Marquee’s Glen Smith, who flew to the Frankfurt Musikmesse with directors Spencer Brooks and Andy Huffer to finalize the deal, told us: "John has been through all the Yamaha boards. He loves the PM4000 - which he also bought from Marquee - and he told us if the PM5000 gave him all that and more, then he’d be interested."
John Ramsay can remember right back to the inaugural PM200 when he was mixing local bands in his native Scotland. "We had monitors along the front of the stage apron with ‘YAMAHA’ spelt across the wedges, and played back through WEM column speakers," he recalls. But Yamaha technology has come along way since then. In 1986 he formed EFX Audio and was soon joined by partner Steph Fleming. By this time they were using PM3000 and PM4000 boards with high profile bands like Simple Minds - as well as Yamaha’s smaller consoles.
It was Glen Smith who introduced EFX to the PM5000 architecture. "Glen always gave us a lot of help when he ran ISE," remembers John, "and when he joined Marquee, and told us about the PM5000 we were ready to climb on the bandwagon. Marquee have always been there for us if and when we needed, and their advantage is that we have been able to deal with the same people for ten years." He also includes Yamaha Commercial Audio’s Mike Case in his list of plaudits, for outstanding customer back-up.
Knowing Yamaha’s pedigree for reliability Ramsay could see the immediate advantages of the PM5000 for mixing sound to the L-Acoustics V-Dosc, dV-Dosc and ARCS systems which EFX run. What further drove the decision was that last summer they also mixed shows for Paul Simon and Bob Dylan in Scotland, and having Yamaha’s flagship desk, he senses, will help them win more tours that are spec’d up in the US.
Assessing the PM5000, he says: "This will probably be one of the last big analogue boards Yamaha will make. It is clearly a direct descendant of the PM4000 - but with some useful additions and versatility inherited from the digital PM1D; this is especially useful as we don’t feel we are ready for a PM1D."
The main features of the PM5000, which commences shipping early summer, include: Unmatched PM series audio, refined to a new level; comprehensive input channel functions; 35-bus configuration for FOH or monitor applications; 12 VCA groups and 12 (4 stereo/8 mono) matrix; New Variable Sum Gain control; Digital scene recall; Refined panel layout (retaining the recognisable PM Series format); High-reliability, low-noise power supply."I am particularly impressed with the 990 digital scene recall and motorised fader intputs," enthused John. "Architecturally, this desk is completely efficient - for example, to do an open air gig in daylight you can increase the sensitivity of the legends at the desk and see exactly what’s on the pads and the sub groups."
(Lee Baldock)
