akai vs. yamaha vs. korg

Bill and I both moved on from the Fostex VF80 at the same time, and debated choice extensively then. It was good fun.

I chose the AW16G because on listening I just felt there was something better than the Fostex in the Yammie's recording quality (I guessed the VF160 and the 80 have the same A/D etc.). Bill went with the VF160.

The irony is that as I use a PC to mix I don't need the Yammie's bells and whistles, and the option offered by the VF160 to add an ADAT interface and record 16 tracks at once would have been useful - but there you go. The AW is still a sweet bit of kit. (With this and their MG mixer I am becoming a big Yamaha fan. Bought a Yammie wedge today for our vox to use in our new reheasal studio.)

By the way, IMHO, you have to be a long way up the food chain before 24 bit becomes important.

Just realised this was a pointless late night ramble but I enjoyed it :)
 
Here's a weird apples to oranges comparison... James Taylor's "Hourglass" (1996?) is a beautiful 16bit recording done on some Yamaha equipment. It's a standard I aspire to when recording my son's music...

Having said that, just now listening to Coldplay's "Rush..." (2002), an album I love, I think the basic recording quality is well within reach of any of the gear we've been talking about here lately. I like the way Coldplay produced their music. It's great and it fits their style/content. I just think some discussions that are had about pre's, AD/DA bit conversion, sampling rates, etc., that imply ENORMOUS differences that will make or break a recording are splitting hairs in the law of diminishing returns.

Put another way, I don't believe "Hourglass" needs more bits and I'm not sure "Rush..." shows any signs of having extra bits.

I think the big questions on buying a self-contained DAW are more in the area of: does it have the needed features? is it stable and reliable? is the hard-drive easily changeable? does it have the amount of tracks i'm likely to need/want? does the place i'm buying it from have a generous return policy?

Anyway, we do live in good times for creativity, eh?
 
Bill... I just read an interesting interview with the producer of Taylor's "Hourglass"--he discusses the making of that CD in detail, which does support what you write. The interview's in a wonderful recent book--"Behind the Glass" by Howard Cassey--which interviews dozens of the top producers (in the USA and England) during the past 50 years and asks many questions with the home recorder in mind. Fascinating agreement and disagreement, but the main point that shines through is this:
put a good producer/engineer behind even mediocre equipment, and the results will shine. Similarly, put someone who hasn't fully learned his/her craft--or who is working with weak compositions and/or weak musician--behind the best new equipment, and the results will be unimpressive. "Hourglass" and many other recordings, even in the 60s (like the Beatles' work) are cases in point. Constantly buying new and better equipment is rather easy, but truly learning about music, producing, and engineering are hard but necessary work. From my experience, I'd have to agree.

Best,

J.
 
Just to second what Jeffree said - Behind The Glass is very inspirational for us newbies. One of my favourite music books.
 
In the spirit of a late night rant...

I guess when I look at equipment issues, I’m assuming that art, creativity, songwriting, performing talent, and engineering are a given. If you can’t at least temporarily control for these issues, discussions regarding competing equipment or technologies become irrelevant. I certainly agree that the recording process is a balance of talent, technique, and equipment. Too often people approach it like a grown-up version of “rock, scissors, paper.” Where talent crushes equipment or engineering covers talent (Ok, the analogy is ill-fitting!). Of course, this BBS is often too heavily focused on equipment to the exclusion of basic art. (Personally, based on my experience in fine art and photography forums, I think this is the result of a gender-based affliction that forces guys to revert to equipment issues. We like to talk about our toys and maybe it’s a Freudian thing!)

I have to admit that I’m too focused on the A/D and preamp issue. I guess that for me, at least, it simplifies the process of evaluating equipment in terms of a very basic signal chain and what happens (good and bad) as you follow it. I just want to know what happens when you stick your meat (art) into the sausage grinder and it comes out the other end (I new it was Freudian!)
 
I liked the Akai best of all...now I have an 80Gb HD... and if you keep it on the desk outside the traking room the fan is a non issue. I use a nicer 8 channel preamp to get a nicer sound out of it and the capability for 8 condensers if I need them.
 
Yo Dwil & Et.Al:

Haven't run into mixed metaphors [extended they become analogies] since the classroom and the news media.

Just noted that Tascam has a new kid on the block -- SIAB with all kinds of stuff for around 1200. Someone posted a photo of it in another forum. Might as well look at that one too.

Green Hornet

:D :p :cool:
 
Just a quick interjection, I have a Korg and it does have a loud fan however, when ever the record button is pushed the fan shuts off so you don't really have to be concerned with the fan noise during tracking.
 
But....the new Korg, the D16XD, has a loud fan that DOES NOT shut off when recording. That's why I decided against it in favor of a PC. Gonna stick that tower with its stupid fans and hard drive clacks in a closet.
 
I've got an AW4416. It is a great machine. It will not be the weak link in your studio. I've had mine for..... I don't know..... close to 3 years. The fan noise is associated with the internal burner. Personally... I don't think it's that bad. I mean I record vocals with LD condensers and don't really have an issue. When I record myself..... I generally sit about 4 or 5 feet from the deck with the LD pointed away from it and it just isn't a problem.

Some of the guys at the egroups site for this unit have figured out how to rig a switch into the fan.... but I never saw the need for it.
 
I use an akai dps16. have had it since they came out. i put a maxtor 40 gig in it and am running the 3.02 upgrade. fan noise is not an issue with my unit. while there is fan noise, it is very small and i record in the same room with cond. mics. when putting down vocals i just make sure the mic is about 10 ft away from the deck and pointing away from the deck just to make sure no fan noise is picked up. if i was going to update to a new deck and would look at the new tascam 2488 or the new korg 16x. i don't see much need for going to 24 tracks since the dps16 has 250 virtual tracks and most of the other 16 track decks have abundent virtuals and i don't like the deal with sharing faders on any of the 24 track daws i have seen. every one out there shares faders. Just my 2 cents.

by the way, i have no plans on upgrading. the akai does a great job and the final product is outstanding. as stated early, they are out of production but akai still supports them as in repair or questions. in the almost 4 years i have had mine not one thing has broke or quit working. a solid piece of gear and you can pick them up for under a grand with a burner on ebay.
 
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