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anonymous 1 October 2005

I called a guy about a board. He didn't have what I was looking for.
But, he say's "I have a refurbished Yamaha PM-2000 (just got it back), I'm tryng to sell for $4500"
Now I would like to hear what some of you think of this board.
He also said "it sounds just as good as an API" (in his opinion)

And, would you even need a board like this, if say you already had like 16 or 20 outboard preamps ?

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Comments

audiowkstation Sat, 10/01/2005 - 16:14

It is a serious board. You will need to gauge whether your budget is comfortable with that expendature and if so, find out more about who refurbished it and exactly what was done and why.

Lots of headroom and clean.

I'd say....

If you get a warrantee, (of perhaps a year) it would be a no brainer.

The 2-bus ia worth it IMHO...

anonymous Sat, 10/01/2005 - 17:17

audiowkstation wrote: You will need to gauge whether your budget is comfortable with that expendature and if so, find out more about who refurbished it and exactly what was done and why.

Well, the $4500 is not a problem, unless you are suggesting that I will have to spend more money on it in the near future. (I really don't need that)
I sure will ask him some more questions about the refurb job, as well as who refurbed it?

Do these Yamaha PM-2000's have Direct Outs?
I really need direct outs, for what I'm gonna be doing.

anonymous Sun, 10/02/2005 - 06:52

Yeah I've never seen one either. I couldn't even find a really good shot of one on a google search.
However, this is supposted to be a f*ckin kick ass mixer.
And I'm NOT a fan of Yamaha (Yamaha anything for that matter).
So for me to even look at this board is quite out of the ordinary.
I guess this board was made back when they were try'n to prove themselfs.

So am I an idiot , even for thinking about using a 20 some year old mixing board?
He says it has been...
a) recapped w/ clean faders
b) cleaned edge connectors where the channels plug in
c) he says it came from Walt Disney studios out of Florida
d) and that there might be a little problem or 2, since the board is old and that would be expected from any console that is older (whether it be an API, Neve, SSL, ect, ect, ect.)
e) he said "that this board sold for $40,000 new, back in 1982, and that was alot of money back in '82"

It's either this board or a Ghost.
BIG difference!!!!!!

Cucco Mon, 10/03/2005 - 05:04

Well, I wouldn't say it sounds like an API...

It is a nice board though. Be expecting to spend a little money each year to keep it in shape.

If you're unsure about the claims - find out a name and telephone number of the folks at Disney who got rid of it and contact them. Ask them why they got rid of it, what they replaced it with, what they liked about it and what they disliked about it.

If I had the choice between it and a Ghost, I would still seriously be looking at the Ghost. The main reason is - considering the fact that most people (myself included) use external preamps a lot nowadays and outboard compression/eq and so on, you're really only getting most consoles nowadays for the use of their faders and summing bus. In both cases, the Ghost is a great board. (Especially if you can get the master section of the Ghost upgraded by someone who is familiar with them...)

Don't get me wrong - the Yamaha board is nice (as are most things Yamaha that are pro - despite your dislike of them... :cry: ), you just have to decide exactly what your needs are and how both of these boards suits you.

J. 8-)

moonbaby Mon, 10/03/2005 - 07:56

I was a Yamaha dealer during that boards' heydays. Direct outs? Maybe,can't remember, but they DO have a pre-fader insert, and that could be your direct out. They don't make anything analog in this league anymore. Unreal headroom.I believe that Yamaha was working with Deane Jensen on the transformers for that model. It sure blew the PM1000 away in terms of input gain, EQ characteristics, noise levels and the like. And there are a lot of PM1000 fans out there.

anonymous Mon, 10/03/2005 - 14:55

Johnson Cabasa wrote: Fletcher at mercenary keeps talking about the one in his studio. And he's about the snottiest person I've ever heard of in terms of equipment. If he has one you can't go too far wrong

Fletcher is the one who is selling this board. So right now he has 2 of them. I decided not to go with it, mostly because it is sooo heavy and would require annual maintainace.

If anybody wants it, call up Fletcher!!!!
He still has it and is looking to sell it.
$4500 plus shipping (is what he wants for it)

Davedog Mon, 10/03/2005 - 17:15

Heres my six cents. The Yamahaha PM2000 is an incredible sounding monster. And I mean just that. I had a friend who had a medium sized Pro Sound and Lights company and he had two of em. One was 24 channels and the other was a big SOB....maybe 48 or more. I used the 24 several times and it was really deep and wide sounding....and there was ZERO chance of ever overloading the pres. The 24 was a good 2 feet wider than a Ghost 32 and it weighed a ton.

