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awm vs awm2 etc whats the difference?


morty77

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AWM (Advanced Wave Memory) used 12 bit sampling while AWM2 samples are 16 bit.

 

 

Hmmmm.... I don't know myself what the difference between AWM and AWM2 is, but I don't think bitrate is it. I have a 1988 Clavinova digital piano, it's first generation AWM, and the piano is 16-bit (and sounds great).

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I'd like to politely disagree with the "AWM=12bit, AWM2=16bit" hypothesis. There are 16-bit Yamaha synths using AWM: MU100r, the aforementioned Clavinova, etc.

 

If I haven't been misinformed by the Yamaha chap who told me, it goes like this:

 

We all know that the Big Three use data compression on their core ROM libraries (which is why their specs read, "when converted to 16-bit linear," rather than specifying a raw megabyte size.) The way I was told, AWM uses a constant algorithm to encode the wave information. AWM2, on the other hand, allows the programmer (sound designer) to roughly optimize the compression for a given sample. For example, a triangle lead may be able to suffer much more compression (due to the fact that it has very little bandwidth and harmonics) when compared with a steel-string guitar, or harpsichord, both of which contain a great deal of non-static harmonics.

 

So, it's kinda like Photoshop's "save for web" function for sound designers: reduce the quality until the source material starts to suffer, then back it off a bit.

 

Hope this gives some food for thought.

 

-Hoax

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I'd like to politely disagree with the "AWM=12bit, AWM2=16bit" hypothesis. There are 16-bit Yamaha synths using AWM: MU100r, the aforementioned Clavinova, etc.

 

 

AWM and AWM2 are just marketing names - when Yamaha switched to 16-bit samples in 1992, they decided to increase the "version" at some point, but any other significant changes since then (such as introduction of sample compression in 1997 or 8 oscillators in 2007) went without such an increase. You can regard them as a collection of features like the number of oscillators/LFOs/EGs, the structure of the effect block etc. - I'm not even sure if these were changed in transition from AWM to AWM2.

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i should of never sold my mu90r, but interested in the mm6( for sounds only) to add to my keyboard arsenal it should be in my local music store within the next week to try out

thanks for all the input on awm

morty77

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