Product Yamaha AW16G

Category:

Digital Multrack-studios

Brand:

Yamaha

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Characteristics

Utilization

Sounds

Overall Opinion

List of user reviews Yamaha AW16G

Yamaha AW16G By sat4n on 11/07/2008 Music is a hobby

Characteristics

OK. There's no way I can cover everything here, but I'll give you the most important characteristics among those I actually use.

There are eight mono and four stereo tracks, and then another stereo track to which you mix down. Each track (as long as you count a stereo track - e.g. 9/10 - as one rather than two tracks) has independent dynamics processing (compressor, expander, gate) and independent four-band fully parametric eq. You can run two effects at a time.

There are two xlr inputs, six 1/4 inch balanced inputs, and one unbalanced, hi-impedance, 1/4 inch input for recording guitar or bass direct. One of the on board effects is a decent amp simulator (includes cabinet modeling and all the knobs) so recording guitar or bass direct often gets better results than you'd think.

There is also an on board sampler with four trigger pads, and the unit comes preloaded with lots of beats.

Utilization

The AW16G comes with a big, easy to understand manual and an informative (though unintentionally hilarious) dvd to get you started. Once you've spent an afternoon or two recording stuff you'll be completely off book. It has it's own arrangement and everything, but once you've found everything once you'll remember where it is. The organization is comparatively intuitive.

I've recorded a full band on this and gotten great results. I currently use it mostly for recording demos of my songs to give to my band mates. We (my band) normally record with Logic on my friend's Mac, but the other day we were actually recording the drums on the AW16G and transferring them into Logic because we liked the way the A/D conversion and preamps on the AW16G sounded more. True story.

Sounds

I'm mostly just recording demos to give to people who have to learn my songs, and so this is actually much better sound quality than I need for that. About four years ago I was in a band that recorded a whole CD on one of these and I was really pleased with the results. If you're really into production and are very picky about sound and control and flexibility, you're probably better off with a computer, but if you just want to get an accurate picture of what a band sounds like, or if you just want something to keep in your bedroom to cook up great sounding demos quickly and easily, this is for you.

My one complaint is that, though there are a lot of beats, they're mostly geared toward hip hop and electronic, and the rock beats are not that cool. I wish there were a lot more of them, because at least then you could pick a slightly lame beat that more perfectly fit the song. I find that I keep using the same three loops over and over, on all my songs. I've done a little bit of sampling from cds adn stuff, but really you should probably get a decent drum machine to go with this.

Overall Opinion

When I was a kid, we had to record on four track cassette, and even that seemed like a gift from god. This thing is so much better. As computer stuff gets better, and the AW16G gets older, it seems less and less state of the art, but it's still the best scratch pad I can imaging. I don't use it for "serious" recording projects anymore, but I still use it almost every day.

Yamaha AW16G By FP User Reviews on 11/01/2008

Characteristics

20 gigabyte hard drive, CDRW drive standard in USA, recall scenes, graphical wave form editing, timestretching, sample pads, digital io, ...you can save your tracks as wav files via the CDRW drive and transfer to your computer for editing...you can control software sequencers with the faders and transport buttons. They packed a lot into this unit...no one will use everything and there's something for everyone. The only thing that would out do all of this would be moving faders (which is what the 2816 is)

Price paid

$1,100 USD

Utilization

There's a button for all your main uses, i.e., record, eq, dynamics, effects, edit. Yamaha made this unit easy to learn and straight forward to use. The dvd tutorial helps but I found myself referring mostly to the manual when I got hung up.

Smooth faders, solid metal chasis, bright screen--all good stuff. I've used this machine at live shows and it never lets me down. The cdrw drive scares me.....i guess they had to use the laptop type due to the size of the unit....but the tray seems flimsy and pops out like a happy meal toy instead of the mechanical roll out i'm used to....never had any problems with it so, hey, i guess they know what they're doing. However, a major problem is the hiccups.....it seems when you're working on a song and you're pressing the buttons faster than the machine can handle, it hiccups and freezes and reboots itself....only a bummer if you didn't save that last take. Happened three or four times over the course of a year. It seems to do this when you have a lot on the hard drive. Other than that no problems.

Sounds

Superb. Eight analog inputs (two XLR) with 24 bit ADC's makes what you record sound full and musical. Uncompressed digital audio, unlike other popular virtual studios, is also an attribute to the outstanding sound quality. The effects are good for a unit in this price range and have many editable parameters per algorithm. The 4 band parametric eq and dynamics on every channel is the icing on the cake and cherry on top, respectively. If it can be fixed in the mix these tools will be more than adequate.

Overall Opinion

If it were a more expensive it would be nothing to call home about but for a little over a grand this machine has out performed all expectations. I would expect to pay closer to 2 grand for a machine with these capabalities. If something happened I would definitely replace it.

Originally posted on FutureProducers.com
Posted by: Unknown ( 7-, 2004)

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