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Yamaha aw4416


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Originally posted by Anderton:

I really don't change my gear very much. I'm still using Windows 98SE; I never bothered with the Millennium Edition (OS upgrades are the worst!). I don't upgrade software that's working unless there are a ton of new features I need, and sync hassles went away by doing everything in the computer, and transferring audio via ADAT light pipe. I should have been clearer that simplicity is not just a matter of organization, but more a matter of "just say no" to things that threaten the stability of a setup.

 

Maybe I've just been bitten by Murphy's law. I was a Vision user - we all know what happened there. Now I use Logic, but I've found it easier to use when you don't try to run OMS with it. No OMS means that my Studio 5LX no longer worked, so now I have a MOTU midi interface. I have a 2408. It worked beautifully for 18 months - once I figured out all of the sync nonsense - but now it's in the shop. Latency was a minor problem with the 2408, but it was still noticeable.

 

The bottom line, for me, is that as my studio has expanded, my productivity has decreased. I used to be able to record new song in a week or two, start to finish, back in my Portastudio days. I never had to spend four straight hours hunched over a half-dozen manuals trying to figure out why I hear more latency today than I did last weekend, or why the needles are moving, but I don't hear anything. I'm tired of the exaspiration, and I'm now making a conscious effort to simplify for the sake of productivity. I still have my computer-based recording system if I want to uses plugins, etc. And I still use MIDI every single day. (Best invention of the 80's!) But I'm gonna be tracking and mixing on the AW until something even more intuitive comes along.

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This thread has gotten off onto the subject of simplicity vs. complexity, and that's very apropos. The AW4416 is both, sort of. The simplicity and directness of having everything in one box, including motorized faders, is wonderful, but the OS is *not* simple. In particular, as somebody alluded to earlier in the thread, cut-and-paste editing of tracks in the AW4416 is surprisingly awkward. Replacing a flubbed note with one from a previous bar can easily take five or ten times as long as it would in Pro Tools.

 

There are lots of great things in the AW4416 -- built-in compression and EQ on every channel, for example, a dedicated hardware meter bridge, word clock I/O.... There are also a couple of things that left me scratching my head. Notably, the built-in sampler is so lacking in features that they should just have skipped it, in my opinion. Your performance on the sample trigger pads is recorded into a simple onboard sequencer, but you can't even quantize the performance, and there's no event list for editing it. You can shift a trigger event backward or forward by a number of clock ticks from its current position -- but you don't know what that position is, so trial and error are required to get a tight rhythmic lockup. The sampler appears to be a case of good intentions sabotaged by a shortage of follow-through.

 

For lots more juicy details, see the January issue of Keyboard!

 

--Jim Aikin

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Originally posted by Jim Aikin:

...the built-in sampler is so lacking in features that they should just have skipped it, in my opinion. Your performance on the sample trigger pads is recorded into a simple onboard sequencer, but you can't even quantize the performance...

 

Good! Quantizing is for sissies anyway! http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif

 

Well I'm happy, most of the stuff you've mentioned that the machine can't do is stuff I don't care about anyway. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

--Lee

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Originally posted by Jim Aikin:

For lots more juicy details, see the January issue of Keyboard!

 

--Jim Aikin

 

Looking forward to the review. The Jim Aikin review is the first thing I read when Keyboard arrives. I like to watch him pick a product apart, a la Mike Wallace.

 

The sample pads are a neat idea, and I can see a lot of possibilities for them, especially if they can be controlled from MIDI. (I don't know whether they can or cannot, as I hadn't planned to use this feature.)

 

As far as editing goes, this is good info for those who do depend heavily on the razor blade. I do a lot of pre-production in advance of tracking, so I rarely need to edit audio tracks. For those who do, they can always blow the tracks into ProTools after tracking of the AW4416.

 

Good points. Much appreciated.

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Originally posted by dansouth@yahoo.com:

The sample pads are a neat idea, and I can see a lot of possibilities for them, especially if they can be controlled from MIDI.

 

Nope -- no MIDI. I'm hoping Yamaha will develop the sampling features of the device, as they hold a lot of promise for the future. At present, the samples don't respond to velocity, you can't quantize your performance (which, in spite of Lee's comment, is a necessity if you plan to use them for dance music), and the memory isn't expandable past 8 meg. Oh, and no filters....

