Yamaha 01v96 console/editor usage questions

jkowtko

Well-Known Member
I downloaded Studio Manager and the 01v96 editor and am starting to learn the features of the console. I hope to buy one within the next week or so and switch it into the sound booth during our Smokey Joe's Cafe run this month.

First, let me say that digital boards are WAY COOL ... not that I like fancy -schmancy stuff, but the wealth of features and conveniences you get with fairly straightforward computing technology is phenomimal compared to the primitiveness of analog. Although I like the "look and feel" of the nicer analog boards, I get the feeling I'm going to become a digital junkie and power-user very quickly :)

A few questions on the use of the editor functionality and PC display:

1) Can you run scenes from the PC? I see how I can store scenes in the editor but there is no scene playback next/prev controls. Does this have to be done from the board?

2) Is there a PC display that will show all of the meters in full-screen mode? The meter window on the editor is tiny ...

3) The documentation on how to set up the user layer and DCA functionality is pretty vague, and certainly not intuitive. Can anyone point me to better doc on this?

Thanks. John
 
Yamaha digital manuals get you close, but not exactly there as you have figured out. I am sitting behind a DM1000 as we speak... so I know your pain when it comes to the little things with this console. Yes, you can recall scenes from your computer, though I don't suggest it. What I do is set up a user defined key (macro buttons) as a scene forward and another as a scene backwards button, in other words.. a go button. The way studio manager works is anything you do on the console happens on the PC and vise versa, its seamless. As far as the meter thing, you can't make it any bigger, but you can turn the res. down on your monitor, that usually helps. The remote layers are very easy to set up, its just much easier to do it with the console then the PC.

These consoles are great to have around, but as you might have already guessed, anytime you use one you will want to be running studio manager. With studio manager you can at least see everything that is going on.
 
Okay, I guess I'll be contacting the software product group Yamaha to see if they have any plans (or can be persuaded) to improve the on-screen displays. Maybe they are reserving the cool displays for the higher end boards, or maybe they just haven't gotten around to improving them for the 01v96 (or maybe -- I find this hard to believe -- they haven't thought of it).
If I make any progress in this direction I will be sure to post to this forum to ask for input.

In the meantime the one other area of clarity I could use is on setting up DCAs ... any good literature on that?

Thanks. John
 
I just got my 01v96 a little bit ago now so I haven't been able to try out everything, but I do wish that you could make the meters bigger in studiomanager(Mabey a use for that funky windows magnifier thing?).
When I bought mine I got it from a local production company for $1,900, $300 bucks less than zzounds!(Brand new too!) and they were able to get it within 3 days! As far as the settiing up of the DCA's I'm somewhat sure(but correct me if I'm wrong:rolleyes:)that you can use the channel view on the console or the selected channel view in studiomanager to do that.
 
If I can get a hold of their software dev group the meters window will be one of the first requests I will give to them. (And I'm sure I won't be the first person telling them.) Both a larger display and the ability to display the different sets of meters on the same canvas, not different tabs.

And in general if this software program can run multiple windows this will enable you to display things on multiple PC monitors. Then you can connect a laptop to the board with an external display and run dual-screen, which will be hugely helpful. Windows lets you do this partway by stretching your wingle Studio Mgr window across both PC screens, but true multi-window will be a lot easier to work with.

The software also needs snapshot flow control, so you can progress through the snapshots from the PC.

And, assuming we get to the point where you can effectively run the show through the PC, get a wireless USB device and you will be able to run the show from any seat in the house. How's that for convenience ... ? :)

As for DCAs, I looked on the channel detail window and can't find anything that would relate to the User Assignable layer.
 
Internal patching --

I'm running a wireless matrix PA of sorts ... I have several vocal input channels and several discretely-addressable output speakers. I have to do this because I'm overlaying the FX inputs (8 channels) onto the same outputs, and the FX will potentially play at different volumes than the vocals depending on which speaker.

I can easily just set up all 7 output channels as Aux outs and set each input channel level (vocal or FX) at the appopriate level for each output. However that's a lot of settings. So, two alternatives I'm investigating:

1) I think the LS9 lets you "link" channels together so adjustments to all channels can be affected by altering just one of the channels in the link group. Does the 01v96 support this as well?

2) I'm also thinking a way around this is similar to what I did daisy-chaining two analog boards together ... the "vocal" board collects all vocal inputs and sends them out through the LR and into a pair of input channels on the main board. With the 01v96 this would equate to an internal digital patch between an aux or group and another pair of input channels. From what I can tell, the only input patch I could finaegle is to use one of the FX engines, set the input to INSAUX or INSBUS, and then set the effect mix to dry or hit the bypass switch. Is that the way to do it, or is there a better way?

