A Barking Dog

The first few times I read David Berlind going on about Apple abusing monopoly power over the refusal to license the Fairplay DRM I responded the same way that my friend Manuel from Barcelona would with a perpelexed “Que?”. I blew it off as just another one of these tech pundits trying to play music biz exec or even perhaps the more charitable passionate music fan with an opinion on the subject. Music ain’t tech and tech ain’t music and as much as the Valley would like to think it is, it sure as hell ain’t Hollywood. Conversely, so it seems, that the music biz is rather slow on the uptake of new technology and doesn’t quite have a grasp on the future. The two are coming together and with any luck the best parts of the two will merge and start offering some services and a means to enjoy music that not only provide value for the consumers but also so the artists and perhaps the labels or whomever is distributing it can make some money.

As I’m trolling the blogosphere (can’t y’all come up with a better name?) for the latest dish on Spitzer subpoenas for Warner, Sony and Universal with regards to alleged (wink, wink) colluding to price fix music downloads, kinda like what they were indicted for with brick and mortar CD sales a couple years back, I noticed Berlind’s most recent piece.

Berlind does have a few really good points though there are a couple of Que? moments in there as well. One such Que? moment is he likens Apple to an abusive monopolist that has some sort of stranglehold on the music biz. Maybe in Jobs’ wet dreams. Say what you will about DRM but the iTMS is just another way to get music onto your iPod. I’d agree that the current DRM strategies are pretty limiting and in some cases, downright dangerous. I don’t know that I’d be too concerned about the future of DRM right now as thanks to Sony, the whole DRM debate has been turned on its head. Possible outcomes of this could be something like a less restrictive DRM or some sort of compuslory licensing that eliminates the need for DRM in the first place.

Another such Que? moment is when Berlind says…

“Down the road, when there are no more CDs and all music is bought online“. (emphasis mine)

I agree that at some point CDs will not be the prevalent physical form factor for retail music just as cylinders gave way to records that gave way to tape that gave way to CDs. Nothing new here that hasn’t been happening for the life of the music biz. It’s the addition of DRM that has the potential to throw a wrench into the works. The current problem, for the labels, anyway, isn’t a format change per se, it’s that they are losing control of the format and distribution. Will there ever not be any sort of physical media for retail music? Maybe, but it may be about the time I finally get a date with Jane Jetson and start working at Spacely Sprockets. To think that music will only be available online as we know it today is the sort of tech tunnelvision that has led to other wild pronouncements that didn’t quite pan out.

Music is enjoyed (notice I didn’t say consumed) in many different ways in many different places by many different people. Working out with an iPod, listening to CDs in the car, rocking out at home on the computer. Not everyone is always connected or always has a computer when they want to enjoy music. One of the big selling points the tech wonks use are “on demand network”, broadband, yada, yada, yada. I’ve had some form of “broadband” for about ten years but not everyone does nor does everyone want that (though most can get it if they want it) to be the only way they interface with other people or products. While I think it’s possible and highly likely that some form of digital distribution will shake out of all this, eliminating point of sale retail for music would be foolish. The market is too big not to sell music in a traditional retail setting. There a need for some sort of media (USB flash, SD,CF?) to carry music from one device or network to the other. You can’t tie music to a network or computer. Music is it’s own thing and needs to be as portable as the people that are enjoying the music are.

One thing in the piece I thought rather poignant was how are we to personalize music gifts in the era of DRM downloads. Giving someone a gift card to buy “our song” is about as romantic as having the Fed Ex guy show up with a certificate for roses from 1-800-Flowers. I’m sure that some industrious chaps and chappettes will come up with a solution but that sort of underscores my point. Buying and listening to music is a human thing. It’s about emotions and feelings. And that is what I think many on both sides, Hollywood and the Valley are missing. We aren’t mearly consuming a data stream or Soundscan numbers, we’re humans enjoying music.