 

As far as editing goes, this is good info for those who do depend heavily on the razor blade. I do a lot of pre-production in advance of tracking, so I rarely need to edit audio tracks. For those who do, they can always blow the tracks into ProTools after tracking of the AW4416.

 

True. I'd recommend getting the lightpipe expansion board with the AW4416 for precisely this reason. The AW's track edit features are entirely workable (though slow) for quick touch-ups, such as removing a cough between verses of a vocal track, but if you don't have a convenient silence on both sides of the bad bit, a computer's graphic editing is way preferable to any stand-alone recorder, IMO.

 

--Jim A.

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For those interested in doing more complex editing and sequencing on a computer in tandem with the AW4416, go here:

http://www.aw4416.com/e/application/index.html

 

... and have a look at "System 3" for an example diagram of a hybrid AW/computer system using expansion boards for the AW, Yamaha's DSP Factory software and a sequencer.

 

--Lee

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One final tidbit, which I discovered too late to make the deadline for the Keyboard review:

 

In order to burn a CD with the AW's optional built-in CD-RW, you naturally need to construct a song list. You can't specify the time between tracks, so you need to record a few seconds of silence at the end of each of your master recordings -- but that's easy to do.

 

The problem is, what happens when you're ready to burn 50 identical CDs to put in your press kit? Turns out you have to enter the identical data for the song list **every single time.** The AW inexplicably trashes the song list data at the end of the burning process.

 

I'd like to be polite and call this "an oversight." But hey -- at some point in the development process, a software engineer had to make a list of the steps the machine would go through at the end of the CD burn. A decision had to be made about what to do with the song list data. The conclusion seems inescapable: Whoever made that particular decision had an incomplete picture of how musicians would be using the product.

 

--Jim Aikin

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Curve Dominant,

 

I am currently running two VS880's (one Ex, one V-Expanded) synced together via MIDI. I really enjoy the flexibilty and simplicity of this set-up. I am using them in conjunction with a DBX 586 dual tube mic pre, a Yamaha MX12/4 board, AKG C3000, AKG C1000s, Sennheiser ME80, and various dynamic mics.

 

Though the editing features aren't quite as as simple as drawing a line. Those are some pretty powerful little boxes, and my clients enjoy the ease with which I can make set-up changes and keep the creative juices going.

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OK, you asked for it!

 

Well here's the first bit of good news: I got the thing home, installed the HD and CDR drive, turned it on and it worked perfectly. Downloaded the demo song from the enclosed CD, loaded that sucker in, and played it back... everything's great! That's always a relief to see something work the first time out of the box. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif Them faders were flying!

 

Others' comments about the fan noise being a bit loud are correct. I'll definitely be getting the foot switch and sitting quite far away from the unit when I record. But then I really needed to do that anyway.

 

Other very first impressions: the buttons and faders all have a really nice, solid feel to them. And I really like the dedicated meter section, it looks great and has all the relevant data highly visible.

 

OK, now I'm going to go get some signal going into this sucker! Stay tuned for the next edition of "As the Disk Turns"...

 

--Lee

 

[This message has been edited by Lee Flier (edited 11-27-2000).]

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Hi Lee!

 

Now that you got your AW, would it be ok if I asked once again:

 

I'm used to working on ADATs and they have this button "Auto input monitor" that lets me switch between the input signal and the signal that has been recorded to the track I'm working on. Let's say I've recorded a guitar overdub to a track and the player wants to try another idea without actually recording it. On the ADAT I just push the "Auto input monitor"-button so it's not lit. That mutes the sound from the track and he/her and me can hear the "new playing". I do this all the time but I haven't been able to find a way to do this on the AW4416. Have you? http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif

 

 

I know you gave me an answer earlier. I haven't tried what you suggested yet, but I'm going to record on the AW sometime this week and it would be great to know that it will work.

 

 

thanks

 

 

Richard

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Hi Richard,

 

If I'm hearing what you want to do correctly, you should be able to do it like this: arm the track for recording (press the red select button for that track) view the Track View screen (press the Track button), and at the bottom of the screen it allows you to select the Input Monitor from the choices Auto, Individual, or All. Select Individual. You should see the "I" get selected next to the track.

