Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Anthony Aquilato said:
I was under the impression that with the RIO input module you are sharing the same head amp (you have pointed this out above) so a virtual patch into two channels gives me separate EQ, DYN, etc... but not a separate gain stage. This is what concerns me.
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No need to be concerned. Set the gain lower than you would on your analog board to give yourself headroom for when the singer "lays into it". You have separate digital gains on each channel to allow you to trim the level as you wish, so you can have different "gain structures" on each channel even when sharing the same head amp.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Andrew Broughton said:
No need to be concerned. Set the gain lower than you would on your analog board to give yourself headroom for when the singer "lays into it". You have separate digital gains on each channel to allow you to trim the level as you wish, so you can have different "gain structures" on each channel even when sharing the same head amp.
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Thank you Andy. This is what I wanted to know.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Rob Spence said:
I am not familiar with the Rio boxes but I just use the patch editor in Studio Manager. You just assign inputs to channels. It is a matrix with inputs down the left and channels across the top. Click a check in the box where they intersect. An input can go to any number of channels.

Yes, you need to get better at setting the head amps. The good news is after a gig you have some settings and can save em for next time and you can use it for a starting setup for another show as well.

One neat thing with digital is how quiet the desks are. You can be a little more conservative with the head amp gain.

Sent from my iPad HD
Click to expand...

Thank you Rob. I have done this with my DM console. And Andy has just explained another feature I was not familiar with. I'm getting the info I needed!
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Anthony Aquilato said:
Hi Rob. Thanks for replying. How do you do this? The CL5 will be on a Dante system, which at the moment I am unfamiliar with.
Can I do this? Assign say, RIO input 1 to CL5 channel 1 & 16?
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On a CL console it's similar to assigning the same input on a regular Yamaha desk. Assuming the vocal mic is patched into the first Rio and comes up on (let's pretend) CL5 channel 25, just look in the channel patch screen for 25, see what it says (probably "Dante 25"), and assign the same to your monitor channel on the CL5.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Scott Helmke said:
On a CL console it's similar to assigning the same input on a regular Yamaha desk. Assuming the vocal mic is patched into the first Rio and comes up on (let's pretend) CL5 channel 25, just look in the channel patch screen for 25, see what it says (probably "Dante 25"), and assign the same to your monitor channel on the CL5.
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Thanks Scott. I've also been reading on the ProSoundWeb about CL5. Trying to familiarize myself with the whole Dante thing, the networking and it's latency.

Latency... is my next concern and set of questions. The published specs are based with the system running @ 48K. All the DSP power is based at that sample rate as is the round trip latency. Latency goes down as the sample rate is increased but DSP power is lowered. Just how much does the DSP get lowered?
There isn't much I can find about that. Maybe Mark can chime in here? Does doubling the sample rate half the DSP?
It seems that doubling the rate would make sense. At some point there will be IEMs involved with this set up and @ 96K the latency would be well below audible perception (if the published #s are correct). @ 48K it's questionable. Is there any published info about how much DSP is used for EFX, inserted GEQs, instances of the premium rack?

Again, anyone reading alone that can provide any positive info regarding the questions above or system specs on a whole please feel to join.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

You're mixing up information from different consoles and maybe different manufacturers.

The CL series only run at 44.1khz or 48khz sample rate. No point in speaking about 96khz as these consoles don't run at that frequency.
Unlike some other consoles, all functions are available at all times, you cannot "run out" of DSP with a Yamaha console.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Andrew Broughton said:
Marc, we know that the DCA and MUTE group assignments on a channel do not have their own "recall safe" parameters, but what other channel parameters do not have their own settings and are only controlled by selecting "All"?

i.e. What channel settings other than DCA and MUTE group assignments are NOT recall-safe when every parameter in the channel is recall-safed except "All"? I'm using the CL5 as an example here.

View attachment 10492
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Andrew Broughton said:
Looks like ST/LCR mode is another one, are there any others?
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Never mind, found the info in the reference manual. page 229 on if anyone's interested. As I found, it is only Mute, DCA assign, Pan Mode and LCR mode that don't have separate safe parameters and are controlled by the "ALL" parameter.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Andrew Broughton said:
You're mixing up information from different consoles and maybe different manufacturers.

The CL series only run at 44.1khz or 48khz sample rate. No point in speaking about 96khz as these consoles don't run at that frequency.
Unlike some other consoles, all functions are available at all times, you cannot "run out" of DSP with a Yamaha console.
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OK. Good to know. The RIO stage box has multiple sample rates so it's somewhat confusing.

