EMX62M Bundle (Singer Magazine, April 2003)

Overkill
My band is always bustin' on my head about hauling too much gear to gigs. My feeling is that an eight-piece band with horns demands a certain level of PA, so I tend to err on the side of too big rather than too small. I am reminded of a recent Winter NAMM showcase. On stage in a mid-sized hotel club/lounge were a well-known singer-songwriter and her guitarist hubby. They had one acoustic guitar, one electric guitar amp and two vocal mics. The system included a Midas board with at least 32 inputs. Can you say "overkill"? When it comes to smaller gigs and rehearsals, there is nothing more ridiculous than using a concert-sized PA when a box mixer and a couple of speakers will do the job just fine.

The Right Solution
This brings us to the Yamaha EMX62M/AS108 bundle. It is one of many in the EMX family, all of which were updated early this year with a new molded cabinet design that is both lighter-weight and rack-mountable. If you are already familiar with the EMX line, the new models have improved effects and redesigned power amps.

The EMX62M is a small mixer but big enough for solo or duo gigs and rehearsals. You get six input channels, four with XLR ins with phantom power, and the last two with dual 1/4" ins that can take a stereo input (from say a CD player or drum machine) and provide a summed mono signal so you don't have to blow two channels on a single item.

EQ is in the form of simple shelving high (10 kHz) and low (100 Hz) per channel and a seven-band graphic EQ for some rudimentary overall tone shaping. And despite what you may have read or heard elsewhere, you cannot ring out monitors with a seven-band EQ. Don't even try it.

Effects are similarly simple with the choice of three different good-sounding reverb programs which can be switched on and off via an optional footswitch. You get two aux sends, one pre-and one post-fader for a monitor send and effects. The single internal power amp provides 200 watts of power at 4 ohms. Simple to set up, run and schlep, plus it sounds good and gets the smaller jobs done.

The Prize in the Package
The 62M is a good little unit on its own, but the real stars of this bundle are the AS108 speakers. When I first heard these, I asked where they had the subwoofer hidden. The AS108s may be small but they are mighty. The long-throw 8 low-end driver has way more oomph than you would expect from a speaker of this size, and the inclusion of a real 1" compression horn for the top end is a feature not usually found at this size or price.

My kudos to Yamaha for doing it right. The cabinets are covered in the kind of spray-on tuff-coat material that has become the rage lately, and I find this surface vastly preferable to the once-standard rat-fur carpeting. The built-in handle and pole mount are nice as well. My only complaint is that the metal grill covering the 8" driver seems destined to dent, though it didn't happen during our review gigs.

The EMX62M saw duty for vocal/acoustic rehearsal situations and a couple of straight public speaking gigs and did its job admirably in all situations. The AS108s saw more use with keyboard monitoring duty (via a different mixer and amp) added to the list. The only time they seemed to run out of gas was when trying to compete with an eight-piece band with three live hornsa situation in which they shouldn't have been tried, but now we know.

Bottom line on this bundle?
You're not going to be doing club gigs with it unless the club is small and you are an acoustic solo or duo act. But if you are still reading this article, there is a good chance that these terms describe you pretty well. For that kind of gig it is a simple, elegant and good-sounding solution that will fit into the trunk of a compact car with room left over for your guitar.