 

Then, play back the tune (don't record). You should hear playback of all the tracks except the one you have selected, and you should hear the input signal on just the one.

 

--Lee

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And the saga of the 4416 continues...

 

Things got interesting when I tried to work with the AW some more yesterday! The other night when I first fired it up, I loaded the demo song in as I mentioned, and everything seemed fine. However, when I went to create a new song for the first time, things got a bit odd. The fader placements, routing and other data seemed to have carried over from the demo song, even though this was a new song and the Scene number was set to "00", which is supposed to restore the "default" state and is supposed to be a read only scene.

 

As I progressed through recording it became more and more obvious that something was wrong, as I became more and more confused with trying to route and patch stuff. Finally I just reformatted the hard drive and never loaded the demo back in. Everything was fine from that point!

 

The way the signal flow works is a little disconcerting at first, but really quite sensible once you have the actual defaults loaded. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/biggrin.gif Though I must say that the manuals kind of suck. The reference manual is OK but the operations manual seems to complicate things unnecessarily and also presumes that you already know an awful lot about engineering. The tutorial booklet is next to useless, and there's absolutely nothing in any of the manuals that would explain things simply to a beginner or non-engineering musician.

 

All that said, I don't really think such a manual would be impossible. It's really not that difficult to work this machine once you have a clue about a few basic things. Hey Craig, we could write an aftermarket book on how you REALLY operate the AW4416... LOL...

 

One thing I think is really cool is how they dealt with the fact that the unit has 44 actual channels, but only 16 faders plus the stereo fader. There's a "mixing layer" section with 3 buttons. Press one button and your 16 faders represent input channels 1 thru 16. Press the second button and channels 17 thru 25 are represented, plus the 2 effects returns which are assigned to channels 15 and 16. Press the third button and you're looking at your 16 tape returns. This makes a nice "clean" view, and because the AW has flying faders, as soon as you select your "layer" the faders instantly go to where you last left them on that layer. Pretty cool!

 

Other than my initial problem with the demo song overwriting the default scene, I have had no OS problems or crashes so far. It seems very stable. I only recorded a few guitar tracks last night - badly http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif - but so far it seems to sound great! I'll get the real test in a few days when I record some drums!

 

--Lee

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Hi Lee,

 

What I did was create a few default scenes and save them in a default song. I load it then create a new song and import scene memory. I still have to recall a specific scene however. Are you saying that after formatting the drive, it auto loads the last scene you were using on each song when re-loading that song?

 

I've had mine for about a month and haven't had any crashes, lock-ups, etc. It is indeed very stable. Mine came with o.s. v1.03, but the v1.10 update was posted last night on the egroups/aw4416 list. Yamaha recommends you wait till they send you the CD rather than using the CD image on the list, but several users say it works fine.

 

The only problem I keep having is cockpit error. I forget to look at what fader mode/mixing layer is active before grabbing a fader, then scratch my head when it doesn't do what I expected. This is usually followed by a DUH and a slap up side the head.

 

wink

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Originally posted by Lee Flier:

I loaded the demo song in as I mentioned, and everything seemed fine. However, when I went to create a new song for the first time, things got a bit odd. The fader placements, routing and other data seemed to have carried over from the demo song, even though this was a new song and the Scene number was set to "00".

--Lee

 

I was confused by this as well. When you create a new song, the AW4416 gives you options that allow you to import routings and other data from the present song in memory. I left all of these unselected, yet I still ended up with some leftovers from the demo song. I opted, as you did, to reformat the HD, because to that point, everything I had done was for test purposes only.

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Dan (and anybody else),

 

In case you haven't figured this out yet, the way to get around the problem with the default scene without reformatting the HD is to just restore the default scene (Scene 00)as soon as you create a new song. Otherwise it seems to carry over the settings from whatever song is currently loaded, even though it says that Scene 00 is loaded. A bit strange, but easy to work around.

 

--Lee

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  • 2 weeks later...

HEY LEE!!

 

We've been waiting 10 days for an update. What's the deal? Is it so cool you're spending all your time playing with the box, or so terrible you haven't been able to tear yourself away from the tech support lines?

