Paul Simon Front-of-House Engineer Is at "Home" on Yamaha PM10 Legendary songwriter, recording artist, and performer Paul Simon is out on Homeward Bound -- The Farewell Tour with shows across North America, Europe, and the UK. CLAIR Global is providing production that includes a Yamaha RIVAGE PM10 Digital Audio Console for front of house. "I'm very familiar with the Yamaha mixer range; in fact, I bought a ProMix 01 back in 1994 as my first digital desk," states Simon's front-of-house engineer Michael Conner. "I liked it so much that I picked up an O2R in 1995 to use as a live desk. I remember as I was rolling it out on a cart, the owner of the company I purchased it from, being confused, asked me if I was opening a studio." With that early Yamaha familiarity and guidance from the team at CLAIR Global, Conner said he jumped in head first to use the Yamaha RIVAGE PM10 at front-of-house on Simon's tour. "The onboard processing is stunning; I was hesitant at first since I carry a small arsenal of very effective outboard gear," says Conner. "However, as time passed, I found myself trying different built-in's and quite frankly they work better than I expected. On more than a couple of previously difficult channels, I was able to dump the outboard gear. The RN5045 is a huge help out here on the tour. I have 122 inputs (122 live, no tracks here) and just over 100 of those are microphones. If the room has a noise floor problem, then I have a noise floor problem. The RN5045s used conservatively on a large number of those inputs makes a huge difference." Conner is also using the SILK feature, mostly Blue, on a few select channels. He owns some of the Rupert Neve gear that incorporates SILK. "The Yamaha version is quite nice." "I can't imagine using anything else now and I'm taking the Yamaha PM10 FOH package with me on the next tour," notes Conner. "It's literally leaving Paul's last show in New York City and going directly to SIR for rehearsals for my next mix gig, which is confidential at the moment." "And, let's not forget this thing sounds amazing without any of the bells and whistles I just mentioned." For more information on CLAIR Global, visit the URL below. For more information on the Yamaha RIVAGE Series, visit the URL below. 
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