Yamaha AW16G

I'd say you need some experience of different machines to think this is an easy one to use. The manual is a bit confusing unless you know the basics, and perhaps a bit more, about recording. I have too little knowledge about this, but I persist, so in the end I get the results I want (near enough), and that's all one can ask for. My manual is in Swedish, and I can only imagine there would be lots of flaws in it, considering it's probably interpreted from English, wich is interpreted from Japanese...Go figure...

I play my guitars, and bass simulator, from a Boss GT-6 straight into the machine, and sometimes my Line6 Spider straight in. Sounds great, so I haven't really used the onboard guitar stuff, but I use the effects to add some colour to the sound. Most stuff I've used sounds pretty damned good, but it is a bit hard to tweak the effects, compared to an external unit like the GT-6, wich isnt't all that odd I suppose. For vocals I use a Shure SM-58 straight in, and it does seem a bit weak, but it works.
I saw someone said what you put in is what you get, and I think that sounds pretty fair, so one shouldn't expect miracles from what you have laying around the house.

I have only used it at home as of yet, but I'll haul it down to the rehearsing room soon, so I'm hoping for the best. Seems very reliable though, and I'm not worried. I've had other recording gear down there, and this will stand it's ground no doubt

No idea, I bought mine at an auctioner, and have owned it for about a year-no complaints so far!

I play metal mostly, also some softer stuff(only at home in the safety of my basement...). At the moment I'm playing in a cover band, so a few different types of music obviously. Been playing for about 20 years now, so I've been around a while. Compared to other portables I've used it might be a bit trickier to get your head around, but well worth it, since the sound you can get out of it easily outweights the troubles you may encounter. Only thing one could ask for would be a USB port to make it easier to put your stuff on the PC for further fun and games, but it can be done via CD, so Ican live with that.

I don't know how some people are complaining that the AW16G is hard to use....Welcome to professional recording equipment people! It all takes some time and patience to figure out, and if you expect a masterpiece to suddenly pop out of any studio workstation after a days work, you need to find a new hobby...Otherwise the AW16G takes about a week to get used to, it's not overly complicated, but you'll want to keep your manual beside you and the computer on to perhaps look up certain details...theres plenty of great forums and online help! Once you figure out the mapping and layout of the AW16G, it's smooth sailing. I was pretty dissappointed working in the EDIT screen as it just isn't as smooth editing/cutting/copying tracks. Also, having no direct P/C connectivity is kind of alarming and can be a pain (having to import and export everything via CD). The Yamaha has some quirks, but I've always been able to find my way around them and get my projects done how I wanted them done, so I'll give the AW16G a 7.

The sound quality overall, is very manageable on all spectrums. I would point out that the PreAmps are somewhat noisy, and the on-board Guitar/Bass Hi-Z are pretty worthless in my opinion, however I don't know if anybody regularly uses that feature anyway. The effects are decent and would get you by, might want to invest in a good external effects processor though. You can def. get some professional sounding demos out of this machine with some tweaking.

I've never had any problems with any Yamaha product. This sucker fires up every time and has never crashed on me.

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The Yamaha AW16G is one of the best portable workstations in its price range, and nowadays can be found for super cheap used. I do wish there were more stereo tracks available, this pairing mono tracks and the such just seems like Yamaha beat around the bush. Also, the fact that there is no direct P/C connectivity might concern some, depending on the styles of music you are dealing with. Overall, its a great machine to have around if you are an aspiring singer/songwriter/acoustic artist, or are looking for an easy way to get some quality demos done. I'd def. recommend one to fellow musicians, if a portable workstation is what they're looking for.

The unit is relatively easy of use, as long as you have the manual with you. It takes some time before you really get to know your machine and pump the best out of it. For example the tempo volume is in another menu than the tempo signature. Why ?

If you are new to recording, it is a fantastic machine, you mixes will be good, it will sound good. You have the needed effects in the machine and they can all be tweaked precisely just like in high end equipment they sound ok, they do the job. But if you are more experienced, you might want to get a better preamp, and use higher quality external effects. I found that the aw16g preamps is not good at capturing high frequencies. All my takes with it were a bit dull, and you cant boost a frequency that is not there.......Using an external preamp I was able to squeeze in a wider spectrum of frequency. I upgraded my external equipment, and I can say that for the moment my aw16g still meet my requirements. I am always amazed at what i can do with it. I learned a lot about audio using this machine, and still learning. another tip i found out, instead of making a mixdown with the machine, make a mixdown running it throught a VHS tape recorder. you will get a natural, warm compression. Feel free to try everything with this machine....its portable !

