Yamaha in the mix at Abbey Road workshop
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“This was a way of giving key members of the UK pro audio community a chance to informally network and learn more about Yamaha’s RIVAGE PM series systems, in an inspiring location and friendly, low-key atmosphere,” says Yamaha Commercial Audio UK/RoI sales manager Alex Warren, who co-ordinated the event with UK/RoI marketing manager Chris Irvine.
After meeting for a complimentary lunch, followed by a bracing walk along Abbey Road to the studios, guests were welcomed by Chris. This was followed by an interesting potted history of the studios by its head of audio products, Mirek Stiles.
With the free bar open, Jamiroquai’s Derrick MacKenzie (drums), Matt Johnson (keyboards), Paul Turner (bass) and Hazel Fernandez (vocals) performed a few songs, mixed by the band’s Front of House engineer Rick Pope on the Yamaha RIVAGE PM10, through a Nexo M10 PA system and 45N12 monitors.
Yamaha’s Andy Cooper then hosted an interesting Q&A session with Rick, which included questions from the assembled guests. Rick spent much of 2017 on tour with the RIVAGE PM10 system and a highlight of the Q&A was his honest, direct response to being asked how many times the system has gone down: “Never”.
From here, guests were able to get hands-on with the RIVAGE PM systems - a new PM7, supplied by Subfrantic Production Services, and two PM10s. With Yamaha’s Tim Bamber, Christoph Haertwig, Hans Metger, Tom Rundle and Reece Stead also on hand to discuss the systems and answer questions, it gave guests unfamiliar with the systems ample opportunity to discover more. After a couple more songs from the band and a further hands-on session with the consoles, the event wrapped up around 6pm.
“We are very grateful to all our guests who made this event such a tremendous success,” adds Alex. “Rick Pope, the band and the staff at Abbey Road Studios, the Subfrantic productions team, Yamaha and Nexo all worked very hard to make it happen, so it was very rewarding to receive many positive responses.”
(Jim Evans)
