MI7®

After a few weeks of travel and other work stuff I finally managed to get back to the studio yesterday. We just sold our old, huge Soundcraft desk, so we have been playing around with other desks checking out where we want to go.

We've got a lovely, but ancient, Amek DMS digital console that we picked up in a studio sale, but never actually used until now. It's an amazing piece of technology, looks like something out of Star Trek. One of those things that probably looked really futuristic when it first came out but now actually looks retro :-)

Although it's a great desk I don't think we're going to keep it - it just doesn't suit our way of working really. Anyone want to buy an Amek? :-)

Then we tried the new Yamaha n8 desk. We have one of these on loan to test, and it's amazing for such a small desk. I'd played with it a bit before, but this was really the first time I'd had some serious hands on work with it. It's everything it's supposed to be, and then some. We're definitely going to buy it's big brother, the Yamaha n12, within the next days. 

It's not just a desk really - it's a FireWire interface for Cubase, a set of Class A mic preamps, compressors on every channel, a Yamaha REV-X reverb onboard - and even full surround monitoring on the n12. And the price is really cheap...

Most importantly for my mind is that it's not like any other Yamaha desk - there's no LCD screen, no SHIFT key, no cursor keys, no multifunction switches, none of that shit. It looks and feels like a classic analog console.  It's so simple to use, and so flexible. And because it has a 16 channel bus in and out of Cubase via FireWire, no messy cabling either.

Honestly if you use Cubase and have a small studio I can't see why you would not want this desk. It's as close to perfection as I've seen in a long time...

Right, back to work. Got to take some pics and video of the Vicoustic sound treatment we did a while back. The room sounds so good now!