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LOL Craig!! Didn't mean to drop the ball! Apart from the fact that I've had a massive influx of holiday guests at my house, I would say more toward the former scenario. This machine really, really is cool. It sounds great. I have not had to call tech support. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/smile.gif I haven't had any crashes. It basically just rocks. To be honest, I haven't even gotten into recording any songs yet because I've been so into experimenting with different permutations of signal chains, miking techniques, effects, etc. Trying to get a feel for the palette before I begin painting, as it were. So I will probably have a lot more to report when I really start tracking a lot of stuff.

 

A couple of general comments: 1) I will probably need at least one, maybe two expansion boards (probably one with another 8 A/D input channels and a lightpipe board for transferring to other digital media) to be well and truly happy. 2) They could have made it more straightforward to patch in external effects than they did. Real aux sends and returns for effects would have been nice. I guess they "expect" that most people will use the internal effects, which is definitely not always the case.

 

Otherwise, no complaints so far! I'll be back with more as I have more to report...

 

--Lee

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On a completely mundane note,did anyone else notice that the ads for the AW4416 all referred to the "infamous O2R" until the last month or so, when they changed it to "renowned O2R"?

Was wondering if someone was going to eventually tell Yamaha's ad folks that infamous means "having an exceedingly bad reputation; heinous." Apparently someone did...

I just found that amusing. Sorry!

Out,

kc

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Speaking of carelessnes in language...one company sent out a Christmas card one year that said on the front "Did you know rap music was invented at the North Pole?" and when you opened it up, it had Santa saying "Ho, ho, ho!"

 

You should have seen the look on the (female) marketing manager's face when I told her what "ho" meant.

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Hello everyone. My name is Phil O'Keefe and I am a newbie to this forum, but an "old timer" to engineering. I just replaced a Mackie 32*8 and 4 "blackface" ADAT's with a AW4416 and two LX20's back around October 10th, so I have been using it for a while.

 

Since there seems to be a lot of interest in user impressions, I hope no one minds if I just jump right in and start making some posts.

 

BTW, Craig and Jim, been reading both of you guys since the '70's, and you have been a lot of help to me over the years. THX!

 

 

Originally posted by Jim Aikin:

 

>>The AW4416 is both, sort of. The simplicity and directness of having everything in one box, including motorized faders, is wonderful, but the OS is *not* simple.<<

 

I agree. I'm used to using Logic Plat. and lots of different systems, and even after DAILY use of the AW since Oct. 10th, only now am I feeling fairly "fluid" in operating it.

 

>>In particular, as somebody alluded to earlier in the thread, cut-and-paste editing of tracks in the AW4416 is surprisingly awkward. Replacing a flubbed note with one from a previous bar can easily take five or ten times as long as it would in Pro Tools.<<

 

I have a Alesis ADAT PCI card and lots of software, so I just fly things over into the computer for edits, so this was a non-issue for me. For those of you who are really going to use it as an "all in one" box, this could be a problem.

 

>>There are lots of great things in the AW4416 -- built-in compression and EQ on every channel, for example, a dedicated hardware meter bridge, word clock I/O.... <<

 

I don't know if you covered this in your review Jim, but the AW4416 can not be a MTC AND Word Clock slave at the same time. I had considered getting two of them, and using 2 ADAT's / BRC with each, but that seems next to impossible until Yamaha fixes this. In a follow up post to this, I will chronicle my trials and tribulations in getting the thing to sync to a BRC, but for now, let's just say it was problematic...

 

There are also a couple of things that left me scratching my head. Notably, the built-in sampler is so lacking in features that they should just have skipped it, in my opinion.

 

I agree. Why not just use an outboard sampler with an outboard sequencer? It seems like a wasted "gimmick" to me, rather than a feature. I could do without it, and do not use it.

 

 

>>For lots more juicy details, see the January issue of Keyboard!

--Jim Aikin[/b]

<<

 

Can't wait. Your reviews are always fair, honest and complete.

 

I am not a professional writer, so I would never pretend to be in Craig's or Jim's league, but I will shortly post my own (admittedly) haphazard "review'.

 

Thanks for letting me put my .02 cents worth in.

