The present invention relates to a magnetic resonance imaging system (1) comprising a plurality of RF coils (4) forming a multi-coil array and furthermore to a magnetic resonance imaging method for such a system. In order to provide an MR imaging system and method in which a desired excitation pattern is achieved in a simple way, it is suggested to utilize an analytical procedure how to combine the single coil elements to obtain the most homogeneous B1 excitation possible with a given coil array. In other words, the homogeneity of the B1 field is improved in a very simple way. The sensitivity of each RF coil (4) of the coil array is scaled or weighted by a complex factor, i.e. phase and amplitude of each coil drive signal is adjusted accordingly. These complex factors are determined analytically utilizing the sensitivities S(8) of the coil elements (4) and the desired excitation pattern P (IO, 11). The invention allows an optimized control of the field distribution (RF shimming) for arbitrary RF coil arrays. With the invention a fast and easy independent phase and amplitude control of the coil elements (4) is provided for reducing body-induced RF non-uniformities, which appear in high field MR systems.