Marquee Audio has supplied Surrey-based PA rental company Kinetic with a pair of super-compact Yamaha LS9 digital consoles which have been deployed on a 30-date tour of the UK by Barbara Dickson. The larger of the two desks, a LS9-32, has been used by Kinetic's Gareth Fox-Williams to mix front-of-house sound, provide eight monitor mixes, and multi-track the shows for future possibilities as a live album.
Fox-Williams says preparing for this his third tour with Barbara Dickson was the moment he finally realised the inevitability of digital consoles. "Over the last year, I got my digital head doing a lot of successful work last year on a Yamaha M7CL digital desk, and when I saw the similarities between that and the LS9, I had to order one, even though I'd not seen one in the flesh. To me, it feels very familiar, very accessible and intuitive to navigate. And the quality outstrips any of its competition."
In fact, Fox-Williams has carried the second of the two consoles, a 16-mic/line input 32 channel LS9-16 as a spare, although there has been no need to get it out of its cardboard box. "Since I'm one of the first engineers to use the LS9 as the main desk on a significant tour, I thought I'd bring a spare to insure against any potential issues, for example with the single internal power supply. As it only weighs 10kg, this has not been a hardship." In his single rack, there are 2 external 8-channel pre-amps, there to boost the capacity of the LS9-16 if it had to be put into service. "I've already set up a mirror image of the main desk on that spare one, using the memory stick which can carry all system data. As well as saving all the desk settings on the USB stick, I have been recording the FOH mix on it for reference and also running the pre-show announcement from it, cued by one of the desk’s twelve User Defined Keys."
Playing theatres and concert halls around the UK, Kinetic's touring production has involved a Sherman RS-5 PA system, sometimes interfacing with the house systems, "if there are big difficult balconies, we use house fills for these. I’m running Yamaha’s Studio Manager software on my laptop with a wireless network link to the desk, and the ability to sit in the balcony whilst balancing and EQ-ing the house fills is fantastic. The delays available on every output let me time everything properly too. Although I'm also doing 8 monitor mixes from the desk, plus 3 or 4 FX for the mix, I have had mixes and outputs to spare."
Fox-Williams, who also has long-term clients such as Steeleye Span and Maddy Prior, has also been using the LS9 to record Barbara Dickson's shows. "I have two MY16AT cards in the console slots, giving an extra 32 input and outputs on ADAT format using optical cable. 24 of these outputs are in use, multitracking onto PC using Cubase. It was the first time I've done this, but it's been very successful and everyone is excited about it."
After a 6-week tour using the console for three concurrent tasks, Fox-Williams has had a unique opportunity to evaluate the LS9 and he's very impressed. "It's been designed for live use from the word go. All the effects are on board the console, EQ, delay, compression, gates. Although it saves me about half an hour on set-up, the main saving has been on the weight in the truck – about 150kg less because there are no outboard racks. And because you don't have to consider all the extra outboard, you can save a lot of prep time back at the shop!"
Since the launch of the LS9 Series, Marquee Audio has quickly established itself as one of the leading suppliers of these compact Yamaha consoles to the professional audio sector. The LS9 Series follow in the distinguished footsteps of the Yamaha PM1D, PM5D, and M7CL, expanding Yamaha's digital mixing console lineup for live sound and installations. The LS9 series consists of the 32-mic/line input 64-channel LS9-32, and the 16-mic/line input 32 channel LS9-16. In addition to an extensive range of gating, compression, and equalization capabilities, there's also a built-in USB memory recorder/player for recording or BGM playback, and other functionality that provides everything needed for small to medium scale live sound or installed applications in remarkably compact, all-in-one consoles.
