PM1D was the first of Yamaha's large format digital mixers strictly aimed at live mixing and it has become an outstanding success. Success, that is, as a tool for sound engineers, as an investment for the owners, and as a pioneer of digital technology in live audio. Since its launch in 2000 there have been over 700 systems sold (as of March 2006), and because its combination of quality, features and ease-of-operation are still unmatched by any competitor, it continues to sell.

When PM1D was launched there was a worry from potential investors that because it was a computer based product it would be replaced by a cheaper better mixer in a year or two's time and that such a considerable investment would never be returned. However (unlike the PC I bought to run the offline software on), the PM1D is still working and performing better than ever before. Yamaha and is competitors have introduced other mixers, but nothing replaces the quality, features and flexibility of the PM1D system.

PM1D began a new phase of console ownership. The mixer could be constantly improved by "just adding software" and the modular nature of the hardware meant the analogue audio parts could be easily expanded or replaced by the latest preamps too. Yamaha have been good to that concept and we have seen countless features added and improved since the Version 1.0 release. However the V2 release is something different......

Taku Nishikori, a member of the original PM1D software team and now manager of the EUCASC European Support Centre and Tree Tordoff Yamaha product specialist, spoke with Mick Okabayashi and Masaru Aiso of the PM1DV2 software team.

Masaaki "Mick" Okabayashi.
Product Producer for PM1DV2.
And the brain behind the system.

So who are the people responsible for keeping PM1D ahead of the competition and delivering these software improvements?

You were all involved with the original PM1D software but tell me what's been happening between the PM1D launch in 2000 and the release of PM1D Version 2.

Getting PM1D designed and built is a long and exhausting story of its own but rather than simply moving on when PM1D Version 1 was finished we started a whole new operation of listening to customer feedback. There were some minor bugs that slipped through that needed fixing, but most of all there was a tidal wave of ideas from the early users. The level of scene recall and management for example was far in excess of what most live engineers had ever had before, but as soon as they had it, they demanded it was refined and added to. All feedback was recorded and we produced the "Wishlist". So began the series of Version 1 updates that added customer's preferences and usability ideas to the mixer until we reached a kind of plateau where the system was capable of satisfying the needs of the world's most demanding sound engineers. The current V1.7 is extremely mature product; the point is that we used customer feedback to help focus the direction of development and ensure that we were building a mixer that people wanted. We literally couldn't do it any other way because even with more staff and more time we couldn't anticipate the need for features like Tracking Recall or the menu for Partial Recall Safes!

Have there been any upgrades in hardware made over the last 5 years to make PM1D V2 possible?

No, none at all, we were amazingly far sighted back then, and our code writing has improved too! In fact we have been determined not to make an endless series of chip changes and hardware upgrades because I believe that we should not provide any "opportunistic", rough-and-ready upgrades to a professional tool like touring console. Imagine what it would be like if, as a sound engineer, you had to get used to new interface variations every tour...then on the next tour a certain switch is not there or that feature wouldn't work on the wrong hardware. We couldn't work that way. We wanted to stay professional and support our original customers. Aside from software issues there have been some new hardware options developed like the new LMY analogue preamp cards. The new preamps were developed for our PM5000 analogue console and when they were universally praised we wanted to offer them for our PM1D owners too. We also worked in partnership with Riedel to develop the optical fibre cable solution; Artist1D, it's a real benefit for remotely locating the racks from the worksurface.

So considering there have been so many improvements to the PM1D software since the product was launched in 2000, what makes this latest Version 2 update so significant?

As I said, we now have the mature "Version 1" series at V1.7, which contains not only all those rapid bug fixes but also the result of the feedback from high profiled professional customers such as SR touring, broadcast, West End / Broadway and state-of-the-art digital audio installations. So the time came to look back down the Wishlist" and see what we could do to improve the mixer above and beyond all original expectations.