I cant remember the direct outs thing either. Suffice to say it had a bunch of ins and outs in its sub/master secvtion and the matrix too, so you probably could do a multi-track setup with it. The 1000 is a bit harder to accomplish this with.

Johnson Cabasa Tue, 10/04/2005 - 10:19

the reason things like that are soo heavy is because they are fullof transformeres witch is a good thing. did he say what kind of annual maintnance it was going to need or just the normal mainenatnce cleaning you should do to any consle.

wtahc out for the patchbay on the ghost mine died after 3 years and i had to have it replace witch costed almost 2000 too yearsl later we sold it nad have an mci 400 witch sounds much better and is full of thansformers and needs to be fixed every now and then but sounds so goood it's worth it

anonymous Tue, 10/04/2005 - 18:13

Oh yes, the PM-2000. Analog classic. I own one and love it. However it might never leave my basement because of the weight. The one I have is 32 channels of rock-n-roll. The opamps are the standard 6 pin block opamps. I swapped out a couple in the master section for John Hardy 990c's. I love it. The Eq might be viewed as a bit limiting but that is the weakest link. Each input channel does have a 1/4" send and return. Fletcher was able to provide the service manuals and it was worth it. Tons of great information if you are into maintaining it yourself.

It is great to work on yourself. Open up the hood and you see all the transformers (Tamara in my board). They sound good. The boards channel layout is modular which is great as well. Outboard power supply. I found mine for less than Fletcher is asking but it also needed some work. I will say that it is a sleeper board. But a number of people who have them love them.

Jason

anonymous Tue, 10/04/2005 - 19:14

It's an incredible sounding board. I used one for two years. $4,500 is a steal in my opinion if it's working and you get some kind of warranty.
It makes an HD system sound like a transitor radio, in my humble opinion. You'll notice the difference immediately and will never use anything else for summing.

Jerry McMaster Mon, 02/11/2013 - 16:14

The Yamaha Pm2000 Consoles Pre Amplifier sounds as a good as ANY api Pre amp I have ever used
It runs at 24 volts not 16 or 18 .Over all they Pm2000 Mixer sonics are amazing ,
The Eq section sounds great but is narrow as I recall, I worked in a studio and a Mobile truck with the Yamaha Pm2000 mixer and the work I recorded with it is still some of the better sounding recordings I have ever did earlier in my mixing career.

The over all console build is amazing and the did sell for $45,000 - $60,000 when the were new in the early 80's.
They were built in Japan by hand and built very well,tanks.
Some think the Pm2000 is a Jap copy of all things good in recording.
Neve Style EQ( not as sweet but still very nice and very usable compared to a shitty DAW EQ with no sound! )
The Pre Amp is very similar to an Api , runs at 24 volts like a John Hardy M1 Pre Amp
.The board has 8 sub groups, 6 aux outs and 8 Matrix outputs.All and all I would much rather pay $4500-6 K for a Yamaha pm 2000 and get a wicked deal on a great mixer over paying $5 K and only get 8 channels of APi 3124 pre amps.
At least with the Pm 2000 mixer you get 32 pre amps a killer mixer , To answer an earlier Question it gives you 32 direct outs , out of the balanced insert 1.4 TRS s

A partial re cap would do it I think ,start with the PSU and master section, Many other mods can be done to the pm2000 mixer, and I have seen it moded to do inline mode, for repro,and many other mods including the one I used had a Neve summing Network in it for the 2-bus. I would say if you can get one for between $3500 t0 $6 K it is worth it, Just make sure you listen to it and get an accurate run down of where it is at A few I have seen are in need of some love, I am guessing there are some sweet ones still out there, I was told there were only a thousand ever made? It is hard to find many console besides Neve and Api's and a few select other vintage console that are completely transformer Class A with an All discrete 24 volt inpt mic pre amplifier and a decent eq with ok routing for any where near that price!
I would build in $1000 To my budget if I was buying one for tech services or parts over the first couple years .
Otherwise a very very sweet mixing and Tracking console for very cheap at this point indeed!

If Fletcher has one that should tell you lots about how good it is. I also met a Canadian mix engineer / gear dealer "Lurch" at an AES years ago .
Lurch had a nice PM2000 32 channel mixer, and loved it. We were lamenting about using the pm2k in the 80's and remembered how good the console sounded. He like Fletcher ( Mercenary Audio gear pimp,engineer ) had everything for high end recording gear,and all the vintage gear you would ever want /He loved the PM 2000 Mixer, I think he was from Reaction Studios Toronto Canada, a full on SSL room .I know cause I kept hear about stuff I like Recorded at Reaction Studios, Rush and the Bare Naked Ladies Bruce Cockburn
.I am set up with all the gear I will ever need, but I do not know many other awesome sounding options for a transformer based discrete op amp, class A console until you spend a hell of a lot more cake $. Until I read this post I had forgot about these consoles!

anonymous Tue, 02/12/2013 - 05:15

When was the PM2000 in its prime? I'm a fan of Yamaha's PM & DM lines, but am relatively young in the audio world. I've never seen a PM2000.