From the tech spec page on the Yamaha site:

Technical Specification of CL/QL
Digital Input & Output Characteristics
[TABLE="class: t1"]
[TR]
[TD="class: td1"]Terminal
[/TD]
[TD="class: td1"] Format
[/TD]
[TD="class: td1"] Data length
[/TD]
[TD="class: td1"] Level
[/TD]
[TD="class: td1"] Audio
[/TD]
[TD="class: td2"] Connector
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: td3"]Primary/Secondary
[/TD]
[TD="class: td3"] Dante
[/TD]
[TD="class: td3"]24bit or 32bit
[/TD]
[TD="class: td3"] 1000Base-T
[/TD]
[TD="class: td3"] 64ch Input/64ch Output @48kHz
[/TD]
[TD="class: td4"] etherCON Cat5e
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]


Rio3224-D, Rio1608-D
[TABLE="class: t1"]
[TR]
[TD="class: td1, colspan: 2"]General specifications
[/TD]
[TD="class: td2"]Rio3224-D
[/TD]
[TD="class: td2"]Rio1608-D
[/TD]
[/TR]
[TR]
[TD="class: td3"]Sampling frequency rate
[/TD]
[TD="class: td4"]
[/TD]
[TD="class: td5, colspan: 2"]44.1kHz, 48kHz, 88.2kHz, 96kHz
[/TD]
[/TR]
[/TABLE]

Thanks for clarifying that for me Andy.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Hi Marc,

I hope you are still active in this thread as I am a late comer here. Let me add my thanks for your time and attention.

There have been a couple questions asked about scene memories on the CL series and comparisons to the PM1D and PM5D. I do equal amounts of theater, concerts, corporate, and events. The common thread in my work is that the events I do are typically high profile one offs. As such the two most important factors I need to adhere to are flawlessness and swiftness. It has to be done right, right now. I am glad to see that the Preview function on the CL is now online. But I feel that the scene functions on audio consoles are bumbling around in the dark ages. I believe you said that Yamaha has been making consoles for 27 years now. That is approximately how long lighting consoles have been digitally automated. I beg Yamaha designers to get some training on ETC lighting consoles and learn how to implement some of the functions such as UPDATE, TRACK, FOLLOW, WAIT, BLOCK, ACTIVE, TIME, RECALL FROM, PARK, MACROS and CUE SHEET. I think audio console designers could learn an awful lot by looking at lighting console design and functionality.

I also have some wishes for a PM1D replacement. It has always been my experience that live sound engineers are, by nature, control freaks. Quality analog consoles were always designed with that in mind, giving us everything we need to see and touch right at our fingertips. The trend in digital consoles seems to be the exact opposite; let's see how much we can cram into this console while at the same time keeping the control surface as sparse as possible. I am sure this is driven by a factor of cost, i.e. more encoders = higher price point. But one of the advantages of the M7 is that there are no channel layers, everything is right there. I would love to see a console where I have 8 or 12 encoders over every channel fader that could be selected as head amp, eq, dynamics, or routing, expandable fader wings for when I have higher channel counts, a dedicated eq controller (a remote, rack-mountable device perhaps) so that I don't have to loose my mix faders to adjust eq, and a separate dedicated mix screen that shows the entire console in a similar fashion to the overview screens in Studio Manager.

Lastly, I will put in my +1 for a CSV or other output-able patch sheet. Again, something that has long been available in lighting consoles.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Tim Folster said:
Hi Marc,

I hope you are still active in this thread as I am a late comer here. Let me add my thanks for your time and attention.

There have been a couple questions asked about scene memories on the CL series and comparisons to the PM1D and PM5D. I do equal amounts of theater, concerts, corporate, and events. The common thread in my work is that the events I do are typically high profile one offs. As such the two most important factors I need to adhere to are flawlessness and swiftness. It has to be done right, right now. I am glad to see that the Preview function on the CL is now online. But I feel that the scene functions on audio consoles are bumbling around in the dark ages. I believe you said that Yamaha has been making consoles for 27 years now. That is approximately how long lighting consoles have been digitally automated. I beg Yamaha designers to get some training on ETC lighting consoles and learn how to implement some of the functions such as UPDATE, TRACK, FOLLOW, WAIT, BLOCK, ACTIVE, TIME, RECALL FROM, PARK, MACROS and CUE SHEET. I think audio console designers could learn an awful lot by looking at lighting console design and functionality.

I also have some wishes for a PM1D replacement. It has always been my experience that live sound engineers are, by nature, control freaks. Quality analog consoles were always designed with that in mind, giving us everything we need to see and touch right at our fingertips. The trend in digital consoles seems to be the exact opposite; let's see how much we can cram into this console while at the same time keeping the control surface as sparse as possible. I am sure this is driven by a factor of cost, i.e. more encoders = higher price point. But one of the advantages of the M7 is that there are no channel layers, everything is right there. I would love to see a console where I have 8 or 12 encoders over every channel fader that could be selected as head amp, eq, dynamics, or routing, expandable fader wings for when I have higher channel counts, a dedicated eq controller (a remote, rack-mountable device perhaps) so that I don't have to loose my mix faders to adjust eq, and a separate dedicated mix screen that shows the entire console in a similar fashion to the overview screens in Studio Manager.

Lastly, I will put in my +1 for a CSV or other output-able patch sheet. Again, something that has long been available in lighting consoles.
Click to expand...

Hi Tim,

I've been a little absent from the thread lately, but not due lack of interest! I hear your comments about learning from lighting consoles. Yes indeed we have studied, and there are many interesting things to learn. Applying them to an audio mixer can be a little tricky in some cases… but we are working on many things. Nothing to talk about now, though. We do have the CSV export option for PM5D Editor, and intend to bring that to CL - I'm afraid I don't have timing on that, but it is on the wish list.

