Yamaha Consoles Ensure Revamped Ritz Is A Cracker

One of Manchester’s leading live music and club venues, the Ritz, has recently reopened after a major refurbishment. The £2m project included a completely new audio system, which features two Yamaha M7CL-48 mixing consoles.

Supplied and installed by Dimension Audio, two of the main criteria for the new system were the venue’s almost continuous use and the variety of events that it hosts, from regular DJ nights to every kind of live music performance.

“The M7CL is very versatile, it’s a great all-rounder,” says Dimension project manager Andy Laurie. “We have always had a good relationship with Yamaha and we own a few M7CL’s that we hire out on a regular basis for large gigs, so we know how reliable they are. That was an important factor and it was a comfortable decision, which we knew was right for the venue.”

Installed at conventional front of house and monitor positions, Andy knew that the consoles would be used at every event, so the familiarity of Yamaha mixers with the touring fraternity was also a reason for choosing the M7CL.

“Most mix engineers have used a Yamaha console and the way they operate is familiar across the range, so it made sense,” says Andy. “Of course there are always some people who want the moon on a stick, but we had a budget for the audio side and the economically viable option was to install consoles that the vast majority would be happy using.”

With the Dimension team of Andy, Ian Silcock and Pete Morgan installing and commissioning the entire system in under six weeks, the Ritz reopened to much fanfare and is already proving, once again, that it’s one of the region’s most popular venues.

With touring becoming ever-more popular, it is becoming viable for medium-sized acts to effectively go back to the days of the 1970s and early 1980s, when UK tours comprised a number of dates in regional, theatre-sized venues - rather than one or two in selected major arenas, or not touring at all.

“The HMV venues across the UK are attracting many of these artists and, together with the club nights, it’s really good to see such intensive use of regional live venues returning,” says Andy. “With their reliability and familiarity, the Yamaha consoles are definitely aiding this renaissance at the Ritz.”