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For those who wondered what this beast cost back in the days. The MSRP for the M3000A reached from $11k to $17k, for 24-56 channels with VCAs.

your cordless screwdriver makes really weird whistling noises

With all pots, filters, VCA:s and opamps, wire looms it migh contain a nice set of parts for making an analog synth.

Having been the technical friend of a number of musicians years ago I can say they aren't very complex to use. It's intimidating, but it's just a lot of repetition. The real challenge is having an ear for what you are doing. There are plenty of people that will say they want to help be a roady so they can meet the band, hang out, have fun, learn how to use the equipment... After running a couple dozen cables they tend to suddenly disappear. Those that do stick around to help set everything up are not there when it's time to take it all down. Another fun thing about doing live audio at a concert is that when everything runs well the tech gets no attention. If a guitarist is standing to close to his amp and it feedbacks (not something the board operator can control), the audience turns and give the tech The Eye.

KNOBS! KNOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOBS! Cracked me up. :)

I spent my best years working at a radio station and doing live sound on this puppy's younger cousin. As soon as I saw the thumbnail my hands were shaking. This video was a treat. Brought back memories of diagnosing in the field and bodging on-the-spot repairs. Beautiful old school engineering. These devices really have a soul. Just superb. Thanks a bunch, Dave!

I'm a live sound audio engineer. This was better than porn to me!!! :)

I'd thin that big-ass ground strapping is more about signal integrity than current

ST = Stereo Insert = Place an external bit of equipment in line with whats in already. Dave if you've got any questions just ask, my job is to operate them.

Loved this video. Many of your videos go right over my head, but with this one I found myself yelling at the screen trying to tell you what stuff was and why it was like that. I do live sound (not to mention lighting, etc), I'd really like to see your reaction to the insides of some other consoles. There is a BIG reason having things modular is key, if something dies before a show or during a show and you NEED it, it is not unheard of to open up the console and start having at it, swapping parts, making spot repairs at the component level even. I remember killing a section of a console mid-show (at a music festival) during a small act to repair a section of the console live. Had consoles open mid show far too many times.

I have the baby brother to this console (mc2403) and was incredibly interested in this video. It is so neat to have someone who really understands electronics dissecting the various functions even when he has no clue how to use, or even the purpose of some of the parts. Amazing, now I want to experiment with my own board more.

These consoles though they look quite impressive were built as a low cost alternative to there PM series (PM4000) which were one of the industry standard touring desks.

Hi Dave! It seems you can read in my mind! Im sound engineer on live events and about 4 days ago i was looking on your channel for "mixing console teardown" -presumably Tuesday :P. And now you're publishing exactly what i was trying to find. Thanks for your videos i've learned tons of knolwedge. Thank you again!

Hi Dave, the SSM2018 is made by Analog Devices and is a Trimless Voltage Controlled Amplifier. I had a friend that was into designing custom audio equipment so I recognized the part number. Really enjoyed the teardown, don't often get to see gear bigger than yourself!

I feel special because i know what everything does xD

VCA = Voltage Controlled Amplifier. In this mixer, this facilitates mixing multiple channels using a single fader. Helpful for grouping drums, etc.

