Your browser is out-of-date!

Update your browser to view this website correctly. Update my browser now

×

Clay Walker Buys Yamaha CL5s

The longtime country artist recently purchased his own desks.

Salado, TX (February 16, 2018)—Artists who tour hard recognize that carrying your own control gear may come with a cost, but the onstage peace of mind it provides is priceless. Case in point: Country star Clay Walker, who after a decade of owning two Yamaha PM5D desks, recently purchased a pair of Yamaha CL5 consoles and two Rio3224-D I/O boxes through Pro Acoustics of Salado, TX.

“Clay likes to own his gear and has for many years,” said Walker’s longtime FOH engineer, Alan Wentz. “We play year round, so it works best owning the gear we need.” Wentz said he likes the physical layout of the Yamaha CL5 and the fact that there is a built-in meter bridge, custom layers, a lot of user definable buttons, and three independent sections of the console that can be tailored to fit the engineer’s lay out. “The console sounds great, has an easy to manage work flow, and the added bonus of the Premium Rack.”

McCoy Makes Moves with Yamaha TF Series

Wentz has mixed on many different Yamaha consoles in the past, both analog and digital. “For me, there was a very slight learning curve with the CL5 due to the use of Dante and setting up switches in order to create a redundant system. I also have the house CL5 setup with four Cisco sg300-10 switches. As far as sitting at the console and mixing, getting around the various menus wasn’t a problem. The console is very intuitive, and the transition from the PM5D to the CL5 was pretty much seamless as far as control and functionality.”

Monitor engineer Chris Carter added that while most of the modern digital consoles are capable of being operated from an iPad, the Yamaha StageMix application is essential when dialing in his mix. “StageMix is one of the better remote applications that I’ve used. I’m able to move around on the iPad quickly and get all the musicians dialed in, in a timely manner and according to their needs. The customizable layout of the CL5 was also a huge improvement for me. I can quickly assign layers, buttons, and knobs to enhance my workflow. This is instrumental in getting my monitor console set up.”

Clay Walker • www.claywalker.com

Pro Acoustics • www.proacousticsusa.com

Yamaha Corporation of America • www.yamahaca.com

Close