New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Tim McCulloch said:
Chris, I live in small closed world but I've not heard of this from any of the artist crews carrying CL. Is this a UK/EU thing?
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Interesting. I had never thought about it being due to a smaller subset of consoles.

Suffice it to say that several of the UK distributors have, in the past (may be finally fixed with current firmware), had issues with consoles 'glitching' (only word I can think of, audio momentarily drops, but then re-appears). At the beginning, there was an issue with a 15second audio drop that may occur if consoles had been powered on a very long time (like more than a day). This was acknowledged by Yamaha in the release notes for a fairly recent update (1.6?).
However, it appears that while this issue was resolved, a few of my contacts have reported much shorter drops (<0.5sec).
I heard rumours (i stress, unverified, I could be talking nonsense) that Yamaha had identified an issue in the communication between 2 chips on the CL board. Specifically between the primary chip, and whichever sub-system handles communication with the Dante module.

Suffice it to say, this was a frustrating issue, and one that has given Dante (probably unfairly) a bad name amongst a small circle of CL users...

I have no doubt that Yamaha are on it, because the issues have all but disappeared with recent firmware updates, but it was annoying at the time that it seemed like no-one would officially admit there was a problem.

EDIT: It goes without saying, as all will see from my recent posts, that I am a big Yamaha fan. And I say the above as a loyal user, not as a naysayer throwing stones from the outside. I would very much like to think that the CL and QL will be a continuation of the strong Yamaha rep for reliability
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Chris Johnson said:
Interesting. I had never thought about it being due to a smaller subset of consoles.

Suffice it to say that several of the UK distributors have, in the past (may be finally fixed with current firmware), had issues with consoles 'glitching' (only word I can think of, audio momentarily drops, but then re-appears). At the beginning, there was an issue with a 15second audio drop that may occur if consoles had been powered on a very long time (like more than a day). This was acknowledged by Yamaha in the release notes for a fairly recent update (1.6?).
However, it appears that while this issue was resolved, a few of my contacts have reported much shorter drops (<0.5sec).
I heard rumours (i stress, unverified, I could be talking nonsense) that Yamaha had identified an issue in the communication between 2 chips on the CL board. Specifically between the primary chip, and whichever sub-system handles communication with the Dante module.

Suffice it to say, this was a frustrating issue, and one that has given Dante (probably unfairly) a bad name amongst a small circle of CL users...

I have no doubt that Yamaha are on it, because the issues have all but disappeared with recent firmware updates, but it was annoying at the time that it seemed like no-one would officially admit there was a problem.

EDIT: It goes without saying, as all will see from my recent posts, that I am a big Yamaha fan. And I say the above as a loyal user, not as a naysayer throwing stones from the outside. I would very much like to think that the CL and QL will be a continuation of the strong Yamaha rep for reliability
Click to expand...

Chris, I'm also thinking that there may be more CL market penetration in Europe, whereas we're just seeing it get a some traction here in the colonies. More exposure will probably yield more stories.

We'd been a 100% Yamaha shop, adding AVID Venue products over the last 4 years but I confess a certain attraction to the CL and QL. Hey, it's a great time to be in audio. :)
 
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Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Chris Johnson said:
Interesting. I had never thought about it being due to a smaller subset of consoles.

Suffice it to say that several of the UK distributors have, in the past (may be finally fixed with current firmware), had issues with consoles 'glitching' (only word I can think of, audio momentarily drops, but then re-appears). At the beginning, there was an issue with a 15second audio drop that may occur if consoles had been powered on a very long time (like more than a day). This was acknowledged by Yamaha in the release notes for a fairly recent update (1.6?).
However, it appears that while this issue was resolved, a few of my contacts have reported much shorter drops (<0.5sec).
I heard rumours (i stress, unverified, I could be talking nonsense) that Yamaha had identified an issue in the communication between 2 chips on the CL board. Specifically between the primary chip, and whichever sub-system handles communication with the Dante module.

Suffice it to say, this was a frustrating issue, and one that has given Dante (probably unfairly) a bad name amongst a small circle of CL users...

I have no doubt that Yamaha are on it, because the issues have all but disappeared with recent firmware updates, but it was annoying at the time that it seemed like no-one would officially admit there was a problem.

EDIT: It goes without saying, as all will see from my recent posts, that I am a big Yamaha fan. And I say the above as a loyal user, not as a naysayer throwing stones from the outside. I would very much like to think that the CL and QL will be a continuation of the strong Yamaha rep for reliability
Click to expand...

One thing about this forum is that one should report on one's personal experience and not about what you may have heard. Rumors and second hand info have very little value here.

Come on... Going into detail about that which you have no direct experience is bull.



Sent from my iPad HD
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Edit, found the manual http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/pa/english/mixers/ql5_en_rm_a0.pdf There is no cascade connection,..you have to use the card slots so it's not set up for it like the PM5D or the 1D.

Thanks, but this in no way answers my question. I know what cascading does and how it works, I simply see no way to do it with THESE desks......How do you make the connections on the QL series? I see no cascade connectors. Thanks.

kristianjohnsen said:
When you cascade two desks one is master and the other is a "sidecar" with extra channels.