The "Version 2" concept was kicked off in April 2005. We really wanted to offer some of the various cutting edge technologies; such as Add-On effects, Event List, PM5D features etc. that had been developed in parallel to PM1D in those five years, so the top software engineers who used to work on Version 1 united again to create PM1DV2. We really wanted to make sure that the PM1D owners still had access to the latest technology and this is one of the things we are most proud of; PM1D systems are still the consoles of choice for sound engineers and still earning money for investors.

Who decides when to provide more features and who decides what they should be?

I, Masaru Aiso and Mick Okabayashi decided all the V2 features. We maintain our huge database called the "Wish-list" which contains every feedback from everywhere on this planet, (and perhaps other planets too!). The list is gathered by all staff including engineers, sales, marketing and product planning people, but it mostly comes from customers and end users. Needless to say, we can't act on every wish because of the tight development schedule as well as the ease of use issues some ideas present. We always think "why is it needed?" as the first qualifying step, because I believe we can only develop a real usability by gaining a deep understanding of the reasoning behind the wishes - not by just "attaching" features on repeatedly; doing so can easily cause serious confusion.

A PM1D system is quite a complex and bulky affair so was it really important to have VCM technology inside when you can simply connect an SPX2000 on the outside?

If the VCM technology and Add-on effects capability only offered some SPX algorithms it might be true, but VCM (Virtual Circuitry Modelling) technology offers much more; not just an "imitation" of vintage instruments, but true circuitry simulation which is precisely tuned in the scope of each resistor, capacitor and transistor! PM1DV2 has obtained a very reliable and recallable vintage sound built in, and one of the significant advantages of digital consoles is the "integration". You can reduce tons of dodgy outboard racks, cables, setup time and reliability by having every necessary signal processing capability inside.

Were there any features you really wanted to include in V2 that you could not because of time, money, hardware or technical problems?

No! I am confident that we have done all the necessary improvements. V2 contains not only several major changes but also various small improvements which have been carefully discussed one by one. I do believe this approach must be called "real" upgrade.

Sound Engineers are often reluctant to be the first to try new firmware, they feel they are the testers for your products, how much testing was done before V2 and do you try out the software in a real show situation.

For us, the term "software development" doesn't mean just writing codes. In fact we allowed months for testing before we released the software, as we don't expect users to be "beta testers"! If bugs are found we are well placed to fix them because everything is done "in-house" at Yamaha; we don't have to be dependent on help from 3rd party software companies; even the people that wrote our operating system are still here in the building! That amount of work actually costs us a great deal, but in the end we achieve extreme reliability and reputation, which leads directly to customer's satisfaction. Any real show situation could be too valuable for testing purposes, so we gain our reputation from the thoroughness of our internal testing. I do recommend every customer to try our new firmware without a fear.

V2 is the first chargeable firmware upgrade for PM1D. How do you feel when people say "its only software" and want it for free?

Software is NOT free and it can?t be! In fact, software is one of the biggest portions of the entire product development cost of PM1D. Any business should gain appropriate return from investment to keep running healthy. Not only have I and the full time software team of five worked on this for over a year and a half, that work it sits on many passed years of thought and development. Then there are the additional costs of other developers brought in as well as the costs of sales, marketing and support. So we intended to charge certain amount of money for the V2 software, (even then it's actually a huge discount!).

PM1DV2 is finished and more than 330 V2 consoles are already running V2. So what are you all doing now? PM1D V3 or a different mixer?

We are always moving on, seeking new challenges. We're looking for not just "another XX" but something which can provide customers a whole new world. I particularly want to concentrate on some new products that increase the value of our customers existing stock, like PM1DV2 but different. See what happens, there is always something ongoing inside Yamaha; we have been making mixers since before I think Daisuke was born and this year we could recruit new staff younger than our first digital mixers! It's an amazing company and by listening to customer feedback, embracing new ideas and new people we will always know what project to embark on next.

Written by: Tree Tordoff from Yamaha CA Support Centre Europe.

Tree joined Yamaha in 2005 as a product specialist for digital consoles after a long career as a freelance sound engineer and pioneer user of PM1D.