tube Takes Delivery of the First Yamaha RIVAGE PM7 in the UK
Manchester based audio specialist tube uk is the first sound rental and live-production company in the UK to take delivery of Yamaha’s brand new RIVAGE PM7 digital mixing system, which received a high-profile launch at 2018 ISE expo in Amsterdam in February.
tube’s Melvyn Coote comments, “We’re always excited to be among ‘the first’ to use new technologies and are delighted to be THE very first company in the UK with a PM7!”
He added that although it’s a bold move, the console has “many excellent features, a great quality, a good price point and is underlined by Yamaha’s rock solid reputation for reliability!”
The powerful and flexible RIVAGE PM7 fills a gap in the product range left by the iconic Yamaha PM5D, which was launched in 2004 and swiftly became a touring industry standard for digital live mixing and the go-to interface for a raft of top engineers worldwide.
“We always said that when a PM5D replacement hit the market we would buy into it because the history of that product is legendary and we continue to have great results from other Yamaha products” explained Melvyn, adding “we really believe that the PM7 will prove itself as an equally awesome product!”
Yamaha initially arranged a hands-on demo day for around 60 high-end engineers at Abbey Road Studios in London in March where they could use RIVAGE systems in situ and get a good idea on the functionality and quality on offer.
In April tube and Yamaha presented a similar hands-on workshop session at the impressive concert venue in Manchester, Albert Hall where tube are the resident audio systems provider.
“All the feedback we were hearing from both of these sessions was extremely positive … so these considerations taken on aggregate added up to it being the right product, right time and right place!” enthused Melvyn.
The tube PM7 has been packaged with an RPio622 I/O stage rack – designed specifically for the RIVAGE family of digital mixing systems – which is currently loaded with four 16-way input modules, one 16-way output module and a 16-way input / output AES module.
The impressive sounding Neve Silk input modules offer a choice of two Neve and one Yamaha pre-amp type on every channel, giving the engineer a great choice of tonal textures right from the input stage.
“That’s a great range of quality preamp choices,” stated Melvyn. The inclusion of the Neve head amps – which recreate the characteristics of Rupert Neve Designs transformer circuitry and acclaimed SILK processing through Yamaha’s VCM digital modelling technology – show that there has been no compromises in quality. “The 32-bit / 96kHz processing throughout also makes this a great sounding console”.
Melvyn also likes the 120 channel count which will service most medium to large productions, together with the 60 mix buses, 24 x matrices, dual stereo mixes, dual cue buses and processing for up to 192 plug-ins. “With this extensive i/o count, it’s been designed to be properly multi-purpose and fit a wide range of audio scenarios.”
The RIVAGE PM7 and PM10 systems use Yamaha’s new high-speed TWINLANe data multicore system to transfer the high data rates between RPio units and the control surface, and can also run a new 144-channel Dante card … which will integrate with tube’s current CL / QL / Rio infrastructure.
tube has purchased numerous Yamaha products over the years, and Melvyn stresses the “incredible reliability” of the brand is a key factor, and essential for any busy rental and live-sound operation like tube.
“The PM5D in particular has been absolutely bullet proof, so we’re expecting the same of the PM7,” he concludes.
For interested engineers, tube uk is offering hands-on demo time at their warehouses in Manchester or Slough. To arrange a session please contact one of the projects team on:
PM7@tubeuk.com or +44 345 890 9990
