Amos Lee Tour Takes Two Yamaha CLs on The Road in Support of Latest CDAmos Lee is an American singer-songwriter whose musical style encompasses folk, rock, and soul. Born in Philadelphia, the 36-year old is embarking on a new tour in support of his sixth CD, "Mountains of Sorrow, Rivers of Song." This CD follows the release of his album "Mission Bell" that debuted at #1 on the Billboard top 200 chart. Currently finishing the fall leg of the tour, Lee and the crew will be hitting the road again in February for the winter leg. TC Furlong of Lake Forest, Illinois is supporting Lee's tour with a rental package including a Yamaha CL5 digital audio console at front of house, a CL1 for monitors, two Rio3224-D input/output boxes positioned onstage, along with wireless IEM units for the band. The full-service, live sound company specializes in rentals, live events, sales, and services, and is an authorized dealer of over 100 professional audio lines with a vast rental inventory including Yamaha Commercial Audio Series, Sennheiser, Shure, Meyer Sound Laboratories, and many others. They provide audio production rental systems large and small, as well as support to the sound installation market. "When front-of-house engineer, BJ Pendleton, initially approached us with his tour request, we looked at several configurations but quickly landed on the Yamaha CL platform," states Chris Wintz, rental/project manager, TC Furlong. "As a rental house, we had plenty of digital console options, but the CL feature set was a perfect match with BJ's tour spec: superior sound quality, flexible configuration, small footprint, and easy to set-up/strike. He was great to work with, and we were happy to handle cartage, on-site training, 24x7 support, and frequency coordination." Pendleton has been using Yamaha digital consoles for years. "I've spent a good bit of time with the LS9 and the M7CL, and fell in love with the PM5D," states Pendleton. "The 5D and I became good friends at the Jefferson Theater in Charlottesville, Virginia where I was the house engineer." Pendleton said while he's a big fan of pre-training on new gear, he's a firm believer that one learns by doing, and so he dove right into the CL5. "In general, I really like the Yamaha CL platform and the ease of function," says Pendleton. "The approach can't be beat, and the progression from the M7CL to the CL Series is why I ultimately went with CL consoles for our tour. Taking a highly functional platform and combining it with top-notch pre-amps in expandable stage racks made the decision a no brainer for me." Pendleton added that both he and monitor engineer Reuben Cantu, are using Dante networking to communicate between the CL5 at front-of-house, CL1 in monitor world, and the two RIO racks tied together on the stage. "It took me a second to wrap my head around it, but the Dante network has been rock solid for us." He noted that the console's premium rack is also an excellent addition to Yamaha consoles. "The pre-amps sound great on their own, but to add premium EQs and compressors really pushes the sound quality over the top. Really great stuff... I hate to sound silly, but most things about the CL make my life easier at front-of-house." A mixing engineer for some 22 years beginning in high school, Pendleton graduated from the College of William & Mary in 2000 where he really started to dig into to his professional sound career. Since then, he's been running clubs and music venues as well as touring with various artists, most recently Grammy award winners The Robert Glasper Experiment, Yassin Bey (a.k.a. Mos Def), and Erykah Badu. Cantu, who has been mixing since 1997, said he has also used most digital consoles in the Yamaha family. "Like a lot of live sound engineers out there, I had my training on the job with the CL and figuring things out in the old 'trial by fire' way of learning on the fly. And, one great part about the Yamaha website is the video tutorials. I watched all of the videos on the CL Series consoles once I knew I was going out on tour with one." "For my life in monitor world," Cantu said, "there are many features that make my life easier. From the time I save with the ease of setup of the console, to having the processing power to run the 46 channels we were using, six stereo in-ear mixes and four powered mixes. I tend to use a lot of dynamics to keep things consistent, but still keeping the live feel of each instrument without compromising the dynamics of the sound. I was also using five stereo effects to round it all out." Cantu happily notes how great it is to have classic Comp's and EQ's that 'engineers have been drooling over' at the touch of the screen. "How often have we had access to any two of these at one time let alone having arguably some of the best sounding dynamic devices sought after waiting to be used right in the rack?" 
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