I learned live mixing on this thing's big brother, the PM3000 (and later, the next generation PM4000). The PM's are even more modular, in that each individual channel can come out and be replaced on it's own, and you can get mono or stereo modules. The Matrix sends are used for a lot of things; sends to time based effects (reverb, delay, etc.), monitor mixers so the players on stage can hear each other, delay clusters (speaker clusters placed further back in the room, and delayed to match the mains - this is to fill dead spots in the room, and is pretty uncommon these days, as everyone else seems to love line arrays), and sub-mixing things like drum sets (though on a console like this, you are more likely to use the VCA's). VCA's are control groups. You assign the individual channels to the central VCA faders, and you can control the channels in groups. They have VCA group mutes as well. On this generation, the scene memories usually just dealt with the VCA groups. So, you mix the drums, and assign them all to (say) VCA 1, and you can control the overall drum level with one fader. You can also use one of the matrix busses for this, but the extra summing will usually add more noise than you really want. The stereo channels are mostly used for effects returns. Inserts are for amplitude effects (compression, mostly, and noise gates). The mic input in the mains section (the center section) is for a talk back mic, so you can communicate with the stage during sound check. 40 channels of noise (and 20 mix busses) adds up quickly - the shielding on the relays is not optional! Keeping the noise floor below 90dB is tough! That's a big part of the external power supply too - internal power supplies just don't work on boards this big!!! Yamaha boards have a mixed reputation - some people love them, because they are very clean, and basically do exactly what you tell them to, with out coloring the sound. The EQ's are considered by many sound engineers to be rather sterile. I tend to think it is just a matter of preference. I think they sound great for jazz, classical, or corporate talk talk gigs. Not great for rock and roll, though! What they really do, though, is expose the mixer's skill level - you get out what you put in, and if you know what you are doing it will do exactly what you tell it to do. A lot less forgiving than some boards if you aren't so skilled! It's not a baby, but it is a mid-level professional console, and a 20-30 year old design at that. These days, everything is digital, and EVERY promoter is constantly arguing for smaller and smaller footprints at front of house. Still, back in the day, those boards probably did more events than any of the higher end consoles, and while they are not quite as versatile as a 4k or Midas XL4, it probably cost about a quarter of the cash, and they sound pretty decent.

another reason to shield those relays is to not cause noise inducting into the audio channels. clicks, pops, and interruptions.

The arrays above the channel gain sliders are for individual monitor levels. The talk-back is so the board operator can talk through the PA system to the crew or to the performers during rehearsals . Talk-back is not widely used anymore except in garage / bar bands where the musicians are all sound engineers lol, and has been replaces by portable two-way radios. Performers no longer call the shots on how a system is mixed and EQ'ed either like they use to, it is all on the ears of the tech, like it should be.. That sports venue got the hard metal shaft from the sound company who sold them that thing, EPIC OVERKILL

I never get tired of watching you tear things apart explaining how it works.

This would be the best answer to "why digital" questions

Having worked a PM1000 16x4 I can attest these are sweet machines in every possible way. Smooth sliders with rubber rollers on the back, contoured knobs you can tweak in the dark with full confidence, not many machines out there you can operate completely by touch like these.

Three years late here, but... It was fun to see this blast from the past. In my career I kind of skipped right over the 3000 series and went from the 2K to the 4K and then the 5K. Now, of course, everything is digital and these old workhorses are rarely seen. Anyhow, it was really fun to read all the comments about what this and that does. We used to take the opener's console into the sub-in's so that we could use the same monitors while keeping the opening band engineers from messing up our mix on the headliners console. Inserts on the outputs were, 99% of the time, used for EQ's to keep the feedback to a minimum. As far as inserts on the inputs, I saw a lot of people here that had "absolute" ideas about how dynamics, eq, and effects should be handled. I'm guessing they are pretty linear thinkers. I would suggest that they open their minds to the endless ways of making sound great (again!) Sorry! Couldn't help myself... I will tell you that I have seen every variation on a theme that you could think of with inserts and how to use them. There is no wrong way to do things if it works for you and your artist. Thanks Dave. Great stuff.

What a great thing for a teardown.....Thanx Dave!!! I used to work with a little brother with 32ch into 16ch sub into 2ch main out with lots of subOutd for stage monitoring and effects... YM-consoles always done a good job, when I worked on and with them, especially in live situations where a clear routing is essential.. What a nice thing to see one if them here! :)

You can't imagine, how excited I am to watch this video! I'm sort of a selfmade Audio Engineer, and love to tear down my equipment, repair it or develop my own stuff. This is so inspiring! My Yamaha 01V Digital Mixer was really nice to tear down, Yamaha clearly knows how to make their stuff servicable. really nice system engineering! This bad boy on the other hand looks a lot more challenging :D At that size it's really hard to make it servicable. The phantom power caps where the only part that died so far in my 01V, they were only rated for about 50V, sadly that seems to be "okay" to save cost. The SILs from JRC are often used in Yamaha mixers I saw so far, they seem to prever SIL-packages, e.g. for their DM2000 digital console. 5532 are not that often used there, I guess, maybe for saving space. For me personally, this was one of your most interesting videos, even without you knowing everything about it while filming. Thank you, I really liked it!