 

Phil O'Keefe

Sound Sanctuary Recording Studios

Riverside CA http://members.aol.com/ssanctuary/index.html

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AW4416 "Review":

 

Well, I have one of the first ones to hit the USA, and to get right to the point for the impatient reader, it's great - go buy one! Is it perfect? No, but what is? My AW4416 has the stock 12GB HD, the CD-RW as well as 2 ADAT interface cards. You have to install the CD-RW, HDD and (optional) interface cards yourself, but it only took a Phillips screwdriver and about 15 minutes to accomplish this. It's important to note that you should get these components installed BEFORE you first power up the unit though, since damage can result if you don't.

 

A little background about my setup and experience:

 

I am an audio engineer with 22 years of professional experience, including "charted" records. I have a small commercial studio in S. California (http://members.aol.com/ssanctuary/index.html) where we work on band and publisher demos, indie albums, et cetera. Our previous setup was based on 4 "blackface" ADAT's and a Mackie 32*8. The Yamaha has replaced the Mackie and two of the original ADAT's. The other two ADAT's were replaced with 20 bit LX20 ADAT's. We also have an extensive computer and MIDI system on five (one Mac, three PC's, and an old Atari Mega STe)computers, running just about any software you can think of, with interfaces that include MOTU, MIDIman, Audiowerks 8 card, Alesis ADAT PCI card, Tascam US-428, etc. etc. Outboard gear that I am using with the AW4416 includes various solid state and tube pres / comps as well as 4 external reverbs (DP/4+, LXP-15, Studio 400, SPX900).

 

I mention all of this to make the point that I'm taking the AW4416 a lot further than most users will, but guess what? For the most part it keeps up just fine, and greatly exceeds the capabilities of the old Mackie. So, for most users, it's great as a "all in one" studio", but it can be expanded and interface with all sorts of other equipment to take it to a whole new level.

 

The sound quality is THERE. Compared to the original Roland VS880 (the only other "stand alone" HDR I have extensive experience with), I find it to be far more transparent and less "grainy". No data reduction - Yeaaah! To my ears, in 24 bit mode, it exceeds the sound quality of the 20 bit ADAT format.

 

The complex routing of the machine could be a issue for the novice user, but it does offer extensive flexibility. That flexibility is the reason for the complexity, and not a criticism of Yamaha's interface design, which is about as "user friendly" as possible. Anyone familiar with the operation of the O2R will feel right at home with it.

 

The EQ and dynamics work great and sound very good. The EQ is about as flexible as you could ask for, with 4 full parametric bands. The dynamics will never replace an LA-2A, but what will? The onboard libraries of EQ and dynamics settings should prove quite useful to the novice, and the pros out there can store their own favorite settings for later recall. I find the internal effects to be quite good, but I usually use them for "additional" effects to supplement my outboards.

 

I liked the mic preamps, but only two offer XLR inputs. The other 6 are on 1/4" TRS jacks, and will require adapters to work with an existing "snake". Sorry, but inserts and phantom power (48V) are available only on inputs 1 and 2. Only 8 mic / line inputs (all 8 inputs be set for either level) might be a inpediment to some users (those who want to track drums with multiple mics and say, bass and rhythm guitar at the same time) but there are ways around this limitation. Optional cards in various formats provide additional inputs. I use two ADAT lightpipe cards, and use outboard preamps and A to D converters. If you're running an ADAT machine with the unit, you can plug the output of a mic pre into an ADAT input, put that channel into "record ready" mode, and since the ADAT passes analog inputs out via the lightpipe cable, you can get the signal into the Yamaha that way. And since the Yamaha can record up to 16 tracks at once, you can get that entire rhythm section down in one pass.

 

Automation works great. You can automate the onboard hard disk tracks, as well as 16 additional sources (via optional cards) as well as 8 other sources, that can be user selected from the sample pads, analog or S/PDIF inputs, etc. Panning, EQ, mutes and faders can all be automated. Faders can be automated in "absolute" or "relative" mode, which is great for making adjustments to previously made moves. Punching in and out on automation is as simple as pressing the "Sel" (select) button over the channel you want to work with. Again, very similar to the O2R.

 

Editing is rather complex, and since I have only used it briefly, I won't go into it in detail. I'm SURE Jim will (justifiably) rant about this in the next issue of Keyboard . I prefer to use a computer for this anyway, and Yamaha does include a "lite" version of Sound Forge with the program for those who do not already have suitable editing software.

