Metal Gear Solid No Cd Patch' title='Metal Gear Solid No Cd Patch' />YAMAHA AW2. The AW4. 41. 6 was heralded as Yamahas first professional recording studio in a box, and it has lived up to its promise admirably. It offers a 1. 6 track digital recorder, 4. EQ, and even a rudimentary sample sequencer. The new AW2. 81. 6 offers fewer features at a lower price, but in this case, less is more. The AW2. 81. 6 fits squarely between basic, stripped down portable studios and full featured units costing thousands more. It provides 1. 6 physical tracks with 8 virtual tracks each, 9 motorized faders, EQ and dynamics on each channel, 2 multi effects processors, mix automation, and built in CD R mastering all the tools you should need to take a project from conception to completion. Like the AW4. 41. Metal Gear Solid No Cd Patch' title='Metal Gear Solid No Cd Patch' />AW2. MIDI control surface. And its easier to use than its predecessor. FIRST APPEARANCESThe AW2. Fig. 1. Although the patch bay is in the back, inputs and outputs are clearly labeled on the top surface. Because the rear of the unit is angled slightly, its easy to peer over the top and find what youre looking for. Only inputs 1 and 2 have XLR microphone jacks with phantom power, but all eight analog inputs have balanced TRS jacks that function as mic preamps see Fig. In addition, input 8 has a second, unbalanced inch high impedance jack for recording an electric guitar or bass. Plugging into it overrides the TRS in a nice touch that makes for quick repatching. Each input has a dedicated trim pot and peak LED but alas, no status light for phantom power. A bank of eight motorized faders manages channel input levels, track output levels, aux bus sends, and much more. Metal Gear Solid No Cd Patch' title='Metal Gear Solid No Cd Patch' />A ninth motorized fader handles the main stereo output, and two small knobs control a pair of stereo returns. The returns default to the internal effects, but theyll take any pair of analog or digital inputs, boosting the number of available inputs at mixdown to a very respectable 2. Although you can choose other routings, auxes 1 through 4 are routed to the four Omni outs, and auxes 5 and 6 feed the dual internal effects by default. The AW2. 81. 6 lacks dedicated channel inserts, though you can easily set up an insert return loop using one of the four Omni outputs and an input channel. Functions are neatly laid out among the banks of buttons flanking the large central display, clustered below the DataJog and Shuttle wheels, and lined up above the faders. Buttons for global operations pertaining to file maintenance, the CD recorder, MIDI, and so on are located in the upper left corner. Buy Colossal Rack Metal Shelving Units at acehardware. Ace. Get the guaranteed best price on Instrument Cables like the Mogami Gold Patch Cable with Right Angle Connectors at Musicians Friend. Get a low price and free. After reviewing 120 hours of research and testing gear on a fourday, 1,500mile road trip, weve found whats absolutely essential for your next journey. The gamewhich was released on PC earlier this weekrandomly generates a small patch of land for you, then asks you to build a lil Medieval settlement on it. Those dealing with the mixer are below the transport buttons, and locate functions are above. Each button has an associated display screen, and five function buttons access nested menus. You can assign common tasks to the function buttons, such as Song Save, Shutdown, toggling EQ or Dynamics on and off, and even recalling a specified Scene a snapshot of all mixer settings a real time saver. Many button presses must be confirmed with a second press, which slows down work flow. Luckily, you can disable the warnings that appear when you save or recall Scenes. Dedicated buttons make Scene management a snap. Scene number, location, and stereo level are always displayed, regardless of the current window. Considering that you can automate just about everything, including the eight analog inputs, the mixer alone makes the AW2. Aux levels and effects parameters are not directly automated rather, they are saved as part of a Scene. Adding an option card can increase your choices, but it does not change the number of inputs at mixdown. EQ AND DYNAMICSAlthough the AW2. AW4. 41. 6s hands on control, it does retain the same EQ and dynamics architecture. Every input and recorder channel even the two returns features a dedicated 4 band parametric equalizer. Dynamics processing is available on all channels except the returns. Adjusting EQ and dynamics involves several steps select a channel, access the appropriate menu, navigate to a virtual knob, and then make adjustments using the Data wheel. To simplify the process, I used the extensive EQ and Dynamics preset libraries. As with most digital EQs, it took a lot of virtual knob twisting before I heard appreciable changes. Ground-Zeroes1-1024x576.jpg' alt='Metal Gear Solid No Cd Patch' title='Metal Gear Solid No Cd Patch' />The EQ is better than I expected, but I still wish it had more character. Dynamics choices include compression, expansion, gating, and ducking. You can set key in sources to the selected channels pre or post EQ level, aux 1 and 2, or the pre or post EQ signal of the adjacent channel thats a pretty interesting bunch of choices. With a little preplanning, you can accomplish some very sophisticated dynamics, such as program dependent ducking or de essing. Like the EQ, the dynamics sound quite digital whether thats a problem depends on your taste thousands of happy 0. R users cant all be wrong. For improved processing capabilities, you might want to consider Yamahas Y5. K option card 1,0. Renaissance EQ and Renaissance Compressor. The combination of Waves effects with the AW2. THE FULL EFFECTSThe two full featured multi effects processors can be configured in a variety of ways. Ensoft Group 7.0 Technical Manual there. By default, they reside on stereo auxes 5 and 6, though you can insert either or both into any input or recorder track. Various presets occupy the first 4. Presets include the usual halls, rooms, chambers, and plates, as well as chorus, flange, delays, and so on. Modulation effects, an amp simulator, filters, and a handful of dual effects such as DelayReverb and DistortionDelay round out the selections. The presets lack subtlety, but you have ample opportunity to adjust them to your hearts content. I do wish Yamaha had included additional chamber, room, and plate reverb presets as starting points or even better, why not just fill all the user slots and let me overwrite the ones I dont like I didnt have time to explore every effect, but overall I give them a thumbs up for flexibility and control. In terms of quality, they range from so so to so sweet. I might like the effects a lot more if I had a few months to create and store my favorites. RANK AND FILEThe AW2. GB hard drive and an ATAPI CD RRW drive installed. The unit can accommodate standard laptop sized 2. IDE drives as large as 6. GB. Its SCSI 2 interface lets you connect third party burners, magneto optical drives, or hard disks. All recording and playback streams to and from the internal drive external media can be used only for backup and restoring operations. With eight virtual tracks per song and almost unlimited undo and redo, you can consume disk space pretty quickly. Large songs can be split apart and backed up to multiple CD Rs or CD RWs. An optimization routine saves space by erasing the undo buffer. Yamaha also included a defragmentation feature, albeit an extremely slow one. Im impressed with Yamahas well thought out file management scheme. Although the AW2. WAV files, which is handy for archiving or transferring projects between studios. In addition, the AW2. FAT1. 6 file system. Similarly, audio data from sample CDs or even commercial music CDs is easily transferred for use in internal tracks. TRACK RECORDAll of the session information mixer settings, routing, recorder settings, audio data, and so on is managed as a Song. The Song menu is where you select sampling rates and bit depth choosing 4. Hz instead of 4. 4. Hz elicits a warning that you wont be able to create a CD, because the AW2. You can burn a 1.