Thanks. John
 
The mixer arrived yesterday, I brought it to the theater and daisy-chained the 8 vocal channels via direct outs from the current (Mackie CFX) board and into the Yamaha, so I could listen in on headphones during the performance and start to get a feel for the board and learn the controls.

Some things on this board are just ... Wow! Audio quality, ability to compress the inputs and get a smooth, uniform volume read on all of the vocalists. The gain structure is totally different from analog -- on the analog board I could push it to +10db on inputs before clipping ... on the Yamaha I can't really get above 0. So I'm learning how this all needs to be set for the cleanest signal.

The UI, while having a zillion functions, is still pretty unintuitive and a pain in the butt to work with. If this is a lot better than the older Tascam boards, then I feel sorry for those users.

A couple of questions:

1) I could not get the PC talking to the board last night through the USB. The driver is loaded on the PC, but no MIDI ports show as being available. Can someone point me to the doc page that will run me through this clearly, or can you give me some pointers on how to do this? I'll probably figure it out tonight but I don't want to waste two hours on this one thing ...

2) In addition to buying at least one ADAT expansion unit, I was thinking that having an extra 4 omni outs on the board would give me the ability to run alots of stuff with no expansion units (therefore more portability). The only expansion card I could find that gives you onboard outs is the MY4DA ... sufficient for what I would want to use it for, but $250??? That's a bit much. Does anyone know where I can get one of these cheap (like $150 max) or is there a 3rd party product out there?

Thanks. John
 
Okay, I got Studio Mgr connected ... a bit of a pain, and by no means intuitive, but I figured it out. The SM software is a bit quirky if you don't actually connect it to the board, and it isn't full-featured, i.e. there are functions that you can only operate on the board (like setting Remote Target, and Recall Safe operations).

I have some specific questions on areas of operation on the board -- is there a forum for the 01v96 somewhere that I can hop onto? (Yamaha tech support is my next option, and I didn't see any forums mentioned on their web site).

Thanks. John
 
Yamaha digital manuals get you close, but not exactly there as you have figured out. I am sitting behind a DM1000


yeah i had to factory reset one of those, took ages because it's such a strange process to go through

and the Manuel that came with the desk was in french:rolleyes:

i had to find the english one deep in the yamaha website, would i have one

Yes, i think it's a fine desk, once you learn it
 
Double check, I know every Yamaha console we've purchased in the last few years has come with both French and English manuals, you might have just missed the English one :)

As for DCAs, the 01V96 doesn't have true DCAs. It comes close via fader group master faders, to set them up go to the "Pair/Group" screen, into the Input Fader Group tabs, and check the "Use Master Faders" checkbox in the upper right corner (I might be slightly off in the wording, since I'm in my living room so don't have a console handy to check, but it's the only checkbox there).

Then use the up and down arrow keys to select a group, A-H, and you'll see a selection box around that row in the onscreen grid. Use each channel's select button to assign it to that group.

You can set up user-defined keys as group assign buttons, but I find the group screen quicker.

You can also assign these in Studio Manager, at the bottom right of the selected channel screen are the group assignment buttons, but again, this is really tedious.

Bear in mind that you can only assign a channel to a single group, unlike standard DCAs that allow multiple assignments.

I hope this helps, if not, drop me an e-mail and I'm happy to try to help more.

--A
 
This makes sense Andy -- thanks. I'm learning the features of the 01v96 steadily. The Fader group master looks like it will work for me in certain situations ... I may try it on Aida this spring.

I also figured out the way to handle LCR speaker configuration on the 01v96 is to run with a surround setup. I actually have a 5.1 speaker configuration that I could set up on the board ... and the surround panning looks like it could be used for some pretty neat effects.

However, when I configure a surround setup on the board with the LR channel set to LF/RF of the surround channels, the master faders do not automatically group together, do they? It looks like I would still need to group them manually so I can control the overall volume of the 5.1 via the LR fader.

This ends up being a bit of a pain due to the lack of granularity on the Recall Safe functionality of the 01v96. Unlike the LS9 which allows you to select which operations on each individual channel to Safe, the 01v96 forces you to Safe the same set of operations on all input and output channels that are included in the Safe setting.

For a standard theater performance I would Global Safe all operations on the input channels except for fader and effects, and would Safe everything on the outputs, including faders. Doing this on the 01v96 requires that I pick which group of operations I want to Safe, then the others I will need to make copies of their settings in each scene snapshot. Which means if I change one of those settings I would have to change them in every snapshot. So my procedure for setting up a board for the show is to get all routings and effects, EQ, dynamics, effects, pairing/grouping, etc, in place without scene snapshots, then set the Global Recall Safe and make the scene snapshots last. Does anyone have a slicker way of dealing with this?

Thanks. John
 

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