In a couple of weeks geeks and suits from near and far will converge on our quaint little desert town for the annual running of the International Consumer Electronics Show, or CES. Not quite as hazardous as the Fiesta de San Fermin in Pamplona (unless you get caught in the rush for free AVN tix or free X Boxes) but still good fun all in all. You have until Fri (Dec 30) for no cost passes to the exhibits if you register online. You can find it, I know you get Google. I’m going to hit a few of the panels as well.

I’ll post anything that interests me and likely comment on it as well. For those of you that can’t make it this way for the show (if you haven’t booked your room already, good luck) let me know if you want a specific booth or item checked out and I will do so.

One of the things I miss from The Digital Forrest is the availability of excellent data connections, both wired and wireless. And the killer beans from Caffe Vita. From atop the former Roaddog Manor on Capitol Hill, I had a bevy of data choices. We had fiber into the building, I had one of the first DSL connections in the building way back when. We had Comcast. There was free WiFi at the laundry/arcade around the corner, free WiFi across the street at Online Coffee (who serve the killer bean from Caffe Vita), a Starbucks (or “thee enemy” as my pal Super Roadie, who happens to have a Caffe Vita endorsement calls them) that has T-Mobile for a price. That’s just in the 100 yard radius of the house. And doesn’t count the 8 or so WiFi nets that my fellow tenants had. A few of them open at any given time.

Just prior to moving down, I moved the services that were being hosted at Roaddog Manor to a rent-a-box in a colo with better infrastructure and pipes than what I had, though my machines are a bit more robust. One of the things I was looking for down here was a place with the sort of connectivity of which I was accustomed. I rented on the Monday after I arrived, I moved in the next Friday. In the meantime I was surfing with Thee Enemy on my twenty dollar a week T-Moble card. Since I was only going to be in this place until March (the hard rocking casino next to us bought the property and is turning it into condos) I didn’t want to get into anything long term. I was looking for something where I could have at least 768k both ways and not have anyone freak when I moved 20GB or so across the network and would impose any service restrictions on what was basically a jr. varsity data center. I found the big ISP in town, emailed them. Heard nothing. Called a couple of days later, left message. Heard nothing. Talked to the ILEC but they wanted year long service commitments, dynamic IPs, limited TOS (as in no servers) and wanted to me install a land line though I could get it unbundled. I haven’t had a landline for voice in almost 10 years. The CLECs, the only one I could find couldn’t offer anything different than what the ILECs did as they were basically reselling the circuit. What I’m doing, hosting my own Internet services, is pretty common in a tech haven like Seattle or the Silicon Valley but back in regularville (if you can call Sin City regular) people just don’t host their own services. I then decided to leave the services at the colo. Hell, in bandwidth and electricity/cooling charges I’m actually saving a bit of money. So I took the introductory offer of 6MB/256k cable for forty bucks a month to tide me over until the minions of Peter take control of the property in March.

I’ve been looking for a while at the new (new to the US) 3G sort of data services and was pretty interested in the EV DO offerings from Verizon and now from Sprint. It’s pretty much low speed broadband available in many places where you have mobile phone service. Touring this has been a consideration for several years. I can remember in the early days of the LAB having to direct dial from France into a modem connnected to a box in my apt so I could log into the server at the colo. I also used Compuserve and AOL to get on the network however I could. These days it’s not that difficult. Most of the hotels I stay in now offer “hi speed” Internet though the good hotels still charge 10 to 20 bucks a day. At one resort in Austria over the summer they wanted (and we paid) 30 euros (about 36 bucks, kids) for 24 hrs of access. Since my slotting into a big time house gig down here is going to take a bit longer than anticipated, I’ve got a couple of small tours on the books after the start of the year. Though I’d rather stay in town to be available when that elusive slot opens, but I can make as much on a short run than I can doing local gigs in the meantime. Here’s where the EV DO comes in. I need data services at home. I need data services when I tour and it can get pretty spendy if they don’t have it at the gig.

