Yamaha PM-1200
A broadcast-friendly production console that borrowed the PM3000's DNA and squeezed it into a tighter frame.
Overview
The PM-1200 has four sub-groups plus a stereo buss, four aux sends, and a three-band EQ with a sweepable mid and a high-pass filter on every input. It was offered in 16-, 24-, and 32-input configurations. Every version shipped with two additional full-function stereo input channels as standard, with more available as optional modules. That's a practical choice for a production room where a couple of stereo sources (a CD player, a tape machine, a playback rig) need to live alongside the mic inputs without eating up channel strips.
The input stage accepts nominal signals from -60 to +10 dB via adjustable gain. That's a wider window than most small-format desks of the period bother with. All outputs are balanced and run at +4 dBu on XLR connectors. There are two complete stereo aux returns and full talkback facilities. The feature set is dense for the footprint.
Yamaha positioned the PM-1200 explicitly for broadcast production studios. Mix (October 1989, p.267) described the console as designed for both sound reinforcement and broadcast applications, noting the same 16/24/32 channel spread and the sweepable-mid three-band EQ on each input. So it works in a control room and also on a small live gig, and Yamaha said so plainly.
Yamaha's own advertising for the PM series, including the copy that ran in Recording Engineer (January 1992, p.21) and elsewhere, framed the PM-1200 as sharing "the same roots" as the flagship PM3000, but in a more compact format. The pitch was blunt about it: the smaller PM-series consoles were, in the advertiser's own words, "ripoffs of the Yamaha PM3000." That's marketing copy, not an independent verdict. It does show what Yamaha thought the PM-1200's strongest selling point was - the group structure, aux layout, and mute grouping lifted from a console that was already a fixture on tour riders and Broadway. The PM-1200 carries four groups plus stereo, four aux buses, and four mute groups, which is a lot of routing for a desk this size.
Yamaha's own literature quoted a typical 16-channel configuration at under $6,100, and the broader PM-series advertising cited an MSRP starting around $5,500 for the range. That put the PM-1200 in the same conversation as the Amek/TAC Olympio 24/464, which EQ (December 1991, p.44) listed at $6,599 for 24 inputs. The Yamaha undercut it on price while offering a comparable group-and-aux count.
The PM-1200 shows its age where consoles of this vintage always do: the pots, faders, switches and connectors. A 16-channel desk that has spent years in a production room will have scratchy gain pots and at least one dead aux send if it hasn't been serviced. The good news is that the topology is conventional and the parts are serviceable. The bad news is that a full recap and a fader cleaning is a weekend job, not an afternoon, and anyone buying one should budget for it.
Collectors and working engineers tend to seek the PM-1200 out for the same reasons they seek out the PM3000: the routing is logical, the EQ is musical, and the thing just works. It doesn't have the cachet of the big PM3000, and it doesn't have the digital features of the later DMP7.
The PM-1200 also turns up in Yamaha's own product listings alongside the MR series of live SR consoles and the PM1800/PM2800M monitor consoles. That places it below the flagship, above the entry-level MR desks, aimed at the production studio that needed PM3000-style routing without PM3000-style footprint or price.
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