Basically, you mix whatever input channels are on desk one on the control surface of desk one and that desk behaves as if it was alone.

Desk number two has it's channels mixed on the surface of the second desk, but when you put a channel in a AUX, group or LR the signal is not sent to the physical outputs of desk two, the signals are instead routed via a cascade connection into the audio stream of the corresponding AUX, group, etc of desk number one.

That means that the AUX, group, etc masters of desk number one are just fed extra incoming audio streams along with the audio streams coming internally from the channels of desk number one.

Muting AUX master number 5 on desk number one would mute any AUX 5 bus content including that coming from desk number two. Operating AUX master number 5 on desk number two would have no effect as the signals are tapped and routed over to the cascade connection before the master fader.

Usually, PFL signals are also routed from desk two to desk one, so you can PFL something on desk two without having to unplug and replug your headset.

Typically, on a Yamaha desk, there will be a MIDI connection between the desks so that when you store or recall a scene on desk number one, desk number two follows suit so that it seems to you like you are just operating the scene library of one desk.

One can also send finished mixes coming out of the masters of desk number one back over to desk number two and route those signals to the physical outputs of desk number two without going through any channels, etc on desk number two.
The purpose would be to gain extra physical outputs that may not be located on desk one, so you can just utilize the physical outputs of desk number two as extra output ports.

Big analog sometimes had analog cascade ports.

Some Yamahas have a dedicated cascade port with a special multi-connector, but the most typical way to do it is to use a mini YGDAI-card of some sort to transfer the signals back and forth.

On the 01v96 it was common to use the built-in ADAT port + SPDIF port so that you could set up the cascade solution it without buying a card.
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Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

harrybrilljr said:
Edit, found the manual http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/pa/english/mixers/ql5_en_rm_a0.pdf There is no cascade connection,..you have to use the card slots so it's not set up for it like the PM5D or the 1D.

Thanks, but this in no way answers my question. I know what cascading does and how it works, I simply see no way to do it with THESE desks......How do you make the connections on the QL series? I see no cascade connectors. Thanks.
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hi Harry!

I saw this in the FAQ:


Is Cascade function available in order to increase Input channel mixing capacity?


Yes. Using the Mini-YGDAI slots or Dante port (QL-QL only), you can configure the bus cascade connection. The cascade link communication is also available through MIDI or Slot1.
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Rob Spence said:
One thing about this forum is that one should report on one's personal experience and not about what you may have heard. Rumors and second hand info have very little value here.

Come on... Going into detail about that which you have no direct experience is bull.



Sent from my iPad HD
Click to expand...

Whoa there matey!

I have absolutely had personal experience with these issues. They happened more than once when I had the desks out!
I was only speculating on the exact reason for the issue. And even that came from a distributors conversation with Yamaha UK.
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

harrybrilljr said:
Edit, found the manual http://www2.yamaha.co.jp/manual/pdf/pa/english/mixers/ql5_en_rm_a0.pdf There is no cascade connection,..you have to use the card slots so it's not set up for it like the PM5D or the 1D.

Thanks, but this in no way answers my question. I know what cascading does and how it works, I simply see no way to do it with THESE desks......How do you make the connections on the QL series? I see no cascade connectors. Thanks.
Click to expand...

I was trying to explain it to you in my rather long answer I wrote to your rather unclear question...

There are no cascade ports, you use cards, just like on LS9, M7CL, 01v96 (if you're not using the ADAT-SPDIF port), etc. The DM2000 has a cascade port, but you can use the card slots instead. Unsure about DM1000. I think the O2R96 has the same cascade options as the DM2000.
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Chris Johnson said:
The biggest question is whether Yamaha have addressed the serious issues with the CL series in terms of audio stability. Up until very recent firmware versions, the CL has had big problems with dropping audio sync with the Dante network. I think, after much blaming, this is down to an issue with the CL, rather than anything to do with Dante.

So I'd like to know how they've addressed that with the QL series
Click to expand...

I'm here so little these days, and I don't know how old this is, but I nearly fell out of the chair when I read this. We have 2 CL5s in-house (one as soon as the were available and another one a few months after that) and I have a hand in two more CL5s at my church when I'm not playing. We've yet to experience anything remotely related to this issue as described. We've had only one occasion where I had to reinstall a firmware update in a Rio a month after the first update (and not sure I had to, but in the interest of moving on, I did anyway). At the church, with the 1.5x firmware, we had one unit that would lose control of the Rio rack after several hours, but that cleared up with 1.60 (right, Kevin?). I have yet to hear from ANYONE any news about audio stability.

As for the QLs, I was a couple of weeks away from buying my own X32 for my band's use, but I'm going to keep saving my money for a QL1.

Hmm, so if i start talking about my band and since my job has turned into 99% day job, am I banished to the junior varsity forum?...:D
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

It is actually really good to hear that these issues don't appear to be widespread at all.

The desks over here in question were all among the first few in the UK, and therefore probably the first few in the world. Perhaps it is a batch issue?