I just picked up a 16 channel Tascam recording board today for some small home recording projects. The guy I bought it from purchased it brand new in 2011, opened the box to make sure that everything was there and then never got around to using it. When I say this thing is in brand new condition, I'm not kidding. The plastic bag covering it was still taped closed and the power supply cables still had those twisty things on them to keep them bundled. The best part..... I got it for $65 US. (Deal of the century!) I was feeling pretty good about my new board until I clicked on this video. Now I want to go kick it. LOL I'll just go play with some faders on my 32 chan live board to make myself feel better. :-)

Great teardown, moooore. Who needs TV, when we have Dave and Dave? :)

That is one sexy mixing console, gotta love Yamaha mixers!

For someone who has no idea how this works going in, you did pretty damn good job of figuring most of it out. Really enjoyed this vid!

The split in the bus board is the traditional right side end to a mixer, so the channels to the right are addons.

That's an entry level, very entry level, touring desk. The upper end consoles have individual modules that you can remove on a singular basis for repair, replacement, or even reconfiguration.

Looks like the price ranges from 1500 - 15000 EUR used (there's a few models with different channel counts).

The insert jack on each channel is a TRS (tip, ring, sleeve) connection that allows a single cable to be both input and output. You use them to send a channel to an effects chain and then loop it back into the mixer. It's like a stereo headphone connector with one channel being an output, and one being an input.

When I was a senior in high school my buddy asked me to help do the mixing of the school play and I get there that night and none of the other sound guys could make it. I had to learn how to use that machine and mix everyone on stage and the pit band, which is a job meant for 3 people.

With the "scene memory" you can program mute scenes, so you recall which channel is muted which unmuted. Same works with mute groups, you can mute/unmute multiply channels using one button

That 7805 5V rail made me smile. Simplicity at it's finest. But really, I gotta say, this thing has some seriously complex analog mixing circuitry put into it. Very well engineered. Seems fairly straightforward to service as well. +1 to Yamaha. Yamaha FTW!

Hey Dave, Coming from a synth world, that SSM chip is a VCA chip. SSM made many DIP package solutions to common circuits in music electronics. Most notably, SSM made oscillators and filters that were used in many famous synthesizers such as the Korg Polysix and Sequential Circuits Prophet 5 Rev 2. Along with SSM, Curtis Electro Music (CEM) also made similar chips that often replaced the SSM chips in later model revisions. Would be cool to see a synthesizer teardown from you!

I know that desk very well.. I trained on a PM3000 back in the 90's and used the M3000 often enough over the years ... seeing this makes me feel kind of old lol

Worked on pro audio/video in a previous life. These units were well built and a joy to work on. Great vid as always.

Glad to see you used your skin's 'snapshot learn/store' function to capture all the knob and fader settings before you took it apart.

Insert I/O = INSERT In & OUT. Use a TRS ---> TS/TS . TRS jack goes into the insert plug at the back of your consol and the 2 TS jacks go into INPUT & OUTPUT of your external device ( Noise gate, compressor, or whatever you want in your channel path)

dat tripod fail priceless 😂

No size problem with the heatsink size of the 7805!

The relay magnetic shield -- I would guess to keep the relay coil from inducing clicks on the audio channels as it is energized or de-energized.

Such a gorgeous piece of tech, if bloody massive

I’m making my own sound. My own music. My own creativity. Having something like this to use or completely harvest parts from would make my Thinker Tickle.

In 1986 I built the (Jaycar?) 16 channel mixer kit. Boy, was that ever a job of work. Used with a couple of 300W MOSFET power amp kits also from Jaycar. Once debugged, it wasn't a bad piece of kit.

The relays are for the "scene" feature. Scene allows you to create, well, scenes with certain channels muted or open. By switching to the next scene, specified channels are muted or unmuted.

Had two 24ch analog board before we went to pro tools and their consoles, the PSU was serious business! Rackmount like you said, a huge monster. A diode kept burning out every now and then and it needed to be repaired. That 40 channel one must be an even bigger monster :O

This seems my (old) Hill Audio Multimix mixer i'm using for recordings. They are awesome built, and they are built for lasting and easy maintenance (if you have an issue with one channel, you can simply remove the channel, without have to remove everything else).

