Need help diagnosing recorder problem

H

HapiCmpur

New member
My Yamaha AW2816 is starting to give me trouble. I’m trying to record an acoustic guitar through a Shure KSM27 -- something I’ve done successfully many times in the past – but now when I hold a sustained chord on the guitar, the signal decays to gravel instead of fading naturally. The guitar sounds fine until the dBs start getting low, and then instead of fading smoothly, the signal decays into a really unpleasant gravelly crunch.

This has never happened before.

I’ve ruled out the mic and cable by swapping out both and getting the same results. It may help you to know that I get the same results on either of the recorder’s two phantom power inputs. I also get the same results when I plug the guitar’s internal mic directly into the recorder’s Hi-Z input. It may also help you to know that I can hear the gravelly decay in the headphones when playing live as well as on the recorded track.

One last thing: I deleted all non-critical material last night and defragged the hard drive. That didn't work, either.

Does this sound like something that can be fixed or bypassed, or am I about to be in the market for a new recorder?
 
Have you tried switching between 16bit and 24bit mode? Not that either should be producing that kind of distortion, which sounds like a bit-limiting effect is engaged. I'm also assuming if you plug the guitar into anything else the sound is perfectly clean?
 
Has recording a line source via a line in given you the same issue? ie. can you trace it directly to those two inputs? Where's the Hi-Z input? Tagged to #8 isn't it? I guess that rules that out.

I have an AW4416 and recently retired it as I sensed meltdown was imminent and things were starting to not work, including issues with one of the preamp channels...

Start saving I reckon, but go PC recording rather than SIAB.
 
Steenamaroo said:
Maybe I'm asking a noob question, but are there any effects on this recorder?
Specifically, is there a noise gate?
Click to expand...

Yes, the recorder has a whole suite of effects, including a noise gate. It's not currently engaged, though. Are you thinking that a noise gate might be causing the problem or that it might be part of a solution?

JJ33 said:
Have you tried switching between 16bit and 24bit mode? Not that either should be producing that kind of distortion, which sounds like a bit-limiting effect is engaged. I'm also assuming if you plug the guitar into anything else the sound is perfectly clean?
Click to expand...

I always record in 24 bit mode, so I'm assuming that I'd get the same result (or worse) at 16. Your question, though reminds me that the unit has a dithering feature that I use when mixing and transferring songs to disc. It's not supposed to affect the recording process, too, but maybe I've got it set up wrong. I'll experiment with that this afternoon.


Armistice said:
Has recording a line source via a line in given you the same issue? ie. can you trace it directly to those two inputs? Where's the Hi-Z input? Tagged to #8 isn't it? I guess that rules that out.

I have an AW4416 and recently retired it as I sensed meltdown was imminent and things were starting to not work, including issues with one of the preamp channels...

Start saving I reckon, but go PC recording rather than SIAB.
Click to expand...

Yes, the Hi-Z input is #8. As a former AW4416 owner, do you happen to know if these units use a separate preamp for each phantom power input, or is one preamp wired across both? Also, is the Hi-Z input likely to be wired to the same pre? If I've just got a bad preamp, maybe I can replace or bypass it.
 
This sounds like a digital issue like truncation distortion. Maybe the audio is getting truncated way before the LSB (Least Significant Bit)? If this is the case there may be a hardware fault.

Have you tried reflashing the bios of the recorder?

Cheers :)
 
Mo Facta said:
Have you tried reflashing the bios of the recorder?
Click to expand...

I've never heard that expression before, and I can't find anything in the manual about reflashing bios. Is that another way of saying "resetting factory defaults" or "defragging the hard drive"?
 
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