EV DO seemed to be what I wanted. It wasn’t blazingly fast, but it worked, was better than dialup and best of all I could get it in many of the places we were gigging. No more expensive WiFi, no more hunting hotspots if the gig or hotel didn’t have them, no more paying premium in the airport for an hour or so use. Just plug and go, using the same account that I use at home for primary access. It’s too easy, right? Depending on the plan, it was 80 to 100 bucks a month. More than I was paying for my broadband but it wouldn’t take too many 10 or 20 dollar WiFi charges to equal out or even come ahead in the game, particularly if I was on an extended run where I was paying for service at home that I couldn’t use. I mean, it’s too easy, right?

I got ready to bite the bullet but at the Verizon store they didn’t seem to be too up on many of the details and were pretty insistant on bundling another wireless account to the package to get the good deal. Since Google is my buddy I jumped on to see what Cingular and others were offering and ran across EVDOinfo.com and EVDOforums.com . Both great sites run by a company that sells Verizon and Sprint EVDO gear and services plus provides the Mac support the telcos don’t. This was too cool. It looked like I was going to get portable US broadband though at a premium price. As I started poking around the site I noticed a thread from a guy that just received a termination notice due to overactivity. At first it appeared to be a gamer downloading games and I didn’t think much about it until the discussion turned to the TOS and AUP from Verizon. And this is where I think they completely miss the boat on the best use for the service. Under the TOS, you aren’t allowed to use it as your primary means for connecting to the Internet. Huh? While the service is geared to road warriors of Fortune 500s (and priced like it) I don’t think they understand that guys like me could be gone for months and it will in fact be the primary means of Internet access. Anyway, that’s easy enough to get around if your data transfer requirements aren’t that critical. And that is where they really blow it.

Additional terms are that you aren’t able to use the service to download movies, music, program files, use a Web cam, VoIP. Not just copyrighted material, ALL material of that kind. That means no visiting the iTunes music store or listening to NPR streamed to the desktop.

From the VZAccess TOS doc

“NationalAccess and BroadbandAccess data sessions may be used with wireless devices for the following purposes: (i) Internet browsing; (ii) email; and (iii) intranet access (including access to corporate intranets, email and individual productivity applications like customer relationship management, sales force and field service automation). Unlimited NationalAccess/BroadbandAccess services cannot be used (1) for uploading, downloading or streaming of movies, music or games, (2) with server devices or with host computer applications, including, but not limited to, Web camera posts or broadcasts, automatic data feeds, Voice over IP (VoIP), automated machine-to-machine connections, or peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing, or (3) as a substitute or backup for private lines or dedicated data connections. NationalAccess/BroadbandAccess is for individual use only and is not for resale. We reserve right to limit throughput or amount of data transferred, deny or terminate service, without notice,”

You gotta be shittin’ me. This is 2005. Has anyone at Verizon seen the Internet lately? Full motion video ads are pretty normal. I’m not talking about downloading movies but everyday normal stuff. iChat with your kid? Not if the “can you hear me now” guy has anything to say about it. Remote video conferencing would be a great way to pitch this expensive mobile networking solution, seems like a no brainer to me but they don’t want you to use it for that. Automatic data feeds? Like RSS feeds? Sorry. Automated machine to machine connections? Has anyone explained to those guys what an SMTP server is and how it works? From a post at the forum, it was stated that the limits were 5GB a month for three months then you’d get sent a form letter and possibly disconnected AND charged the early termination fee. Considering an ISO of a CD is about 700 MB, that’s nothing. The OSX autoupdate is at least 35 or 40 MB each time. Those of us that work on the network a bunch can do 5GB a month without breaking a sweat.

