Gear Review

As my studio grows, so does the variety of the services I provide. I was an early adopter of hard disk recorders and digital technology in general, so with each new addition to the rack the old gear gets put to new uses. These days, my ìvintageî 8-track HDR sees regular service as a live recorder. My little 16-channel analog mixer serves as the input section, with a budget outboard compressor and an old Yamaha SPX-90 as my effects unit. A very functional setup but there are drawbacksóthe largest drive my old HDR can handle is 4 gigabytes. The mixer is pure analogóno memory, basic EQ, minimal metering, and no internal effects. The SPX-90 still sounds good but itís strictly one effect at a time, and is one channel of compression really enough?

Enter the dragon
Bold promises were made early in the digital revolution. Small size, great quality, amazing effects, flexible routing, CD-sound, and moreóbut the promise never seemed to match the delivery. That may be changing, though. Musicianís Friend called me last week and asked if Iíd like to take a look at their new AW16G, a professional audio workstation that is the newest member of the AW family. Always looking for the latest edge for my studio, I agreed.

A week later, the regional Yamaha rep hand-delivered the latest prototype to my door! As I talked to him, I realized that Yamaha is seriously interested in providing the tools people really want, and that it was feedback from the users of the AW4416 and the AW2816 (as well as users of the other guyís workstations) that played a big part in the development of the AW16G.

Around the back
Yamaha calls the AW16G a professional audio workstation, and rightly so. What appeared at first to be a hard disk recorder/mixer turned out to be much more. All the I/O is handled on the back panel. Inputs 1 and 2 feature Neutrik locking XLR connectors with switchable phantom power. Inputs 3 through 7 are balanced 1/4" jacks and input 8 is a Hi-Z input for guitar or bassóeliminating the need for an external direct box. A left/right monitor output as well as a headphone jack powerful enough to drive my AKG headphones, complete the analog audio I/O section. Below that lie the assignable footswitch jack, MIDI I/O and stereo optical S/PDIF connectors, plus the power connector and switch.

On the top
The top panel is where it all happensó from the input trim to recording, mixing, mastering, and CD burning. The first thing that struck me was that after familiarizing myself with the controls, it was extremely easy to get around. The input channels feature a direct connection to DSP input effects such as amplifier, speaker, and cab models; acoustic guitar simulation; and vocal effects. Main navigation is handled through a series of buttons to the left of the LCD display. This is where you open and create new songs, name tracks, set up global audio and MIDI preferences, and more. To the right of the display, five knobs give you individual channel access to full four-band parametric EQ, dynamics control, the dual effect processors, and panning.

Below the LCD is the Quick Loop Sampler. It features four pads that can be played simultaneously, divided into four banksófor a total of 16 samples at your fingertips. Samples can be called up from memory (over 270MB of included sounds), directly from an audio CD (obeying copyright laws, of course), or direct from any input channel. Once samples are loaded into the pads, you can record your pad performance, making this a remarkable tool both in the studio and live. To make things even more interesting, the looped samples can be tempo-sliced as in Acid or ReCycle, letting you sync loops to the beat of the song! When youíre done recording and mixing, a full set of mastering tools including compression, limiting, and EQ are at your disposal. You can burn your songs to CD one at a time or all at once.

One feature I wish all digital recording devices would include is what Yamaha calls a Sound Clip. Simply put, this is an instant-record scratch pad that gives you up to 128 seconds to capture a flash of creative brilliance. You don't have to think about routing, panning, or anything else. Just press the Sound Clip button and play away! You can then trim off the junk, create looped overdubs, export your creations, and use the sound just about any way your muse demands.

Wrapping it up
In recent weeks Iíve used my mobile recording rig several times. It sounds good but I spend way too much time loading it up, hooking everything together at the gig, tearing it apart, hooking it back up at the studio, and importing songs in real time for editing on my DAW. The AW16 would have given me far superior results, and would have cut the setup and transfer times to a tenth of what they are for me now. Toss in the fact that it does looping, phrase sampling, CD mastering, and costs about the same as that SPX-90 did all those years ago, and itís easy to say that Yamaha has a clear winner on its hands.

Musicianís Friend has the AW16G in stock, hot from the factory. Take advantage of our great pricing and order yours today!

Features & Specs

8 analog inputs including
2 XLR inputs with switchable phantom power
5 balanced 1/4" mic/line inputs
1 Hi-Z unbalanced input for guitar or bass
Stereo optical digital I/O
16 tracks for recording
36 tracks available at mixdown
38 analog inputs
16 recorded tracks
2 stereo effects returns
Stereo digital I/O
4 dedicated sampling pads
Aux bus 1 and 2
24-bit A/D/A converters
32-bit internal processing
4-band fully parametric EQ
Dual 32-bit effects processors
Full MIDI synchronization
File compatibility with AW4416 and AW2816
Exports all 16 tracks to CD-R/RW as WAV files
128-second instant-record audio scratch pad
Loop sampler
CD-R/RW and 20GB hard drive included

Yamaha AW16G Multitrack Recorder

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