Over the past few months I have noticed more and more tours, big ones, going out with analogue consoles. For example The Rolling Stones with a Yamaha PM4000 and Eric Church with a Midas Heritage 3000.

Is this the start of an analogue counter culture in the live audio world? I recently mixed a gig at a small venue in San Francisco where the house console was a Yamaha PM3000. That coupled with a tc Electronics M-One, Yamaha SPX1000, loads of dbx compressors plus some other outboard gear I haven’t seen since the 90’s it was a great flashback. These large tours are also using legacy products in many areas, is that a liability?

To reminisce for a moment, it was weird but strangely comforting to stand behind the huge PM3000. What was also comforting was being able to immediately know how to do everything on the console without having to know the menu system and layer configuration. Yes, the PM3000 isn’t the greatest sounding desk in the world and yes the headphone volume knob was a little on the touchy side but, the console did everything I needed and soundcheck was a breeze. The last time I mixed on a large format console has to be over ten years ago and I am totally digitally indoctrinated now, but does that mean it’s right or better?

Some of you may have read (accidentally I am sure) some of my articles over the years, in such magazines as Pro Sound News Europe and Lighting and Sound International, where I bemoaned the use of line-arrays over point source. Everybody knows point source is superior right??? The explosion of line arrays and the “that’s what the client expects” mentality took over and you don’t really see much point source around anymore, which I think is a shame because some of it blows most line arrays out of the water.

But I seem to have digressed somewhat. I guess it will be interesting if indeed the analogue console does start to make a bit of an underground comeback. Trucking companies will be happy!

Digital consoles are great and of course come with pretty much everything you need in one box, but at the expense still (in my opinion) of operability. Many digital desks are not designed very well. Tiny screens, tiny on screen menus (how many live engineers do you know with tiny fingers?) multiple menu selections just to patch something in. Certain consoles are better than others, but on the whole they all operate the same way. With the exception of Avid, Cadac, SSL & Midas many manufactures are still missing the point. That said, it will be interesting to see what Avid have done to the operating system on the new S6L console.

Anyway, enough rambling. Keep your eyes out in the trade mags for tours going out with analogue consoles. Let me know if you see any!