My head hurts!

  • Thread starter Thread starter wheelema
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wheelema

wheelema

Boner-obo
I had a co-worker who posted (in a highly visible location) a Far Side cartoon where a boy is raising his hand in class and asking "Please Teacher, can I go home? My head is full." She had replaced 'Teacher' with the name of our Director.

I think I know how she felt.

Yamaha has recently released the 01X. Physically it looks like a mixer and indeed it is a digital mixer. It is also a control surface using the Mackie/Logic control protocol. It is a soundcard providing up to 24bit/96Khz A/D conversion. It uses mLAN (a superset of Firewire) to communicate with a DAW (the DAW is not a mLAN device so it ignores the mLAN data). Any mLAN components that you connect to the 01X are automatically recognized and configured, no DAW required (e.g., Kurzweil KSP8 w/mLAN card installed). It has eight balanced analog inputs, all with preamps, two of which are XLR inputs with phantom power, one a selectable Hi-Z. The preamps are alleged to be very clean, improved versions of the preamps used in Yamaha's top-of-the-line digital mixer. In addition to the mLAN and analog inputs, you can also plug in MIDI, and S/PDIF.

The 01X provides Steinberg VST Instruments effects (Vocal Rack, FinalMaster, and Pitch Fix) regardless of whether or not it is connected to a DAW.

Vocal Rack provides
  • a compressor
  • a harmonic enhancer
  • a 3-band equalizer
  • a deesser
  • a noise gate
Pitch Fix
  • adjusts the pitch/tuning for “out of key” vocal tracks
  • and pitch correction and tuning adjustments can be played from any MIDI keyboard connected to your computer
  • Multi part or choral backing vocals can be created from a lead vocal source
And, finally, FinalMaster provides...
  • Fully programmable mastering effect plug-in
  • Multi-band Compressor / Limiter
  • 15 presets for all types of mastering applications.
  • 20 presets for a wide variety of musical genres.
  • Custom developed soft clipping models prevent excessive peak signals after the mastering process.
  • Link switch for dynamics balancing
  • Independent control over all compressor parameters for each band.
You'd think I was making a commission off of this thing, but really I am just trying to get my mind around all the functions that this thing brings to the table.

Just when I thought I had all my ducks in a row, Yamaha rolls this thing down the aisle.

Ouch!
 
Sounds cool. Did you have a question or are you just talking out loud? :D
 
When you mentioned that the new Yamaha made your headache, I was going to reply that it made my wallet ache! But the price ($1,499) is tempting given the list of features: digital mixer, DAW control surface, preamps, A/D converters, effects, etc. It looks like Yamaha is positioning itself to compete with MOTU and Digidesign in the front-end DAW market. I suppose we will know more about the quality of the unit 6-12 months after it hits the shelves in January 2004. By that time users will began hitting this BBS with comments. I wonder in advance what the comments will be? (My Rosetta is better! It replaces my Graces! It does't deliver like my Great River! Ok I'll stop.)
 
If it was talking out loud, it was interesting talking out loud:)

Just wonder how many corners have been cut in this. I like my Yammie stuff, for what it does at the price - the MG12/4 mixer is amazing value, and I think the AW16G records nicely, but it has all this crap on the box about "pro-quality". Gimme a break:rolleyes:
 
TexRoadkill said:
Sounds cool. Did you have a question or are you just talking out loud? :D
Click to expand...
I was just talking out loud... you know, walking down the street screaming at the audio R&D folks to stop making neat stuff that I can't afford... getting weird stares from passerby... bouncing off of parked cars and brick walls. What, you gotta a problem with that!?

I went down to my local GC to see if they had one of these that I could look at. They didn't. So I went and spoke to the manager just to see if I had missed anything. I hadn't. Supposedly the manager had never heard of it, but he got on the phone to some high mucky-muck to 'find out' if GC was going to get it.

Per the high mucky-muck (the manager repeated all this stuff like I wasn't supposed to hear it, but loud enough to be sure that I could) the 01X was too 'plastic' and prone to breakage. The Tascam FW1884 (which they had in stock) was much much better, with more inputs and yadda yadda yadda. The 01X could be special ordered, but they wouldn't take it back. There was some other badmouthing of the 01X in there too.

After the manager hung up he repeated NONE of the negative stuff directly to me, saying only that it was available by special order, and if I couldn't wait he'd be happy to show me the Tascam (which does look real nice) which he felt was a superior digital mixer/control surface.

I said thank you nicely and left. Screaming at parked cars of course.
 
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