Time frame wise, I'm thinking maybe late 70's on the initial release of that console, but I could be wrong on that.

I worked for a Yamaha dealer in the early 80's, ( '83) and we had a PM 2000 in the showroom... it took a while to sell though (partly because of its price, as I recall they retailed out at around 50 large) and the other reason was that they were MONSTERS in weight and build... which to me is a great thing, but not so much if you're traveling with it... LOL.

I think it finally did sell to a local concert venue for permanent house install.

I do remember that the headroom on that desk was amazing. The EQ wasn't as detailed as other comparable desks at that time, but the pre's were great, and it was built like a tank.

I can't imagine what the shipping/freight costs on that bad boy would be, though.... LOL

Jerry McMaster Tue, 02/12/2013 - 22:01

The Yamaha Pm2000 was late 70's design ,i think they started shipping in the very early 80's .

They were a standard touring console with many large stadium rock shows and some broadcast facilities as it was very clean and with very high headroom and transformer based which was mandatory for broadcast Consoles at the time .
The Pm2000 sound console was a legendary high quality console that was made by hand in Japan Thus the $50,000- 60,000 price tag for a 32 Channel pm2000 with a Case and 2 Power supplies.

The DM 2000 is handy but sounds like shit comparably as do most of the new DIGITAL Consoles compared to one of these baby's

I am forced to use those new consoles on occasion but would not if I had any choice or say in it, Recall over sound, I'll take the sound!

It is like an APi and we did some shoot out comparisons back in the 80's recording with the Pm2000

We could barely tell the difference between Api Pre's and the Pm2000 pre amp using the direct outs on the pm2k

All Class A discrete all transformers everywhere on every on and out put ,everything has transformers. Thus the weight.I was the wood is even high fi that is all over the console.
It is massively heavy and no expense was spared in the design or manufacturing process . made with very very keen Japanese Audio engineers that were trying to raise audio and sound standards to high levels unlike today where we live in the age of CRAP cheap sound no depth no vibe DAW mixes, the Motu Mbox, mp3 and so on.

I forgot about these old sweeties and I might see if I can find one for our other room.

Would rock for output summing mixing and pres's Beat that for the $

KurtFoster Wed, 02/13/2013 - 04:49

Jerry McMaster, post: 400514 wrote: The Yamaha Pm2000 was late 70's design ,i think they started shipping in the very early 80's .

I forgot about these old sweeties and I might see if I can find one for our other room.

Would rock for output summing mixing and pres's Beat that for the $

good luck ... i'm pretty sure Fletcher's sold this one about eight years ago ..... again, no big whoop but; really, really old thread guys. duh

audiokid Wed, 02/13/2013 - 08:30

I love these old threads, better than most new ones, gives me hope . smoke

I used the Yamaha 916 theater console for a year ( a skinny version of this). That thing was built like a tank and sounded beautiful. I was a fool and dumped it for something that had more hype.

Keep the old threads alive I say.

(y)

audiokid Wed, 02/13/2013 - 12:04

I think he sold everything and is living in an apartment, free from all the BS and is happier than ever.

PS,

and from what I understand as of now, rumor has it that Mercenary Audio #2 is not far behind. Fletcher would be a pretty hard act to follow .

I don't know how accurate this is, but this and other rumors are everywhere.
prorecordingworkshop.lefora.com/2013/01/06/heads-up-regarding-mercenary-audio/

audiokid Wed, 02/13/2013 - 13:13

get this,

I was told last year from a good source GC has 100 million in returns for various reasons each year. A huge percentage of that is user error. Isn't that mind boggling. I am so sick of how this industry has evolved. Today I'm happy but yesterday I though I might sell everything and just walk away from this all. A nice boat, bottle a 18 year old scotch. friends taking it easy and reminiscing.

Its not that I feel like I'm loosing touch. I actually think I am blessed to have and be in the most sophisticated position in sound today. This rig I have now is unreal. I know what I have here. But, ****, is there any money to be made in the over populated fashion driven quagmire. I can make $1000 a day painting houses and listening to Sirius .

The music business has all gone solo. No one needs anyone anymore. I like that and I hate that. So its all so confusing from day to day. Anyone else suffering from this?
I have hope that something is going to turn around. But like us all, I really started this journey for me and it ended up becoming a business because it was so right for me. Its hard to quit isn't it?
And its hard to think like a kid and enjoy it like I used to. I don't even play my guitar anymore. And I wanted to record my music before I lost the inspiration and ability. Now kids don't even care about guitar.
And the Baby B are loosing interest in their dreams. So where does that leave the passionate and talented in a world full of cell phone junkies. It should be easy for us.