Very reliable, never had any problems. I bring it to live shows, its made of metal, its heavy. Just be carefull and use a good road case. It never freezes, never bugs. The only problem i had was with burning cds. There are some settings to make that if you forget you will think your cd burner is not working. Plenty of support on the web available.

never dealt with yamaha, but manual and tips still available from the company. Support still available. Unlike many companies, Yamaha still gives support for their older products.

I play mostly soft pop and world music. Occasionaly Blues and heavy rock. I find it great to record live music, or individual tracking.
I find it is not good to use as a monitor mixer, as when you create a track, you have to reset the recording settings, the inputs, and outputs, wich can be a pain if you dont know your machine well. I also record at home throught my computer, and still i prefer to use the aw16g. I cant manipulate waves easily edit parts correct errors, but for panning, sliding, adjusting effects, it feels like the good old days.

Having used the Yamaha AW16G for around 3 years now, I felt duty bound to impart what i sincerely feel about this machine to those who are likely to be buying it at a discount price now in 2007. First up the AW16G IS NOT 16 stereo tracks, what you get for your money is actually 8 track TRUE stereo( plus 8 mono tracks !) but no worries though by simply recording on two of the,"NON-PAIRED", mono tracks at once, these can be panned later left and right for stereo effect. BUT! you still only have 12 track stereo max on the AW16G. One can of course start the bouncing and ping-pong m,larky, to gain more stereo tracks, if this is the case why buy a 16 channel affair when you need 24 or more? nuff said. THE MANUAL at some 282 (i think) pages is a REAL SIT DOWN AND THINK brain numbing epistle. Whoever obviously first wrote it in Japanese Im sure had a good idea what he/she was on about,BUT the translator to the English version in my view has an at best VAGUE idea of what MAKES SENSE in Blighty.
For example I still after 3 years can,t import the on-board drum loops or pad track sound effects to my stereo track mixdowns.As for the EDITING! I advise users to treat it as you would an analogue tape machine for cleaning up noises post, pre, and during songs,DON,T give yourself a coronary thrombosis straining to work out what they meant, because I,m telling you THEY ARE NOT SURE THEMSELVES. When you do grasp the basics of recording, mixing and mastering with this aesthetic beauty, sound quality is VERY GOOD for the money.Like me some of you will also receive the supposedly helpful demo DVD, if you do it is worth watching FOR CHUCKLE VALUE ONLY!the guy who is actually frightened to touch the AW16G, yep the guy dancing around to the karaoke backing track, telling you how great EVERYTHING IS! and they,ve even got some other guy in the foreground miming with a saxophone/whatever,MEN BEHAVING BADLY!?

You will NOT get the sound of your favourite artists, my favourite artists are CHIC(mostly now dead)and STING(ageing like me)so there!.
I do not play(nor does anyone else)guitar like NILE RODGERS, nor do I write songs and sing half as good as STING,so best decide in your heart what you do best and BE ORIGINAL! if it sounds good? IT IS.
If you are genuinely talented the AW16G is MORE THAN capable of capturing a decent performance.The on board EFFECTS are at best OK, I particularly like the MYSTIC CHORD weird but wonderful, but as with the PAD TRACK mysteries, unless you are a codecracker you will not be able to add the effects at the mixdown stage! so I would advise anyone to send the effects during performance, believe me this will save you another coronary.Onboard pre-amps are brill in my view so no real need to go and buy better ones unless you,ve got lots of dosh to experiment with. The EQ in my view is rather too basic for a good sounding unit as this IS, so go for getting the RIGHT sound going in at PERFORMANCE,most EQ ing tends to degrade badly the original signal, so tread carefully. Generally i D.I. everything except acoustic guitars, which I also stereo mic plus D.I. the signal, although this uses a full 3 tracks the sound is huge, detailed, and professional sounding. In my use the onboard pre-amps are also very quiet TO MY EARS.

As with most YAMAHA gear it is as reliable as DEATH and TAXES, mind you I am not a computer expert, and neither am I a producer like BOB CLEARMOUNTAIN or QUINCY JONES,though I do believe like MOST of this digital recording m,larky the AW16G is prone to a smidgen of latency from time to time,especially when one is using it to full capacity during a 6 or 7 hour stint. Oh yes and our Japanese heart specialist threw in SAVING THE CURRENT SONG! this is something YOU MUST DO every time you turnthe AW16G ON or OFF! and during switching different sections of the beast during recording sections, ANNOYING!!. No I dont recommend taking this to a gig, although it,s a very compact machine and easy enough to carry, when its all lit up believe me the neds up here in Glasgow and the Yobbos down south that frequent pubs and social clubs wont be able to keep their grubby mits off it! So if like me YOU ARE NOT playing at the POLICE COMMISSIONERS retirement do! KEEP IT SAFE AT HOME.