I understand concerns with the use of the bandwidth or piracy concerns but this is over the top and the reason you won’t see me being a Verizon customer anytime soon, if at all. This is a premium service, perhaps over priced even and many of the killer apps that could help float this or other basic apps that are a daily part of the Internet are forbidden by the TOS. It’s as if the policy wonks at Verizon are stuck in a mid ’90s AOL centeric sort of Web model. I think that if those guys broke away from bundling services and concentrated on offering pay as you use services it would be much better for the users. If users want to video conference, fine, charge ‘em. If I want to listen to Keillor and it churns more data, charge me. If the kid wants to download Lost to his iPod, charge him. I don’t see that Verizon has anybody setting policy that knows what the Web is about these days. The potential to turn some of these verbotten apps into revenue generators that large companies will gladly pay extra for in the form of VoIP and remote video conferencing is pretty good. You lower the basic price or make it pay as you use. The users that didn’t think 80 bucks was a good deal now get in at a lower price and pay for what they use. Conversely, the users utilizing more of the pipe pay more. To make up for the revenue lost because users aren’t roped into flat rate accounts they don’t need is made up by more users using less per user, but more overall. There are a lot more out there than the big spenders and having a pricing model that better serves all the users will go a long way toward making this the service to have.

Not a sequel to the D.W. Griffith classic but Live Nation is what the the soon to be spun off Clear Channel Entertainment is to be called. On Weds Dec 21 CCE Spinco, the holding company for the divestiture, will rename as Live Nation. Holders of Clear Channel stock will be issued one share of Live Nation for every eight shares of Clear Channel they own. Also on tap is moving the HQ from Houston to Beverly Hills (and has pretty much already happened) continueing the blood letting in the form of 400 jobs, or 10% of the workforce and slimming from fourteen operating units to six, music, theatrical, sports, venue management, marketing and interactive tech.

It’ll be interesting to see if this will be a new face in the concert biz, reviving the spirit of the old days or if this is just another makeover for what is likely the most hated company in the touring business.

This is my recollection of the second and final day of breakfast and lunch with Yamaha punctuated by using a PM1D. The first day was pretty productive. We learned new things and got a great deal of free time on the console. For this second day we were going to go over the hardware ans setup config as well as get a tutorial of each of the menu panels and after lunch a more indepth look at V2. I’d come to listen to the new mic pre amps and to see what V2 was all about. And also for the free food.

I was looking forward to the hardware portion, though in hindsight it could be folded into the feature portion from the first day to save time. On the gigs I’ve done with a PM1D there has always been a tech that set it up and helped me program. I figured I should know how it goes together just in case I turn up at a gig to find a pile of parts and no guy or if the guy abandons ship prior to the gig. Once you see the topology it’s pretty easy and more advanced configs are available like mirrored consoles, consoles sharing input devices and DSP engines and consoles sharing input device with separate DSP and scenes. They also went over a bit of the troubleshooting procedure and what to be able to provide when you call Yamaha for support. One neat thing was 24/7 emergency support if your console tanks late at night at a gig and an applications support line open during the week for general operational questions. I thought that was pretty cool that during the week you can call and ask them how to do something relevant to your app if you can’t figure it out.

Of the questions I had one was regarding the use of fiber for longer distances. There is a box called the Artist 1D that Yamaha commissioned from Riedel to add fiber capability to the PM1D. It’s 80 channels each direction and integrates pretty easily into the system. The trainers didn’t seem to know too much about it in detail and I would suspect not that many have been deployed in the field. For example no one knew of any portable apps using this piece or how the connector configs were deployed though one of the theaters that had a person in the class had one deployed though he did not know the specifics of how it worked. When I asked about the connector specifics the marketing guy replied that they were “mil spec” connectors. Well, OK but what format? “Mil spec” again was the answer. That’s not a format, that’s a buzz word. When I asked if it was single or multimode fiber a similar confusion ensued, with one person saying yes you could operate the snake both ways. Persons that work with fiber, and this will become more and more common in our little world, need to be familiar with the various connector types as well as the difference between multimode and single mode fiber. The Riedel comes with LC fiber connectors (and operates on multimode fiber) but in a portable app LCs aren’t something you’d like to haul around. They aren’t made for repeated portable connections in harsh environments. You’d likely have to come off to a Stratos or other type of rugged use connection which would add a non trival amount to the cost. That’s one area where I think Neutrik or Whirlwind could clean up is a lower cost, robust fiber connector for portable applications. Whilrwind has a fiber conenctor though I’m not sure of the pricing. Whirlwind is making a mult specific to the copper based PM1D config taking the SCSI type D connectors that connect the engines and frames to a circular mult, a la W3 though it’s not listed on the Whirlwind site.