Regarding your comments about large format digital mixers, hardware cost is very much a factor - quality hardware for a flagship-level products are expensive (faders, encoders, displays, analog audio circuitry, etc.), but one must also consider that large format consoles typically are DSP-intensive. There is typically more channel processing and routing flexibility that require more DSP and higher power CPUs to control them. This not only amounts to a greater cost in hardware, but because of the software complexity there is a significant cost in the software development as well. Manufacturers need to balance and factor these costs along with what is really necessary on the surface to get the job done - which may vary from user to user and even region to region (speaking from a global perspective). Ultimately that boils down to a reasonable balance between cost, capability/features, and controls.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Andrew Broughton said:
Just following up on this. Can I assume the QL MIDI spec is identical to the CL?
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Hi Andy,

Sorry, we are late on that document. QL shares the same MIDI implementation as CL.

If you need the document that includes control of the Dugan Automixer, PM me and I'll send you a preliminary document.

Also, we announced CL/QL V3 today. Several requested features are included in this update - including an 8-band PEQ in place of GEQ units (also includes notch filters, similar to the PM1D implantation), an RTA function and Dugan on CL.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Marc Lopez said:
Hi Andy,

Sorry, we are late on that document. QL shares the same MIDI implementation as CL.

If you need the document that includes control of the Dugan Automixer, PM me and I'll send you a preliminary document.

Also, we announced CL/QL V3 today. Several requested features are included in this update - including an 8-band PEQ in place of GEQ units (also includes notch filters, similar to the PM1D implantation), an RTA function and Dugan on CL.
Click to expand...
That's good to know, thank you Marc! I love that all these new consoles are sharing the same files now. So much better than trying to convert them! Good move for Yamaha.
Looking forward to the v3 software, too!
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Andrew Broughton said:
Never mind, found the info in the reference manual. page 229 on if anyone's interested. As I found, it is only Mute, DCA assign, Pan Mode and LCR mode that don't have separate safe parameters and are controlled by the "ALL" parameter.
Click to expand...

New v3 features said:
DCA Assignment Selection for Scene Management has been added to the parameters for Recall Safe, Focus Recall, and Global Paste. Rather than only being selectable with ALL parameters during scene memory management, DCA assignment is now an independent setting. This allows more refined control, such as specifying only Channel Name, Fader, and DCA Assign to be Recall Safe, for example.
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Very cool! Theater folks are going to be happy about that.
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Hi Mark,
How to connect the Dugan MY16 automatic mixer controller in PM1D?
David Karol said:
Yamaha Commercial Audio has offered us an awesome opportunity for a moderated Q&A with Marc Lopez.

Marc Lopez is the Marketing Manager for Yamaha Commercial Audio Systems and has been with the company since 1997 in various roles that include product manager, applications support and R&D. With a long history of all things digital, Marc has an extensive background in digital formats, networking and control protocols for professional audio applications. In his current position, he is responsible for leading the product management team and technical marketing initiatives such as training programs, applications engineering and technical support for U.S. and Canada across all product groups.

We're going to collect your best questions and submit them to Marc for his answers. This should be a great opportunity to learn a little more about the industry, several of our most beloved brands, and the future of manufacturing for Pro Audio.

The format is thus:

  • Post your questions here. One question per post, please.
  • Posts with the most "likes" win. If you can't like a post, ask a friend to like it for you.
  • Those questions will be forwarded to Marc Lopez and his replies will be posted for further discussion.
It's fantastic that we get to do this again with another industry giant, we hope Yamaha gets lots of interesting questions and a great response to the direction they are taking their brand.
Click to expand...
 
Re: Marc Lopez of Yamaha Commercial Audio Q&A

Andrew Broughton said:
Mark, can you explain in more detail exactly how Yamaha GC works?
There's some confusion over whether the console applies the digital gain offset or if it's done within the RIO.
(http://forums.prosoundweb.com/index.php/topic,152342.msg1397385.html#msg1397385)
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Hi Andy,

GC is a function of the Rio. When GC is turned on a channel, it is active for all consoles that are receiving that channel. So the Rio is performing the gain compensation, and all consoles (or any Dante device for that matter - could be DVS or an AIC128-D for recording) will receive the compensated signal.

In a CL/QL system, up to four consoles can have HA control. That's what the unique console IDs are for. You can actually feed a virtually unlimited number of consoles by not assigning an ID for those consoles.

The basic concept is to set your HA level to a nominal level, and then turn GC on. Everyone should the. Use the Digital Gain on their respective console. There is a preference to swap the Gain control encoder from Analog Gain to Digital Gain. If adjustments are made on the Analog Gain while GC is On, the signal level is compensated at the Rio, and others on the network will not see any level differences - preserving their gain structure. There may be noise floor differences in the signal, but the level will be consistent.

That's the basic concept. Here's a link to some videos that gives some additional explanation.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S3EZJJEFqis

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=e6fr69hnXQA
 
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