Never had to deal with YAMAHA in my 30 years of buying and owning various YAMAHA musical gear, this in itself speaks volumes in itself so intend to give them another TEN, I must be getting soft in my old age.

Have been into guitars and music for 30 years now, cant envisage not being totally immersed in music, to me it is like breathing. A songwriter of some(but not all) styles of music, plus some airplay on the U.K. radiowaves and possibly abroad.If the Yamaha was stolen I think I would seriously take a look at their 24 channel digital recorder instead,there was no competition for the AW16G back in 2004, anywhere near its price plus it had the built in burner for CDs!Yes I wish it had an operators manual translated by the late great John Peel. No complicated gobbledegook ever aided the creation of popular music by laymen musicians,this is best left to the anoraks in Japan/Worldwide too.

I got this solely for home demos and recording my band. Other than using a dedicated computer system, this is my first all-in-one digital recorder. I have mainly used analog systems in the past - mostly Tascam units for home demos, but I've got a fair amount of studio experience as well.

There is a definite learning curve - in fact, I find that if I don't use it quite often I *forget* how to do things on it. It's not intuitive to me. One button serves multiple functions, etc. Nice for keeping it compact, but not as obvious as older style boards.

That said, the manual is quite good and as long as I keep it near by I'm good to go.

For a home demo the sound is outstanding. The effects aren't my favorites, but I still find some useful. I primarily use the compression and reverb or delay. I'm pretty much old school, so I keep things simple - I really don't take advantage of many of the built in features like the sounds and whatnot. I treat it like a Tascam 4-track - record my tracks and mix them down. Maybe add a little effects for mixdown. Nothing too tricky for me. I dump the stereo mix to CD, but I do all the finalizing and CD creation parts on the computer because I find that easier and more flexible.

For recording I pretty much use a pair of mikes in (usually an EV 357 and Shure SM-57s). Sometimes I'll record guitar and keys direct with a preamp. I mostly use drum loops for demos, so that simplifies that aspect. The mike pres may not be top-notch pro quality, but they're perfectly fine for my demos.

So far so good. I've had it quite a while at this point. Maybe a year and a half or so? I've probably used it about 100-150 hours. Not all that much, but it's still going great.

Never had to deal with them.

I love it. 16 tracks with 8 at a time possible works great for me. It's a great value imo, especially when Yamaha came out with the more deluxe model and the price of this unit dropped.

If it were lost, stolen or damaged I'd probably see what else is out there because technology changes too fast. I'd see if there's anything a little more intuitive out there, but I'd definitely look into Yamaha's offerings. I've had good experiences with their equipment.

Depends on your level of experience with digital recording equipment. If you ask someone who's just learning to read what they think of Vladimir Nabakov, versus someone who knows how to read fairly well, the real answer is, "Wow. Great stuff."
If a newcomer spends a little time with the manual it'll come pretty easily. Be a little patient, and once you get the mojo of it, it's pretty darn intuitive. It's not meant to be a remedial toy. It's a piece of recording gear.

Excellent sound quality. It picks up what you lay down. Some reviews say the sound quality isn't great. Trust me, try a different mic, or singer, or amp, etc. It picks up what you're doing accurately. So if you don't like the sound, you just need to adjust what's going in. Use a good mic-preamp, a good mic, a dry room, etc. Instead of asking "sound quality" this question should actually ask "sound accuracy". The AW16 is accurate.

Very dependable, from my experience. This is recording gear....not a Shure SM57 that can get knocked around and survive. I always look at bringing recording gear out, as similar to bringing a carton of eggs to a party. Just be careful. You can't "slap yo bitch" and expect her to love you for very long. Be seeennnnnsssiiitttiiivvveeee.

This unit is reliable, so no contact from an "it's broken" standpoint. I have had questions about various scenarios that I needed help on. I sent them an e-mail and they responded with solutions that have always worked. They even followed up to ask how it worked and if I had any more questions.
By the way, whenever they sent me an answer, after I tried it I always slapped my head and said, "Of course. That makes sense."

Put it this way.....this unit can do more than most of the gear Hendrix, Beatles, Stones, Grateful Dead, Led Zeppelin, Doors, etc etc had when they recorded most of their early catalogs. If you'd asked the average bear what they thought of the 4-track recording equipment from the mid-60's, they'd probably have said, "I can't work with this, it's too limited." But if you asked George Martin what he thought, he'd say, "Hmm, I think I might be able to do something with this."

Hardest piece of equipment in the history of music .

Great sound quality reallyis very good had no expeireince of getting it on the cd because its very difficult fot a non-tech to use lots of jargon.