Next up was the software overview portion where we stepped through every menu on the surface. While the overview was handy I think that doing it on the first day would have been more appropriate as we had already covered most of the options the day before in the excercise. Still though, it was good to get a walk through. One thing that I hadn’t fully understood prior was how the various panning modes operateded. This is a pretty critical thing when doing discrete ear mixes. Some players want either different spacing of panning or completely different, aysemetrical pans when compared to the other players. It’s something my first couple of times on the console I stumbled on as the techs weren’t used to doing ears and in one case, the tech didn’t have a grasp on speaking english. The three modes are linking the mix bus pans to the L+R pans, linking all pans for that particular mix bus, separate from the L+R pans or individual mode where all pans operate independently. It’s not very obvious and if you don’t know about it or have a tech that knows about it you will spend some time trying to figure it out, if you are able to at all. One thing I’d like to see in fader flip mode is that when the pan is set to individual, the pan on the strip on the surface becomes the mix bus pan. The way it is now, you have to SEL the input and set the mix bus pans which is a bit more time consuming. A button to center the pan would be a nice addition as well.

After another fine lunch we were able to get a demo of the new FX and dynamics plug ins. They pretty much knocked off 1176s and 160xs as well as a Pultec eq and tape saturation device. They sound pretty good, better than stock dynamics units but that’s the whole point, selling esoteric plugins as part of the upgrade. While the new plug ins are part of the V2 upgrade, I wish Yamaha would go the extra distance and either open up the API to third party developers of TDM or VST plugins or develop a stand alone plugin engine that interfaced with the system. I suppose one could do something like Plugzilla and interface via a DIO frame but I think it would be more advantageous, not to mention user friendly to incorporate it into the system. We were able to finish off the day with another couple of hours of lab time with the system but I had already completed my list of things I wanted to do and thought I’d get an early start dealing with the traffic back to Vegas. Prior to that I shared some of my PM5D settings on the demo piece in the lab as it didn’t have any scenes populated. I had several configs of the mon gig I’ve been doing this year as well as an FOH gig I did last year. At the completion of the class, we were issued surveys of the class which we filled out and returned in exchange for a bag o’ swag that included a PM1D branded hat, nice polo shirt, certificate of completion and Yamaha Commerical Audio branded mini mag light. Not a bad haul.

This was a very informative couple of days and I can’t recommend it enough. My hosts were hospitable, informative and entertaining. The one thing that did stand out in my mind is how the PM1D went from industry leader on the release, to also run, long in the tooth status. While certainly functional and useable the product has slipped in the last couple of years and the latest upgrade adds enough functionality so that other products (including the PM5D) don’t relegate it to museum status. Some of the new features, like the gain compensation feature for shared preamps is pretty limiting in that only one surface has direct control of the preamp. That falls short of some of the other solutions where both surfaces can control the preamp with the compensation happening bi directionaly. That’s just one example of my point that the PM1D is closer to end of life than Yamaha would like us to believe. I think within the next year or two I’d expect something to take its place. With the interface of the M7CL (more on that surface in another post) I think we are getting a peek at the future of what Yamaha has in store for the surface market. As long as the dev cycles aren’t too long it’s a pretty good bet the Yamaha will still retain the market lead in the deployment of pro level control surfaces.

