AW4416 question for Phil.

[onelife]

I still have my Yamaha AW4416 from last century and since I have a custom road case for it I use it occasionally for remote multitracking - which it does really well.

 

I also have a PreSonus AudioBox 1818VSL that has the ADAT In and Out.

 

My question is, have you ever used ADAT I/O with the AW4416 and do you know what is involved in doing so? Do you think it might be worthwhile? My biggest complaint with the unit was the slow CD transfer time and I'm thinking the ADAT interface may be a way to quickly get the remote recordings transferred to computer. I may start using it more if it's practical. I always liked the sound of the recordings I did with it.

[Phil O'Keefe]

The slow backup time is what finally made me move away from the dual AW4416s I used to run.

 

I did have MY-8 lightpipe cards in both of my machines. I needed the extra inputs, and they allowed me to send channels out of my DAW to individual channels on the mixers, but for backups, they're not ideal. Yes, you can send and receive digital audio over them to and from your computer DAW, but since your computer interface only has an 8 channel lightpipe I/O on it you'll need to do it in two passes if you want to back up all 16 tracks, and more if you have any virtual tracks you also want to store on the computer. If you do need to do it in two passes, you'll need to lock the DAW and the AW together with MTC.

 

I wrote an article up on how to lock two AW4416's together and how to set up the MTC on them. I'll see if I can find you a link to it in a moment. I'll have to hunt for it...

 

If the AW4416 had a fast USB (or firewire) port that supported audio over USB for backups like the later Yamaha all-in-one units and if it had 100mm faders, I might still be using them. I like the workflow for tracking and mixing, although for editing, they come up quite short compared to a DAW, and the backup to (sometimes multiple) CD-Rs was a real pain in the posterior.

[Phil O'Keefe]

I found a couple of links with copies of the write-up:

 

 

http://duc.avid.com/showthread.php?t=72755

 

http://forums.musicplayer.com/ubbthreads.php/topics/1672764

 

 

It's been quite a while since I used the AW4416's but if you have any questions let me know and I will do my best to try to remember the details!

[onelife]

When you synced your two units together, did you use MTC via the 5 pin DIN MIDI port or did you have to use the Word Clock via coax?