 

Documentation could be better for many users. There are three manuals that come with the AW. A Reference Guide, a User's Manual and a short Tutorial. The manuals have all the information there, but they lack an index. In my opinion, on a device of this nature, this is inexcusable. Also, many novice users would prefer more training than provided by the brief "Tutorial". A VHS training tape is supposed to be shipping to registered users along with an update CD for the operating system. I just recently upgraded from the original OS, version 1.01, and they're now up to version 1.1, which I just installed last Friday. There was also a version 1.03 interim version on some units.

 

Before this starts to sound like I work for Yamaha, here are a few complaints:

 

You can't lock the AW4416 to incoming MTC (MIDI Time Code) AND external word clock at the same time. It HAS to be the master for one or the other. I wanted to get a second AW and a Tascam MX-2424 and lock it all up, but so there seems to be no easy way to accomplish this. This shouldn't be a problem for most users, but when configuring the AW4416 to work with a BRC and two ADAT's, it posed some problems. Yamaha's suggestion (from Elijah @ Yamaha Tech support, which is good if you don't mind leaving a message and waiting around for up to a day for them to return your call) is to run the AW as the MIDI Machine Control master, the AW as the word clock master, and with the BRC as the Word Clock slave and MTC master (the BRC slaves to SMPTE, but not to MIDI Time Code). Sounds good, but when I tried that, the system ran too fast - playback was 1/2 step SHARP. Elijah confirmed this on a similar system at Yamaha, and said he'd report it to their engineers. My solution involved purchasing a MOTU Micro Express, which converts the MTC from the Yamaha into SMPTE, and have the BRC chase SMPTE AND lock to Word Clock from the Yamaha. Since that addition, everything chases just fine, although there's about a 10-15 second lockup time. Again, it would be FAR better to have the Yamaha chase to MTC from the BRC and lock to its word clock. That would eliminate the lockup time, and allow me to run the tape machines as the master, the way God and Les Paul intended . Hey Jim and Craig, since you both have more "clout" than I do, why not complain to Yamaha about this? This is if you ask me... unacceptable.

 

The BRC only operates at a sample clock rate of 48 KHz, so you can't use the AW4416 running at 44.1 KHz sample rate when using a BRC. That's Alesis' problem, not Yamaha's. However, it DOES prevent you from using the internal mixdown tracks on the Yamaha. I get around that by sending the mix out of the Yamaha's S/PDIF outputs into an (discontinued) Alesis AI-1 sample rate converter (converting from 48 KHz down to 44.1 KHz), and then into the digital inputs on my computer. From there I do my mastering and burn CD's. I use the Yamaha CD-RW for hard disk data storage purposes only.

 

Speaking of that, I have had problems (on two occasions) with data being unreadable by the AW4416 from CD-RW's made on the internal CD-RW drive. VERY SCARY! I suggest you ALWAYS burn at least 2 backups of any important song data you save, and confirm you can re-load it into the AW BEFORE you erase anything from the hard disk that you might wish to use later.

 

The only other beef I have with the AW4416 is that when recording in 24 bit mode at a 48 KHz sample rate it had frequent problems in software version 1.01 with "Warning: Disk Busy" messages once I had filled up about 12-14 tracks on the AW4416's internal hard disk. Tracks would drop out and fail to play. Yamaha is aware of this and states that it is a playback issue and that the recorded tracks are unaffected. The new software version is supposed to address this issue, and since installing the upgrade (mailed to registered owners on a CD-ROM) it has not recurred. Yamaha is sending out upgrade CD-ROM's with instructions on upgrading the OS to all REGISTERED owners. If your unit is more than a couple of days old, chances are you either have version 1.01 (the initial release version) or version 1.03. You can find a description of what's been added with each software revision and you can register online at:

http://www.yamaha.com/proaudio/products/aw4416_upgrade.htm

 

To check on what version you have now:

 

Turn on the AW4416 while holding down the UTILITY button, and the version number will come up on the screen as follows:

 

Mixer CPU version: 1.XX

 

You can release your finger from the UTILITY button once this has appeared. The AW4416 will continue to start up.