The SSM2018 is a VCA (Voltage controlled Amplifier). I work on Analog Synth Keyboards that use other SSM chips

Interesting video, very nicely built device. Thanks for showing.

Wow an SSM2018 VCA. SSM = Solid State Micro Technology for Music. They made IC's for synthesizers in the late 70's and most became "obsolete" in the 80's with CEM (Curtis Electromusic). SSM was bought out by PMI, which in turn was acquired by Analog Devices, hence the logo.

That's huge wow!! I serviced one that I don't recall how many ch it was I think either 28 or 38 it's been a long time ago. It was at a big Baptist church I went picked it up for service. Had broke connections on the sliders where they were putting their weight on the controls hooking stuff up in the back of it Lotta contact cleaner went into that thing.

That Analog Devices chip ssm2018 will be a balanced to singe-ended converter or vice vera with laser trimmed resistors for optimum common mode rejection / phase balance. The grounding is the amazing this in kit like this! Keeping every signal route clean with noise -100dB is not trivial even with far simpiler circuits.

I have used this console many times. M1-M16 are mix busses, not matrices. On this console, the matrices are created (mostly) from the mix busses. Every manufacturer configures matrices differently. ST channels are stereo channels with minimal EQ and routing used for pre-recorded music sources. It's a decent enough console. The previous generations of Yamaha consoles like the PM1000 are quite sought after because the preamps are class A discrete. They have been referred to as "Japanese Neve".

The huge copper straps and the shields on the relays are for the same reason to be able to meet the noise specifications. (relays pop on release)

@EEVBlog the Shielding on the relays is most likely to prevent RF noise (or clicks) from being picked up on the audio channels and affecting the overall sound quality, since it is analogue. :)

minor trivia - the mic is mainly for communication with the stage, you dont normally sound check with it

I used to mix front of house on the 56 channel version of that 10+ years ago.

I love how for the first time, I know more about a product on the EEV-Blog than Dave. At least about how you use it ;)

The craziest thing about this whole teardown is that an inexpensive (in a relative sense) digital board like the Behringer X32 does a much as this board and a whole lot more with better specs and full storage and recall of EVERY setting with motorized faders and takes up about a third of the space. That's not to mention that the need for most outboard gear is eliminated because EQ's, effects, and all that stuff is built in. I would never want to go back to working on an analog console after using a digital console for the past three years. I would love to see a teardown of something like the X32 as I believe Behringer has come a long way in improving the quality of their products and it would be interesting to see what Dave thought about it.

dave the mix inserts are to "patch in" outboard gear..mainly dynamics processing like compressors, etc

Hey Dave. How did engineers design these sort of things in the pre-CAE era? Did computers served PCB design since the beginning? What's your experience? How it was done on the 80's?

20:49 Nomi is for Nominal Signal level, which means you signal is not clipping yet, but is close to the maximum ;)

Disregarding stereo, it's actually mixed to two buses - house sound and foldback monitors. If you must include stereo, then you must also include multiple foldback monitors, so it can easily get a bit complicated if the lead guitarist and vocalist and rhythm guitarist need separate foldbacks, which is where the matrices come in.

The relays are shielded magnetically to avoid magnetic coupling into the circuitry at the low signal levels found in these mixers. The transients would couple into the audio. You can bet this was a "fix" that was required after production.

At 36:30, regarding the cables that were used instead of board-to-board interconnects between one of the bus boards, I think it's to make room for the vertically mounted digital board shown at 34:20.

Dissection of the Mixing console of my dreams.. Yep The knobs are hypnotizing.

I use to work at a nightclub/concert venue back in the 90s and loaded in and out all the bands equipment. Had a band called "They might be Giants" bring in their own sound board about that size. Was a mother to get that thing moved upstairs and back out of the place. Thing had to weigh 200lbs.

The mu-metal screening on the relays will be to stop switching noise entering the audio signal path

Thanks, I've picked one up and doing some service work on it now.

