BUENA PARK, CA (November 18, 2005) — Having just completed a mini tour with Gwen Stefani, the Black Eyed Peas have surpassed the eight million mark in CD sales, were recently named Best Pop Act at the 2005 MTV Europe Awards, and have grabbed four GRAMMY® nominations and one GRAMMY nod. When it came to choosing a monitor console, engineer Billy Flores knew he “had to have the best.”

Flores (pictured) uses 47 of the PM5Ds 48 input for fourteen separate monitor mixes.

With a grueling tour schedule that took the band across the U.S., Europe, Australia and back to the U.S., Flores has been with the Peas for more than a year, and for over a quarter-century he mixed monitors for the likes of Sting, Four Play, B.B. King and Eminem.

“I used the PM5D for the first time for three weeks in the states prior to the European leg of the BEP tour,” he says. “That’s one of the reasons I specified it; I wanted to be able to cross the Atlantic with the show in my pocket and just load it into another 5D.”

“The console has everything I want; it’s small and light – you don’t need ten guys to lift it, and it takes up no space whatsoever, not even for a power supply,” Flores adds. “It’s the sort of desk you can turn up with and the house sound crew won’t mind putting it in for you, unlike the space required to fit all the racks, etc. that you’d have with an analog console. The 5D gates and compressors are great, so there’s no need for external processing.”

Flores uses 47 of the console’s 48 inputs, with the last input provided solely to the keyboard player and musical director, Printz Board, to talk directly to Flores using a Beta 58 microphone. “I have fourteen separate mixes, with principal band members all using in-ear monitors, and the rest of the band is on wedges,” he notes. “This is a big band with a lot of people on stage, so cues are vital. All mixes are reconfigured on a song-by-song basis.”

Although Flores admits that he doesn’t carry the PM5D manual around, he’s discovering something new every day. “It just gets easier to use, and although it took me a little time to get the hang of the console, the vibe from the band has been positive,” Flores continues. “This desk has become a permanent fixture. It was the only way for me to go.”

The BEP U.S. leg of the tour is supported by Schubert Systems out of Los Angeles, which supplies Flores with a wide array of microphones for the band, including Shures for kick drum, snare and toms; Sennheiser 609s for both guitarists; Beta 58 and 87 wireless mics for band vocals; and Sennheiser EW300s and Shure KSM9s just for starters. The front-of-house PA consists of a JBL Vertec rig, Lab Group 6400 amps, dbx processing with L’Acoustic ARCs (x 4) and 218 subs (x 4) for sidefills.

For more information on the PM5D Series mixing consoles, write Yamaha Corporation of America, Commercial Audio Systems Division, P.O. Box 6600, Buena Park, CA 90622; telephone (714) 522-9011; e-mail infostation@yamaha.com; or www.yamahaca.com.