I was informed by Yamaha that a Nexo demo for the current product will be in Las Vegas on Monday Dec 12th. As in this coming Monday. It’s in the La Tour Ballroom at Wynn Las Vegas. I was told they would have the Geo T, Geo S and PS line as well as an M7CL. It runs an open format (that means just stop by) from 9 am to 5 pm. I plan on stopping by early afternoon. I had a demo and shot a short about it last spring prior to Yamaha taking over sales and marketing in the US. It’ll be interesting to see how this one compares.

A couple months back I noticed that Yamaha was holding PM1D training and thought it might be nice to attend. I’ve used the PM1D before, but not to the extent that I have other units. Plus, it was a good way to kill a couple of days, network with other noise boyz and grrls and might look pretty good on the old resume (which I’ve had to update and dust off over the last month or so). It starts with going to a page on the Yamaha site where you fill out a form that asks a few basic questions as to your familiarity with control surfaces and what you do in the sound world. A week or so later they send you a confirmation and you’re good to go. Two full days, hands on. Breakfast and lunch included. The best part though is that they provide the training free of charge. Did I mention free food?

The day starts with a continental breakfast in the lab. This lab is equipped with seven PM1D V1.7 units the new mic pres that are specifically configured for the class and an additional PM1D V2 as the instructor console. We divide ourselves into four person teams per surface, just like in high school and college (what little college I attended) lab class. There is of course a projector that is fed the console display out and the now ubiquitous Power Point presentation that looks good, is relevant and appears to have been honed quite well for the presentation. A CD is distributed with the presentation and the copy of the PM1D editor software to install for those of use that brought Bill Gates boxes to run the software. A PC card adapter loaded with Smart Media with PM1D branding is also distributed so you can save your settings. The format is very loose and you are encouraged follow along on the surface and be very hands on as well as ask whatever questions you need to get grasp the subject. Of all the events of this nature I’ve attended in the last quarter century or so, this is one of the best. Excellent material, excellent presentation, awesome format.

The class population was pretty diverse. Mostly church sound types. A couple of theater house guys and a small contengent from LV. Four of us if I’m not mistaken. Some from as far away as NY and Texas. I can’t help to think it was the free food that brought them this far. There was even a drum tech that has become a sound guy. I was pretty much the only one of “my kind” there, that is long hair rock roadies trying to break into the big time Vegas production show scene though there were a couple of other touring guys that were working with well known acts. A few others (pretty much the churches) had PM1Ds installed, a few of us used them as touring sound guys. Others were there just to learn the surface. The first part of the morning starts with an overview of the systems capability and features. It’s a good soup to nuts presentation about what this particular piece of gear is about. The second portion of the morning touches on the basic operational features. If you’ve been using the surface for a while most of it is pretty basic at this point, though all of us, even the guys that have had them installed for a year or so picked up some tips. Of particular note for me were the use of the shift key and touching various keys to bring the effects or graphics to the encoders and faders. The one bummer, big bummer is that the version 2.0 files are not backwards compatable with version 1.7 surfaces. That particular trainer didn’t have quite the same perspective as I did as to why that’s a bad thing ™ for touring guys. While the V2 will read your 1.7 files, if you make changes on the V2 to the file and save it, the 1.7 will not be able to read it. That means two sets of files, one for each version and having to replicate any changes made on the V2 by hand or on the computer to the 1.7 files. The factory line was that the owners need to upgrade to V2 and I agree, but it’s not practical in all cases and this would impact non owners, such at those that do one offs or festivals with the surface using different pieces with different software versions. I’m somewhat surprised as Yamaha is usually pretty good about that sort of thing.

After a nice catered lunch in an adjacent room (did I mention the free food?) we were to then settle down to a more in depth tour of the software. During lunch we were joined by several folks from the factory from tech support and sales and marketing. I know for a fact they came for the free food. At our table, we were talking about various surfaces and reliability when I remarked that I had locked up a PM5DRH hard a couple months back. In that crowd saying something like that will get you noticed. The gent seated next to me quizzed me a bit about it, saying it’s the first he’s heard of one crashing. I can believe that very few have crashed, but not that none have. Then again, the factory doesn’t hear of all crashes for all types of gear and that particular one seems to be pretty rock solid. But like I say, it’s not IF it breaks or crashes, it’s WHEN. True for all gear.

