M7 / LS9 - limitations

[ghance]

Yamaha M7CL / LS9 are great desks in the right application.. But have any users in here found good workarounds to the following:

 

EXTERNAL INSERTS: Why-O-Why are the inserts only routable to slots!?? Inserting external dynamics on a channel seems a pain without a card like the MY16-ADDA96 in a slot. Workaround is something like Vox in on CH1, don't send to LR but direct out to say MIX 1/OMNI 1. thru your Avalon / Summit. Back into CH2 for business as usual. So you end up with your mic HA on CH1 and everything else on CH2.. dull. any better ideas? and lets NOT have a protracted dirge about ?why? when there are on-board inserts.

 

UNLINKING STEREO CH's: Everything seems ganged and unlinkable. Lets pretend you have a support band who is insisting on mixing monitors from FOH, despite having a desk & engineer sitting on stage for such things. Most of the monitor CH's are doing something, but the Stereo CH's are idle... so I want to take MIX 1 - 8 from FOH into STEREO CH's 1-4 on the Monitor desk and back out to monitor amp rack as usual. i.e. ST1 L > MIX 1. ST1 R > MIX 2.... ST4 L > MIX 7. ST4 R > MIX 8. BUT as the ST's are ganged, what you actually get is ST1 L > MIX 1. ST1 R > MIX 1.. doh. Any bright idea's other than free up some mono channels?

 

SLOTS: Seems to be one less slot than the ideal number. i.e. M7CL-48. Got 3 slots.. so thats 3x Ethersound cards to make use of a 48Ch skinny multicore.. and no slots left over for ADAT if I want do a multitrack recording or an ADDA card if I want use external inserts... same applies to 32 / LS9's etc.. So.. have to use an external ADAT converter from OMNI outs for recording (which means an extra DA - AD process). And no space for a ADDA card so I'm back to to the workaround above.. Be nice to see if the v2 firmware due this summer changes the Insert options.

 

 

I except that these are natural limitations for budget desks... but have you got any better workarounds (and I don't mean buy a Vi4 / SD8)

 

cheers

 

.spike

[Dan Appleby]

EXTERNAL INSERTS: Why-O-Why are the inserts only routable to slots!??

 

Never had to do this... but why not run them 'in-line'... I.e mic output -> external dynamics -> Desk HA

 

UNLINKING STEREO CH's: Everything seems ganged and unlinkable.

 

They are not unlinkable... however you can independently select each 'side' of stereo input - allthough I'm not sure if you can then send, for eg, ST IN 1 L to mix send 1, ST IN 1 R to mix send 2 etc (I'm guessing probably not, hence your post!). I think you can internally re patch the independent ST inputs to mono fader channels (if that makes sense?!?!), so in theory you could do some internal re-patching, and then store it as a scene memory.... Hmmm, not sure without having a desk in front of me.

 

SLOTS: Seems to be one less slot than the ideal number.

 

Never been a problem for me... use an analog core! Problem solved :-)

[ghance]

thanks for the reply.

 

INSERTS: I have had to do this on several occasions. running in-line only works if the external unit has a Mic pre. which is not a bad thing given the yamy pre's.

 

ST's: ah.. patch to a mono? on a 2nd layer? good idea! thanks, didn't think of that. will try

 

SLOTS: not a problem using an analogue core.. I guess its yamy's way of saying if we want to use digi cores we must also accept internal inserts only. Never tried it.. but wonder what an M7 sounds like with MADI cards and the DigiCo stagebox.. seems to be a lot more options for MADI than Ethersound..

 

anyone else got an idea for the insert issue? ta

[risc]

EXTERNAL INSERTS: Why-O-Why are the inserts only routable to slots!?? Inserting external dynamics on a channel seems a pain without a card like the MY16-ADDA96 in a slot. Workaround is something like Vox in on CH1, don't send to LR but direct out to say MIX 1/OMNI 1. thru your Avalon / Summit. Back into CH2 for business as usual. So you end up with your mic HA on CH1 and everything else on CH2.. dull. any better ideas? and lets NOT have a protracted dirge about ?why? when there are on-board inserts.

 

Do you not find that using analogue inserts on some channels causes a latency issue with the other channels?

Go digital, stay digital. If necessary use digital inserts. You will find that you can also have access for your digital recording equipment using the same cards

[ghance]

agree with "stay digi" approach. yes there could be a latency issue.. but sometimes it would be useful... on a festival stage when you have a band engineer tipping up 30mins before their slot with a favourite box of toys to sort that tricky vocal or whatever.. you just want to plug & go..