I really want a QL5/1/both!
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

There are some new diligence areas with digital audio transport - we ended up buying an Ethernet cable tester/verifier to make sure that our cable was up to spec, and so that we could test it periodically to make sure. And I discovered some brand-new "tactical Cat5e" cables from a very reputable audio industry manufacturer that did not even reach Cat5. When I called, their engineer ended up learning that a supplier had sent them the wrong stuff.

Not trying to say that you or the other companies were doing anything necessary wrong, Chris. It's just that there's a new can of worms to untangle with this stuff, and going into it as primarily a rental company we had to make sure we'd thought of all the likely problems.
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Scott Helmke said:
There are some new diligence areas with digital audio transport - we ended up buying an Ethernet cable tester/verifier to make sure that our cable was up to spec, and so that we could test it periodically to make sure. And I discovered some brand-new "tactical Cat5e" cables from a very reputable audio industry manufacturer that did not even reach Cat5. When I called, their engineer ended up learning that a supplier had sent them the wrong stuff.

Not trying to say that you or the other companies were doing anything necessary wrong, Chris. It's just that there's a new can of worms to untangle with this stuff, and going into it as primarily a rental company we had to make sure we'd thought of all the likely problems.
Click to expand...

Completely agree Scott. By moving our audio onto these existing pieces of network infrastructure, we now need to not only be aware of those standards and how to verify them, but also how the two things (audio and IP networks) might interact.

Fortunately, I have a CCNA, and spend a lot of my life dealing with network and comms issues, so I feel pretty well positioned to spec/troubleshoot these systems.

When we had these issues, network 'health' (cable spec & verification, switch behaviour, etc...) were our first port of call, which is partly why some people near to these problems began to not think very highly of Dante.

However, it became clear through various 'soak tests' (running the consoles with audio and various configurations for several days at a time), that the issue was with the CL. Yamaha looked into this and were clearly working on it, as subsequent versions of firmware seemed to resolve the issues.

Here is a quote from Yamaha's v1.61 Bug Fix notes:
  • Solved a problem in which the audio of CL series via Dante may very rarely be interrupted for about 15 seconds with the firmware V1.60 or earlier
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Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Chris Johnson said:
Completely agree Scott. By moving our audio onto these existing pieces of network infrastructure, we now need to not only be aware of those standards and how to verify them, but also how the two things (audio and IP networks) might interact.

Here is a quote from Yamaha's v1.61 Bug Fix notes:

[/LIST]
Click to expand...

I remember reading that and thinking that I was really glad we never experienced that issue. That has to be maddening!
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Yea so it's not really the same as the PM1D which was the only one I was familiar with. Chances are if I needed more desk, I would also need the slots. If it can be done with Dante, great. I am not too clear on how many dante ins and outs you get with these desks. Is there a limit? Can you just create as many as you want/ need? Must be a processing limitation there.

I still don't see MIDI note on/ off in the user defined keys of these newer desks. Are they hidden somewhere?

Kent Clasen said:
hi Harry!

I saw this in the FAQ:


Is Cascade function available in order to increase Input channel mixing capacity?


Yes. Using the Mini-YGDAI slots or Dante port (QL-QL only), you can configure the bus cascade connection. The cascade link communication is also available through MIDI or Slot1.
Click to expand...
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

harrybrilljr said:
I am not too clear on how many dante ins and outs you get with these desks. Is there a limit? Can you just create as many as you want/ need? Must be a processing limitation there.
Click to expand...

32x32 on the QL1
64x64 on the QL5

But don't forget you can add more Dante cards in the Slots too..
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Chris Johnson said:
Suffice it to say that several of the UK distributors have, in the past (may be finally fixed with current firmware), had issues with consoles 'glitching' (only word I can think of, audio momentarily drops, but then re-appears). At the beginning, there was an issue with a 15second audio drop that may occur if consoles had been powered on a very long time (like more than a day). This was acknowledged by Yamaha in the release notes for a fairly recent update (1.6?).
However, it appears that while this issue was resolved, a few of my contacts have reported much shorter drops (<0.5sec).
Click to expand...

My understanding is that the long drop out was a firmware issue, as illustrated elsewhere in this thread.

However, the short drop outs sounds exactly like the situation I saw first hand where two CL consoles were trying to be clock master for the Dante network. Basically, in each console, the Dante card was to get its clock from the console, and it was supposed to be the master clock for the network. Obviously, this is a clocking conflict. As soon as the consoles were all switched to get their clock from the Dante cards and the Dante network was allowed to just auto-select the clock master, the issues completely went away.

This is why I feel it is very important, when dealing with these networked real time audio systems, to always clock your console from the network.

When you do this, you can allow the Dante network to select the clock and your consoles will always be in sync.
 
Re: New Yamaha QL Console at Frankfurt

Quick question. The LS9 has the ability to patch a physical input to two layers ie: 1 to 1 and 1 to 32, 2 to 2 and 2 to 33, etc... a cool way to split the LS9 into a FoH and MoN board sharing only the hesd amp. Does the QL series have this ability as well?
Michael
 
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