Yamaha on the road with Elton John

Elton John is taking Yamaha mixing consoles on the road as part of his international tour.

Yamaha’s mixing consoles have regularly been a part of Elton John’s touring itinerary, and this tour has proved to be no different, with a PM5000 at FoH and PM1D consoles at monitor positions manned by Matt Herr and Alan Richardson respectively.

“Elton’s longtime front of house engineer Clive Franks retired last year, but I had been working with him for about eight years and already had plenty of experience in mixing the shows, so I was happy to step into his shoes,” said Herr. “It made for a seamless transition when Clive decided to ‘come off the road’.”

The equipment for the tour is being supplied by Clair Bros, as it has been since 1972. Herr added: “Alan has been using the PM1D since it came out and Clive used the PM5000 with Elton for a long time. I did think about moving to the PM1D, but in the end I thought ‘if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it’. I like the PM5000 and Elton’s shows are all about a real bands playing real instruments, so I think the shows deserve an analogue sound.”

The monitor setup combines wedges and in-ears, with Richardson using only the PM1D’s onboard effects, while at FoH Herr uses a limited amount of outboard. “It’s basically a Lexicon 480, a couple of harmonisers to spread the sound of the backing vocals and a couple of delays on Elton’s vocals.”