Wouldn't risk a wembly gig with it but should be fine for a pub .

I bought there product and then they didnt want anything to do with me .

Good for getting ideas down but u can do that for a lot cheaper .
Bad piece of kit for the average musican would need extensive tuition to get anything more out of the machine .

To be fair, this unit requires a bit of trial and error before it all makes sense. The manual is a bit longwinded but hey it has a lot of facilities onboard.

I have owned this unit for a year or so now, I am now very comfortable with the G's functions.

Great sound quality, I have recorded my band live, made demos at home and in both instances the results are astounding.

What I cannot stress enough is that with so many FX parameters, you should always try several fx before assigning a patch to a track. You will be pleasantly surprised by what's on offer.

Built like a tank!!!

If you want a good recording set up at home on a budget, look no further. It has to be said that the signals have to be good, you can't use cheap mics, guitars etcetera and expect the G to make it all sound wonderful.

You will also need some good monitors. I use powered speakers with built in amp for monitoring.


I made the mistake with previous projects where I would use hi-fi speakers for monitoring. That is a silly and costly mistake. I would mix down and get 'THE sound' ONLY TO FIND THAT WHEN CDS WERE PLAYED BACK THEY SOUNDED AWFUL.

I use flat response and now the sound I hear at mixdown is pretty much the same as the disc through a hi-fi.

My attention was drawn to the G after recording with the AW4416 at a mate's studio. The G has many of the 4416's features thrown in, also if I back up data, I can take it to my mates studio and hey presto it's ready to be enhanced in minutes.

Once you get into the G you're fine, however buying one and expecting to just take it home and plug a guitar into it and "voila" ain't gonna happen. The Manual is a bit large but there is a quick start guide on the net that is perfect for beginners.

My setup is as follows:
American Deluxe Strat
Lite Ash Tele
Epiphone Beatle bass
Line 6 PodXT live
SM 58 and 57 microphones
Takamime acoustic
Yamaha Electric Keyboard
Tube Mic Preamp

I have made some great recordings by using the above gear with my aw16
however the vocals don't get enough "umph" with the pre's on the G.

I've never had a problem with this - It's worked every time and well.

Not really applicable as I've never had a need.

This is a great unit. I've made several recordings with it and I've really amazed friends with the sound quality produced by it. Mixing is the most complicated part I'd say and I would recommend to anybody to line the G into an amp with some monitors instead of trying to mix down with just headphones.

If it were stolen or lost I'd replace it in a minute.

If you know nothing about using a multitrack recorder, or are coming from analog recorders, you should read the PDF's available online for starting and really refer to the manual before starting.

I spend 2 days reading the manual, and had few problems with operation because of it.

After you get to know it, it's easy enough to work things, so I'd say it was well designed.

The only gripe I have with it is it is hard to backup and restore your songs. More on that later.

If you have a clean signal going it, it's what you expect going digital.

I found the rounting for external effects to be a pain (only on Mixdown, comeone) and the Pads have to be used on mixdown as well.

Sound if fine. Like someone else said, use an external preamp. As for the internal effects, their junk. You can notice your sound get worse as you use them. There may be an occasional effect you can get away with, But I'd use external compressors, reverb units, etc if you want to get realistic effects.

It is reliable up until the point you want to backup and restore your stuff.

Want to save with AW16G's format? Can't port it to the computer. You have to use 2816's format. OK, you do that, unlock the wavs on you computer.

You want to restore? Not with the 2816 disc you made. Oh, and you can only do it 1 song at a time. So you'd have to make 2 backups to get the job done of porting wav files and restoring a song back the the AW16G. Oh, you have more than 700MB, not going to work. Oh, it will prompt you for disc 2, but I've never seen a multiple disc port work on this thing. Unless I have the rarest bug on the market.

You want to save as WAV files then? You can, except your stereo mixdowns. Sorry. Oh, and if you want to port the WAV's back, you can only do it WON-AHT-UH-TIMEH.

The AW1600 solves this, so buy up and let this model rest in piece.

I'd give reliablity more, but the fundamental ability to backup and restore your music should NOT have been problematical.

Never contacted them. Can't say. No rating given.

I do lots of styles. Folk, Rock, Pop, Funk, Classical. It's better than working with the PC. A lot less frustrating and enough buttons to not work menu's all day. So that's a plus.

If you can live with the buggy backups, then buy it used. If you're gonig new, buy up to the newest model.

The lack of USB is unforgivable. Many other cheaper products on the market offer USB ports for upgrading the OS and moving sound files. I think they intentionally left it out so they could reap a new models profits. They certainly don't look ahead. I hear Roland does. Check them all out before you buy.