Anyone using the Yamaha AW-1600? How do you like it?

Cliff Kane · From: the late great golden state

Hi,
I've heard that these sound better and are more sturdy than the Tascam, Boss, or Korg machines, even if those have more tracks or features. This will be for home and live recording. Any opinions or advice on this machine?

Thanks!
Cliff

Greg Cutshaw · From: Corry, PA, USA

I am very pro Yamaha so maybe I am biased a bit and I haven't used all the other brands. About 300 of my recordings were done on the Yamaha AW-1600 and about 150 of them on a Yamaha AW-2400.

The recorded quality on the Yamaha machines is pristine at either 16 or 24 bits. Of course, all of the aforementioned brands do this well. The effects on the Yams are just silky smooth and in fact smoother than any of my stomp boxes or my Lexicon MPX1. The USB interface lets you easily transfer stereo tracks or .wav files (stereo or mono) between the Yam and a computer. This pretty much makes it easy to burn your CD's on a PC, back up data etc without resorting to the Yam's built in CD burner. A 16 track song's unmixed raw data for backup will have 2 to 4 gig of data which won't even fit on a CD anyhow.

Every input and track channel and buss on the Yahama has dedicated dynamics, compressors, effects sends (4 dedicated) and 4 band parametric EQ with the new added Type II EQ. The AW-1600 also features the AW-2400's preamps. The compressors are super fast and easy to program.

The 1600's inputs do require external preamps to get noise free recordings. I use the $100 Yamaha MG 10/2 for this. Also the Yamaha is big on recording and not so big on built in drum loop capability or amp simulations. Also you can only record 8 tracks live at one time on the AW-1600 but you can overdub later and each track has 8 virtual tracks behind it.

You can even view and edit waveforms and tracks down to the 1 ms time interval making precise edits, deletes, bounces and fixes possible.

If you want to email me, I can help you get started if you decide to go this route. At this point I do some mastering on the Yam and some on my PC using Reaper. The AW-1600 however is capable of doing the whole job from recording to mastering, stand alone.

Here's a link to my recording setup as of a few months ago:

Yamaha AW-1600 Setup

Yamaha AW-2400 Setup

Both of these links describe my recording process in some detail. Recently I have added Reaper and Toontracks EZDrummer for my drums tracks instead of the Boss drum machines.

Greg

Cliff Kane · From: the late great golden state

Thanks, Greg! That's really good to hear and helpful. I've downloaded the manual and I'm reading it. It looks like a pretty good machine.

Cliff

Tony Prior · From: Charlotte NC

Here's one review as a start, there are many up on the net.Mostly very good as I suspected.

http://reviews.harmony-central.com/reviews/Effects/product/Yamaha/AW16G/10/1

I have used an AW2816( scaled down version of the AW4416) same OS2 op system with half the faders, so you share 1-8 with 9-16. Not a big deal.

Yamaha units are awesome, unsurpassed quality, performance and reliability.

The operating systems do have a stiffer learning curve as these units are not low end, I would even say, not entry level.

The Aw1600 is one I considered and I do like it, for me the biggest drawback was that it has too many dedicated track PAIRS , which may be fine for some, , but it is not what I was wanting. I wanted 16 true tracks.

The two most critical area's for any machine today, 2009, is storage and backup. If the AW1600 can transfer backup file data by USB to be stored on a PC then that's good, a 40 gig HD will get filled up fairly fast so the ability to swap HD's easily is a plus. And , what kind of hard drive ?

Yamaha front end preamps are not know to be great, ok, but not great. I suspect the newest machine, AW2400 has advances in that area.

The only thing that ever died on my unit was the hard drive. And of course it had 5 or 6 songs on it which were not backed up yet.

I think the Aw1600 is a pretty good machine overall but it's intent into the market was not to compete with it's big brothers , being the AW2816, AW4416 and the AW2400. It's intent was to compete for the mid market where Boss and Tascam live, such as the Tascam 2488 MKII . Personally I would not pull the trigger on the Yamaha without reviewing the Tascam 2488 MKII , just my take. But you can't go wrong with the Yamaha, I am a big time Yamaha fan and like Greg above, everything I have done for the past several years came off the AW2816.

Read as many reviews as you can find, download manuals to several machines and look at things such as backup, file transfer, importing and exporting files , true tracks, how many active effects per track , how many tracks/record at the same time etc.. these are all very important things that you may not think about while staring at a very kool machine in Guitar Center.

Good luck

t

Dick Wood · From: Springtown Texas, USA

I have the Yamaha AW4416 and it is very sturdy and has great sound. I got mine from E-Bay for $750.00 with the case in like new condition.

Cliff Kane · From: the late great golden state

Thanks, guys. It sounds like a goon machine. I too have always liked Yamaha instruments and equipment.

Cliff

Don Brown, Sr. · From: New Jersey

Dick W.,

Well, after all this time, I finally got around to plugging the first AW4416 in, and doing the steps, you suggested, to find out if it worked. And yes! Everything went just as you said it should.

Dick, this is the one, I had my doubts about. If you recall, after I'd paid (big bucks) for it, suddenly things that were suppose to come with it, got lost or destroyed. But, so far so good.

Where do I go from here? Suggestions from anyone familiar with the, "Yamaha AW4416" would be greatly appreciated.

My plan, is to finally get something recorded, simply by going from my volume pedal, directly into the 4416, using nothing more than head phones for the output, and a backing track, on an inserted CD.

I'd also like to add just a touch of the built in features such as reverb, chorus, or whatever. So is that best to be put in after the recording, as opposed to during the recording?

Any suggestions, would be greatly appreciated. I've leaned enough to know, I know nothing!

There is no quick start, as there are in most other things. Smile

And, since I'm not an engineer, well, you know the rest.. Very Happy

There is however, a Tutorial that goes along with the song "So Fine" on the Original CD, to learn how to mix and master, etc. The VHS Tape, is really in Depth, in telling how everything works, as well as, how it all works together, on interactions, but it's still very complicated, to someone new at doing this type of thing.

Thanks........ Don

Dick Wood · From: Springtown Texas, USA

Hey Don,

I sent you a E-mail.

As for effects and such, I would play with whatever makes you feel good as you can take them out or adjust at any point later.

Let me know how things progress.
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Richard Lester · From: Constable, New York, USA

I have been using the AW1600 for 4 yrs. and have recorded approx. 80 songs. I use an Aphex 207 as a pre-amp and a couple of BBEs. There is a guitar input built into the AW and it works just fine. I use a drum machine rather than the one provided with the AW. The built in effects are fine. I mix everything then send it all to an Alesis Masterlink and burn the CDs. I'm satisfied with the end results doing the home recording thing. Of course you can't compare it with pro-studios with pro-engineers at the realm, but it gets the job done. Smile

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