AHH!

Yup, I like (loved the analog area), well, I really love the dynamics and energy everything had. The spirit.

Sorry, I need therapy lol. back to the OP.

moonbaby Fri, 02/15/2013 - 15:51

Yes, back to the OP. I was a Yamaha dealer starting in 1976. We were the first East Coast dealer with the PM1000-great headroom, but too noisey to record off of, and the EQ was so-so and limited. The 2K came out in 1980 and rocked everybody! We were getting orders from ABC Sports because the West Coast dealers couldn't take delivery of all of the ones they wanted. I remember years later that ATI told me their Paragon's mic pre's were modelled after the 2K.
I ended up with an M916 AND an M1524 for my for-hire rig in '81. Slaved them together and no one could match their headroom. Then some schmucks in a band down from CANADA (!!!!) rode off into the sunset in my truck full of gear and other "necessities"...Was that YOU, Chris?!?!?!?! LOL!!!!! I hope that the racks of P2200s gave them a friggin' hernia....

KurtFoster Fri, 02/15/2013 - 16:32

get this,

I was told last year from a good source GC has 100 million in returns for various reasons each year. A huge percentage of that is user error. Isn't that mind boggling. I am so sick of how this industry has evolved. Today I'm happy but yesterday I though I might sell everything and just walk away from this all. A nice boat, bottle a 18 year old scotch. friends taking it easy and reminiscing.

Its not that I feel like I'm loosing touch. I actually think I am blessed to have and be in the most sophisticated position in sound today. This rig I have now is unreal. I know what I have here. But, ****, is there any money to be made in the over populated fashion driven quagmire. I can make $1000 a day painting houses and listening to Sirius .

The music business has all gone solo. No one needs anyone anymore. I like that and I hate that. So its all so confusing from day to day. Anyone else suffering from this?
I have hope that something is going to turn around. But like us all, I really started this journey for me and it ended up becoming a business because it was so right for me. Its hard to quit isn't it?
And its hard to think like a kid and enjoy it like I used to. I don't even play my guitar anymore. And I wanted to record my music before I lost the inspiration and ability. Now kids don't even care about guitar.
And the Baby B are loosing interest in their dreams. So where does that leave the passionate and talented in a world full of cell phone junkies. It should be easy for us.

AHH!

Yup, I like (loved the analog area), well, I really love the dynamics and energy everything had. The spirit.

Dave Grohl was on Letterman last night promoting his latest project, "Sound City". He had a lot of comments regarding the state of the recording industry. Then he played in "The Sound City Players" with Stevie Nicks. "baaaaaa - baaaaa."

[="http://loudwire.com/dave-grohl-stevie-nicks-sound-city-players-late-show-with-david-letterman/"]Dave Grohl Performs With Stevie Nicks and Sound City Players on ‘Late Show With David Letterman’[/]="http://loudwire.com…"]Dave Grohl Performs With Stevie Nicks and Sound City Players on ‘Late Show With David Letterman’[/]

[[url=http://="http://www.rollings…"]Video: Dave Grohl Talks 'Sound City,' Nirvana on 'Colbert' | Rolling Stone[/]="http://www.rollings…"]Video: Dave Grohl Talks 'Sound City,' Nirvana on 'Colbert' | Rolling Stone[/]

audiokid Fri, 02/15/2013 - 17:25

Kurt Foster, post: 400667 wrote: which one? Letterman or Colbert?

Colbert

Both
[="http://www.rollingstone.com/music/videos/dave-grohl-talks-sound-city-nirvana-on-colbert-20130214"]Video: Dave Grohl Talks 'Sound City,' Nirvana on 'Colbert' | Rolling Stone[/]="http://www.rollings…"]Video: Dave Grohl Talks 'Sound City,' Nirvana on 'Colbert' | Rolling Stone[/]

[[url=http://="http://loudwire.com…"]Dave Grohl Performs With Stevie Nicks and Sound City Players on ‘Late Show With David Letterman’[/]="http://loudwire.com…"]Dave Grohl Performs With Stevie Nicks and Sound City Players on ‘Late Show With David Letterman’[/]

kpan Thu, 04/02/2015 - 10:59

If you want a console for basic mixing, the PM2k will surprise you. It's almost impossible to overload this thing. The gain on the EQ is set in predetermined increments, but you will get used to that. When you do turn an EQ knob you will hear it and not much else, especially considering the it's age. Make sure the faders have been cleaned properly, distilled water at least, that will be the one thing that may have not aged well.

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