 

As I mentioned earlier, the new software eliminated several of the problems I was having - including infrequent "noise bursts" of white noise that would sometimes occur when playing, rewinding or using the Jog / Shuttle wheel. It also seems that it "fixed" the aforementioned problem with tracks that would drop out and fail to play after I reached 12-14 tracks of a 24 bit / 48 KHz recording. The unit still won't export .WAV files to CD-R of recordings done at 48 KHz though, so I'll have to continue exporting via my ADAT lightpipe linkups. Oh well, maybe in a future update. I know they keep adding features to the O2R (like the new 2.0 version that gives it surround sound mixing capabilities) so I'm sure Yamaha will continue adding to the AW4416 as time goes by. It's still a "new" unit on the market, and appears to have some "growing room".

 

My wish list is pretty short: I wish there was panning available for paired aux sends. I am using Aux 5/6 for headphone monitor sends, and having a pan available would be nice for setting up stereo headphone feeds. You can adjust "panning" by varying the relative levels of the two individual aux sends but that's more trouble than adjusting the pan knob on, say, a Mackie's Mix B.

 

I also wish there were 6 "omni outputs" instead of the four on the AW4416. This would make it easier to use all 8 aux sends for effects sends, with 6 going to outboard processors and two to the internal effects. To be fair, many users are not going to use that many outboard reverbs, and some will do so with S/PDIF capable units via the AW's S/PDIF jacks.

 

I also wish there was a dedicated output for sending signal to headphones. While there IS a headphone jack, it always has the same signal source as the main outputs. For most "home" users this makes sense since they don't have to worry about two different monitor mixes, but in a studio with a seperate tracking and control room, the additional outputs to route aux sends to your headphone distribution system would be nice. Again, to be fair to Yamaha, I think I'm probably not really representative of the "target market, ie the "typical" user that they've designed the AW4416 for.

 

All in all, I am VERY happy with this device. It works very well and sounds great, and nothing on the market matches it in the "bang for the buck" department. The learning curve is a bit steep for novice users, but the features and operating system are generally well thought out and do make sense. With it's superior expansion capabilities, Yamaha is destined to take over Roland's market for the "all in one" studio with the introduction of this box. It's a big winner.

 

Phil O'Keefe

Sound Sanctuary Recording

Riverside CA http://members.aol.com/ssanctuary/index.html

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Here's a couple of additional beefs regarding the AW4416:

 

The CD-RW backup is pretty slow. Be prepared for at least a 15 to 20 minute wait while backing up a song to CD-RW. http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/eek.gif The good news is that if your song exceeds the capacity of a single CD-RW, the AW will back up across multiple disks.

 

Another complaint: Yamaha's official list of supported drives to date is very limited. I am not sure if that's because they have not tested that many drives yet, or if there's a narrow selection of drives that are compatible. I do have a few other SCSI drives around that I could hook up and test (that are not on Yamaha's official list) but I have not really had the time to do so yet. What I want is DVD-RAM backup capability, and have emailed Yamaha about it, but so far I have had no response to my query.

 

The internal CD-RW drive will only write at 6X, and read at 8X. This is supposedly true even if you have a drive that is rated as faster, so it must be either an internal HDD or software limitation.

 

For more information regarding compatible drives, check out this page:

 

http://www.yamaha.co.jp/product/proaudio/homeenglish/mtr/aw4416/feature/ex/list.htm

 

It looks like they've added a 20GB HDD to the list in the last few days. Everything else is either M/O, or internal and external CD-R/RW's.

 

Curve Dominant said:

 

>>BIG OL' PROPS TO PHIL!!! YO PEEPS, THIS CAT IS FA REAL!

The Scientific Integrity In Product Review Award goes to Phil O'Keefe.<<

 

Thank you very much for the kind words. I feel I'm as "fluid" on this as just about anyone who isn't working at Yamaha or for a major music equipemnt mag, but I'm really interested in hearing what other people are doing with their AW's, and in what their opinions are. Forums like this are great for getting the "straight skinny" on gear, as well as for sharing tips and tricks. So Lee, I am really interested in hearing more about your impressions, and will be happy to answer any questions that I can about my AW for anyone interested.

 

 

And I'm REALLY looking forward to Jim Aikin's review in the January issue of Keyboard. I'm sure he'll get in to a lot of things that I have not covered and do so in a far more professional manner than I managed to do... http://www.musicplayer.com/ubb/cool.gif

 

[This message has been edited by pokeefe777@msn.com (edited 12-17-2000).]

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