically along with things like delay speakers or front fills run through the matrixes, or you can make it possible to adjust all AUX masters at once.

Best regards,

Kristian
 
Re: DM2000 "VCA's"

Kristian, that's out of date and/or misinformed. There are two modes on these consoles ever since v2. In the Group screen, there is a Group Master Fader checkbox. Check that, and your groups work like VCAs, except that you can only assign a channel to a single group, unlike real VCAs. To use them, you assign the group masters to fader on user assignable layers.

As Jake suggested, you're beat to use all four UA banks, and assign the masters to the same faders in each, and let the other faders "flip".

To answer Jake's question about recall safe, the Yamaha guys designing these consoles felt that group assignments were part of the fader chain, so to safe those, you must not safe the fader. Limits your control granularity a bit, which is one of the console's downsides, but more often than not, I'm recalling faders anyway.

It's confusing, because there is a separate safe for the masters, but that only controls the the master levels, not assignments. And it's buggy, sometimes there's a glitch in the console and it will jump even though they're safed. But that's a whole 'nother story, and I've been around the block with the helpful folks at Yamaha's non-emergency support multiple times to get this acknowledged, let alone fixed, and it's worse than beating my head against a brick wall.
 
Re: DM2000 "VCA's"

Kristian, you said that grouping channels physically links them together. As of v2, which has been out for over 6 years, this is an option. As I described, if you use Master Group Fader mode, it acts like a VCA, with channel faders working separately, and a group master that acts like a VCA.
 
Re: DM2000 "VCA's"

Andy Leviss said:
Kristian, you said that grouping channels physically links them together. As of v2, which has been out for over 6 years, this is an option. As I described, if you use Master Group Fader mode, it acts like a VCA, with channel faders working separately, and a group master that acts like a VCA.
Click to expand...

Then we are in agreement. The fact that you can set up a "DCA master" and put it on one of the user assignable layers doesn't make what I said about putting one channel out of a group of channels on the user assignable layer either out of date or misinformed, you just had additional info to add.

I personally like my method better since the DM 2000 only has 24 faders they are at a premium when setting up user assignable layers. When controlling a group of channels by assigning one channel out of that group on a user assignable layer you still get to keep one instrument accessible for selecting it without switching to another fader bank.
 
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