?This passed week has been a strange one for me. I've had to leave the safe security of my recording studio world (and pause my midi sequencing learning) to learn the Yamaha 01V96 console. A good friend of mine's band just bought the console and it looks like I (like an idiot) volunteered to help with the live sound. Here is basically my experience with it.

If you are not familiar with the Yamaha 01V96, it is a digital mixer with tons of features. Every channel has built in compression, gating, 4 band parametric eq, and 8 aux sends. The unit has built in effects on 4 of the sends. The other 4 sends do whatever you please. Because of all these features, I thought that running live sound would not be a problem.

The Yamaha is one hell of a console for under $2,000. There is no way you could get a 16 channel mixer with a decent compressor for that price. When you add on the effects, multiple aux sends, and the ability to save and recall “scenes” which I would call “mixes” you find that this is one sweet deal.

Okay, so that's the features list like you would find in Musician's Friend. So how does this thing really work? Well, I had put in close to 30 hours on this console before the live show. I thought I had a decent feel for the console, but in no way was my understanding of the 01V96 anywhere near what I would call “comprehensive”.

When learning new audio recording software, it sometimes takes time to understand the little features even if you have the big features down to a T. Generally, it's not THAT big of deal to give the band a smoke break why you read the manual for 2 minutes and figure out how to do “x feature”. Well, in live sound there is no 2 minutes. You don't have 2 extra seconds. If you don't know how to do “x feature” you have problems.

Menus Menus Menus

In a nutshell, menus are the most hidious thing to ever be implemented into technology. You know how much of a pain it is adjusting the brightness of your TV. Well imagine running live sound that way. Okay, it's not as bad as the TV menu, but the “clumsiness” seams to be the same. Of course, maybe an experienced user of the console wouldn't be clumsy at all. After 30 hours on the console, I was clumsy, however.

I'm used to quickly grabbing a plugin and adjusting my settings, but using menus is “weird” to me. Especially on EQ and compression. I could never feel the compressor changing in my finger tips. Plugins don't let you feel either, but for whatever reason I'm 6,000 more comfortable with plugins. I think it's because the mouse makes things easier. You want to use a high shelf to take out high end over 10Khz? No problem. With one click and drag the you've made your EQ change. With the the Yamaha 01V, you have to select the proper layer, the proper channel, click the eq button, grab the gain knob...oh, you didn't select the “high” so fix the mistake you made, and then click on high and yank the gain down. Of course, you select “shelf” by twistying the Q / bandwidth knob all the way. Which way? I still don't remember! Granted, 4 bands of parametric EQ is powerful, but they were very difficult for me to use.

Aux Sends Have Mind Of Their Own

The problem with this console, for a first time user, is you can do almost anything with the routing. You can assign different inputs to different faders quite easily (if you can remember how). However, with extreme freedom comes extreme responsibility. You have to know EVERYTHING about this consoles routing or you will have problem.

For example, I had assigned a mono delay for vocals on aux #1. I returned it to channel #9 so that I could ride the delay of the lead vocal right there with the lead vocal. This worked fine when practicing at home with my recorded tracks. However, I never had time to figure out why I wasn't getting any delay on channel #9. For the entire show, I had to rely on reverb. There was simply no time to figure out the problem.

Now maybe the aux sends don't have a mind of their own, but if you don't have complete understanding of the routing, they may as well have.

User Defined Keys

The Yamaha allows you define user defined keys. These keys sit right above the 2Bus master fader. Theortically, you could have 100% different mixes for the verse and the chorus. You'd just have to push the appropriate user defined key and it will bring back a mix almost instantly. That sounds great (and it probably is to an advance 01V96 user). However, for beginners, this can be a nitemare. Make sure you define the user defined keys to “no assign” if you don't plan on using them. During practice, on more than one occasion, my hand had bumped one of these buttons and my entire mix, eq settings, compressor settings, levels, and aux sends were instantly gone. So make sure you disable them before the real show unless you know what you are doing.

Conclusion

Overall, the Yamaha 01V96 is a very powerful mixer for the money. In fact, you really don't need a rack at all. Everything you would need is in the 01V96 (except maybe a de-esser). I'd recommend the Yamaha 01v96 to anyone. However, there is a significant learning curve associated with learning the Yamaha. It's routing and menus making life tough for beginners. Do not do a serious live show without a complete understanding of the console!