After lunch we started in with the software portion of the day. It was a good presentation with more little nuggets for me to remember. As we approach the end of the session, I decide to ask more of a marketing/sales question. If there is anybody that can drop a turd in a punch bowl, well, how you doin’? My question was this (paraphrased) “What is the current status of this product with respect to its life cycle”. Translated to roadie that means “when are you going to replace this with a better, cheaper faster version”? The trainers explained that they just released a V2 and that as a practice Yamaha sourced parts that would be available for years. No doubt, others could learn from Yamaha in this regard as the support for end of lifed product is exemplary. I complemented them as such, explaining that I had a long history of the console line beginning with the PM1000. I explained that with the adaptation of surfaces the PM1D, while considering it’s still an nice piece, is the grandfather of surfaces at this point and using v1.7 is showing some chinks in the armor. The V2 software and new pres will help but it won’t be too long before the surface needs an overhaul. I used the example of the Heritage 3k being all the shizzle for the last while, now looking to be upstaged by the PM5D and even in a year the 5D sold almost twice as many units as the 1D has in almost five years. I explained a rental company needs to stock what people want, not necessarily what is older and proven. At about this point marketing got involved in the discussion.

I was told that my question was “moot” because if you needed a surface now for a job, this was suitable and available. I countered that it was anything but moot and for such a significant investment in the neighborhood of US$200k the customers should know what the road map might be. An attempt was made to correct my pricing info, but I explained that for an appropriate config, two surfaces, two engines and all the frames and cards I was quoted nearly US$200k. I was quoting street price though I know the dealer price and I don’t think they would have appreciated me sharing that with a room full of end users. At that point it was brought up that I wasn’t comparing apples to apples as that was for two surfaces. Yes, but my point is that we buy and deploy console sets in pairs. Even then a used PM1D from Hi-Tech is about US$125k for a single 96×48 config. I was then a bit more direct and asked if there was a replacement or upgrade product in the pipeline (you know there is) and at what point would it be introduced. I was told that I would not be given any advance product info and that they are constantly working to develop improvements in existing product and create new product. Of course they are, that’s why they have the advantage they have. At that point I specifically stated that with the introduction of the interface on the M7CL (they have one in the room, more on the next post after I get a chance to drive it a bit more) I thought that the Centralogic interface was a precursor to what the next gen PM1D interface might be. I couldn’t get anyone from the factory to comment on or off the record.

At that point we’d steered well away from the training and it was suggested that we continue this discussion over drinks in the bar. I don’t want to give the impression that this was advisarial. It was spirited for sure but a good discussion all in all. Like Aaron Brown, not so much like Jerry Springer. I don’t agree with their position but as I was a guest in their house I didn’t want to bust balls too much. If nothing else it was entertaining and perhaps informative for the rest of the class. I was approached by a couple of people in the class as well as a staff person saying that it was a good question and the discussion was insightful. I thought it was a good question and something that Yamaha should be addressing head on, instead of dancing around. Granted, these were rank and file troops without the authority to issue definitive statements on the issue but the Yami brass need to know that by keep us in the dark, they aren’t doing themselves or the users/dealers/customers any favors. King of the market status can be fleeting. Just ask GM.

We ended the day with an excercise that I consider to be very appropriate to configuring and using the surface in a real world environment. We used 24 tracks from a well known act to configure and operate the surface using a pre determined config. We were to set the surface, from scratch to mix these tracks, set up front fills and delay stack sends and mons for the act. It pretty much gives you a chance to set up several different configs as how the surface would be used at a gig. There are ear mixes, house mixes, wedge mixes, thumper/sub mon mixes, dynamics processing and effects use. They’ve really done a good job on the excercise and left the lab open for more than four hours after the presentations. If you operate or may soon operate a PM1D you should attend this workshop.

If nothing else for the free food.