Best Way to Transfer Old Tracks To A Mac

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mike2731

New member
OK, please forgive me, since I'm a computer recording noob. I used to own ADATs, and I currently own a Yamaha AW-16G. I will soon be getting a Mac Book Pro, and I'm planning on using it for my recordings. I'll probably get the Logic Express program with it when I buy it (or just use Garage Band at first).

Here is my question. I want to transfer my music I have recorded on the Yamaha over to the Mac when I get it. I need to know the best way to do this. Can I just back up the songs in .wav format from the AW-16G and be able to somehow transfer that to the Mac, or is there a different/better way.

Really sorry if this is a stupid question, but like I said, I've never done computer based recording, and I'm planning on getting rid of the Yamaha after I get the Mac. Help is appreciated...
 
mike2731 said:
Here is my question. I want to transfer my music I have recorded on the Yamaha over to the Mac when I get it. I need to know the best way to do this. Can I just back up the songs in .wav format from the AW-16G and be able to somehow transfer that to the Mac, or is there a different/better way.
Click to expand...

I don't know what the AW-16G can do, but the Mac can certainly handle WAV files....
 
dgatwood said:
I don't know what the AW-16G can do, but the Mac can certainly handle WAV files....
Click to expand...

The AW-16G can save backup files to a CD. I believe all of the tracks are saved separately as wav files. What I'm wondering is, for example if I had a song with 12 tracks backed up to CD as separate wav files, would I be able to import them all to a Mac recording setup and keep them all together as one song?
 
I would say "yes" with reservations.

Did you do any editing on the Yamaha? And is it destructive or non destructive editing?

A lot of the answer is based on how you prepare the tracks prior to backing them up. The "song" won't be transferable, but the audio will.

The biggest thing you can do before transferring them to make it easier... is make sure every track audio file starts and ends at the same time. If this means inserting blank space at the beginning, during , or at the end, this is going to make things far easier on the Mac side. There's no guarantee your Mac app will understand the Yamaha's Time stamp... if there even is one in the Wav backup file. This way you can simply import everything, and easily realign the audio. Without this or usable time stamps, it's an excersize in patience. Hope you have a lot of time to kill.

If you can, make sure each song is in a separate folder... or, back them up separately to keep them separate. Blank CD's are cheap enough now a days.

I've transferred a few things from different systems to my Macs, and preparation has been by far the most important factor into whether I could make it work reasonably or not.

A fall back, is to run the tracks back out through the units D/A converters, and then into the Mac via the systems A/D converters. I'm sure the unit has some form of time code in/out so you should be able to sync the systems if you need to make multiple passes to get all the individual tracks.

It all depends on how important to tracks are to you. With some of the material I transferred, after working with it for a while... I really just wanted to re-record the material making use of the newer, and higher quality equip on my DAW.
 
Thanks for the info. I'm going to be keeping the Yamaha until well after I have the Mac and get everything set up with it anyway, so I will have the luxury of trying multiple options and seeing what works best.

As for the music, it's not really anything I am going to re-record. It's mostly older recordings that I've transfered along as I've gotten new systems. I have stuff from the early 1990's that was recorded on a Tascam 688, stuff from the mid 90's that was recorded on Adat, and the newer stuff on the Yamaha. I also have a partial album on the Yamaha that a friend is recording, that we had to take an extended hiatus on.
 
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