At the time of writing this, I am currently mixing monitors for a pop artist who is doing a residency at jazz clubs in NYC and LA. When I was first told about these shows, there was a discussion of bringing in a small format DiGiCo console to more closely emulate the setup we normally carry. Personally, I felt like this was a great opportunity to learn not only a new desk, but to delve further into using Dante as the backbone for our infrastructure.
It has been a while since I have spent time on a new desk. The last one I learned was the SSL 550. Whenever I am learning a new console platform, I try to keep a few things in mind. Despite having a “preferred platform”, I do my best to keep my approach as fresh as possible. Console comparisons far too often are made by saying console A can do this but console B cannot; therefore A is better than B. While there is some merit to that style of apples to apples comparison, I think the beauty of the console landscape is created by the wide variety of choice we have. So while I may make some direct comparisons, my primary goal is to document my experience as a monitor engineer using a DM7 in a relatively fast-paced environment without having ever used one before.
As with pretty much every modern digital console, my first foray into the DM7 began with the offline editor. This allowed me to start building things from my laptop before ever touching the surface. Fortunately, this Yamaha supports a macOS version of the editor. I consider this a win for my initial experience. The UI is identical to how you experience the console. When I first stepped up to the console, I realized that there are not that many physical controls. Most everything is handled via touch or a single row of encoders below the screen. There is no channel strip control. While I prefer at least a physical EQ knob layout, I understand the simplicity. Eventually, I was able to use the row of encoders to some degree of speed. (However, the one downside I found is that the Q knob works in reverse of how I am used to. I am used to turning the Q knob down to widen the EQ point, since the Q value would decrease. On a DM7, turning the Q makes it narrower. This is not a con necessarily, just a quirk I had to get used to.)
As I started to build my showfile, I began to realize how much power is actually packed into this console. Having a 144×144 at 96k Dante chip built in as well as 120×48 channel/bus count is pretty remarkable. The 32×16 local IO plus a PY card where you can add a MADI port is the cherry on top. This allowed me enough flexibility to have all of my IO from the RIO, the Dante playback system, a full 80ch Dante record rig, and Dante paths between myself and FOH.
I don’t need to list all the specs for you. You can easily look all of that up on the website. I just think it is a pretty powerful set of IO for many scenarios all in a single package. Now, let's get into the things I like about the console:
VSC/Record Tab
I am not 100% sure however single console handles recording and playing back audio; however, I do know that Copy Audio is not inherently easily understood. It is also port-dependent, meaning if you change where a channel lands, you have to change both the record path and the channel itself. With the DM7, this is not the case. I appreciate the simplicity of the record tab with easily routable record in and out.
The 12×12×4 Fader Layout
Anything less than 12 faders per bank is just not enough. The 12 × 12 is already great, but adding 4 more static faders on the end makes adding things like wedges, room mics, and my solo bus easily accessible at all times. Huge win.
Full-Screen Meter section
Since I am used to having inputs on a left and mixes on the right, I found that utilizing the right screen became pretty minimal once the show started. I eventually found the full-screen meter section, and I quite like being able to monitor all inputs at once to monitor global gain structure.
In addition, tapping on banks of 12 channel meters pulls up those inputs for quick access.
Persistent Fader Value by the channel name
I absolutely loved having the fader value stay persistent by the channel name on the screen. This was a huge help, especially when a few faders were not 100% calibrated.
Channel selection could be separated from the selected layer
This is relatively niche, but I did find it helpful being able to tweak a specific channel on a different layer than the one that was pulled up. Coming from the DiGiCo world, this isn’t exactly possible since there is no fullscreen channel mode.
Monitor Section
It took me a while to figure it out and required multiple calls to Webster Tileston, but I was able to full make use of the Cue section feeding the Monitor section of the console. There are plenty of great features within those tabs that I think it does better than other consoles.
User-Defined Keys (UDK) and Companion compatibility
This is both a pro and con. The UDKs were really useful, and its companion integration is very seamless. However, it does not provide near the flexibility I am used to when it comes to macro control. However, one benefit was the banks of 12 UDKs on the side screen. This eliminated the need for an external control surface like a stream deck.
There were definitely plenty of things that I appreciated that may have not been near as noteworthy, so please do not take this as an exhaustive list. Moving to some of the more negative aspects:
No Group Snapshot update
I am not sure how other console platforms handle this, but I was unable to figure out a way to group-update snapshots. For example, say the bassist wanted more guitar for the whole set. I would have to go through every snapshot and raise the guitar in the mix. Not having this as an option in some capacity is incredibly difficult when mixing monitors with snapshots.
UPDATE: I have been informed that you can do this through a global paste function. This is a step forward, however, I still would prefer to have the ability to paste these values as relative and not absolute.
No DCA Relative Aux Control
This has become an essential tool in my toolkit. The ability to control multiple or even all aux sends relatively via a DCA is hugely helpful when mixing monitors.
When enabling Sends on Fader, a window pops up that allows you to select the mixes via touch
This is helpful if I were mixing monitors from FOH, but I wish there was a way to disable this opening by default. It takes over the entire screen. I also no not need the floating window when it is minimized. It also covers useful information.
No channel strip saturation; requires an insert
Self-explanatory
Presets do not include names, gain, and channel patch
I needed to rearrange the console channel order and I had to manually move the names, gain, and channel patch since the preset only included aux sends and processing.
UPDATE: You are able to move full channels around via the CH JOB tab. This does come with downsides in that it will mess up custom fader layers.
Console lag when switching mixes
This became so incredibly irritating that it’s probably the single reason I would try to avoid using this desk in the future. I like to move quickly when mixing monitors. Whenever I would press a cue mix, realize I pressed the wrong one, and quickly select the right one, it would change the cue, but the select would not follow. At first, I thought it was just a one-time thing, but it kept happening. It is easily replicated. If you have Select following Cue, press the cue of one mix and then another in quick succession. Select will not follow.
Lastly, I have some quirks that do not necessarily fit in the negative category, but I thought were interesting to note:
Saving Sessions via UDK
Whenever you save a session via the UDK, it does not overwrite the current file. It creates a new file with the date and time as a string of numbers. With how much I press save, I ended up with dozens and dozens of iterative showfiles after just a single day of rehearsals.
No way to “Shift+Click” to make things jump to unity
I understand this probably keep things from accidentally getting turned up when they don’t need to be, but it slows down showfile building. I had to manually turn every fader to unity one by one. Not only that, but I could not even group them all together to bring them to unity.
UPDATE: Overwhelmingly, all of the Yamaha people informed me that you can somewhat do this on the surface using the UDK “Set to Nominal”. However, this function does not exist in the edit which is primarily when I would want to use it.
Overall, I do think this console has its place. It has been a joy to learn a new platform and really put it through its paces. If I got anything wrong in terms of features and function, please let me know.