I used to service a PM2000 back in the 90s. SSM2018 is an Analog Devices Trimless VCA. Nice chip, now obsolete.

Always wanted to take one of those apart and see how it worked :) Cheers mate for the video!!! I could build so much stuff with that thing.

It's funny to see how these big guys have been replaced by things as small as the X32 by Behringer. But the x32 does loads of good on the ol' back! (Seasonal job is a Live Sound Engineer)

Best. Teardown. Ever! I actually understood most of it for once! :-)

when the video first started, I thought, that's small then Dave pops up then mind blown, that's huge!

You should try and take apart an SSL 6048 G+ 48 channel analogue console. Each channel is made up of at least 1 full length PCB, now that's a beast!!

Just briefly looked on ebay - you can get an power supply for this mixing board for as little as $75 (buy it now price). So, someone might get a full set-up working with this thing someday.

20:49 Nomi= Nominal Signal Level Indicator. (Where you want it to be)

love this one.. please do some more on musical equipment.

NwAvGuy was a big advocate of the NJM2068 in low gain circuits.

Dave, Many of thease boards are CTO, so there's alot of "Modularity" to them, I've seen that same board witthout the channels to the right of the master section. That yamaha is actually one of the "BMW's of its age" Although very clean sounding board, not very complex in comparison to others in its same vintage. even for a FOH board. There's even Field retrofit kits for some consoles to allow you to move your mains section around in the frame or to add aditional features. Great tear-down tho.... Love to see ya tear its powersupply apart.... those things were EPIC

Next you should tear down an analog synth.

Great vid! I'm betting that shortened bus board under the main output section is just a matter of their having used the same board from a legacy product that didn't have the digital scene memory stuff, and so that module was a few centimeters shorter. And yup! a little quick poking around revealed that the output section of the Yamaha M2000 was narrower by what looks like about the width of that gap. I'll bet it used that same bus board. Wouldn't have used the same boards in its input section, though, as its input modules had only four channel strips, each, not eight.

More of a studio board. But in a pinch you can use it for in live shows. The term your searching for is the "matrix" - yea, how things feed into another.

You can try pair one of your system power supplies to this and use this as your primary audio mixing station. If lugging their original PSUs are too much of labor I believe those switch-mode yet high precision system power supplies can cut it.

makes my little 8 channel digital mixer look small......... very small...... btw i was very fortunate to be able to have a tour around Abbey Road studios a couple of years ago, i think they had an 80 channel mixer............ but yeh the stuff they had was HUGE and very complicated!!!!!

SSM2018 Trimless VCA, extremely high dynamic range, -100 to +40 dB gain range, 0.006% THD+N Max @1 KHz (holy shit!). Very popular among us Synth DIY enthusiasts and audiophiles alike ;)

That's what I needed: Top tier teardown.

Yamaha quality right there! Note the string wrapped wires. :P The 48 volts I assume is for non powered mics. You could also clean up the sliders and sell it for around $1,000 (or aussie equivalent). Wouldn't even have to take it apart again just get yourself a vacuum, suck up the dust and spray each slider with some deoxit. The potentiometers rarely ever get dust in them because the knobs are almost strait up.

Looks like the only thing that uses the tacked on 5V regulator is the EPROM and logic ICs on the digital board.

That was fascinating. Just as complex as one might think they are inside.

Awesome video Dave, your efforts are appreciated! :)

The Yamaha M-series (M for Mixer) have been the cheap version of the PM-Series (Professional Mixer). But both products would not have been accepted by any serious Band In those days. Preferred boards were the Midas XL4/ Midas XL3 or Midas XL200 or a few years later the Midas Heritage-Series. Nowadays almost every production uses digital boards. Greeitings.

I can't imagine how many cold solder joints I'd find in that gear. That old style thru-hole construction would be loaded with them.

I loved the series you did with Doug Ford on mic design. It would be awesome if you could get with someone from the audio world and talk filters, gain structures, etc from an electrical perspective

I've been waiting for you to dissect some audio gear!

Salvage parts heaven for audio projects.

Actually Yamaha is still selling this nice piece of hardware. Btw: The insert yacks are for INSERTing external effect processors and equalizers into the single input signal paths.