AW4416 service / repair in 2023?

[Dog]

Evening,

Was wondering if anyone knew of a place where I could take my ailing unit in for some TLC? I live in Peterborough but would travel if this can still be done. Thank you.

Cheers,
Dog

[Hugh Robjohns]

https://uk.yamaha.com/en/support/service_locator/

[Dog]

Thank you Hugh. Will give them a shout.

Cheers,
Dog

[OneWorld]

Thank you Hugh. Will give them a shout.

Cheers,
Dog

If you do manage to find anyone to take it in for repair, I would ask them to renew the battery whilst the unit is on the bench and opened up. I had one of these, aw4416, and the battery is a pig to change, so, if you have someone competent, seize the moment!

[Dog]

Evening OneWorld,

Thank you for the tip, I struck out with Yamaha, they said it was too old and won’t touch it. The other link on their site is for sonteq, they will be getting back to me. Alps still do a 60mm fader that is compatible, so not dead in the water yet. Mostly used as a mixer / front end to my interface these days. Still love it all these years later!

Cheers,
Dog

[forumuser641699]

Google pro audio repair, I had a music shop look at mine who did PA repairs.
The battery is soldered to the main board which is difficult to get to, it needs to be replaced, if you've not got the low battery warning light you will soon. There's a useful group on facebook for AW4416, lots of info there.

[OneWorld]

Evening OneWorld,

Thank you for the tip, I struck out with Yamaha, they said it was too old and won’t touch it. The other link on their site is for sonteq, they will be getting back to me. Alps still do a 60mm fader that is compatible, so not dead in the water yet. Mostly used as a mixer / front end to my interface these days. Still love it all these years later!

Cheers,
Dog

I had to sell mine, it was getting to the stage where this and that seemed on the brink of expiring, but it wasn't just that, it was the issue of not being able to find a repair facility.

I sort of get the feeling that because Yamaha have produced such excellent HDD recorders in the past, and some great mixers - both for the home studio/semi-pro community, that they must surely have some product ready to be released.

Can you imagine an 02R96+Recorder, or an aw2400 with 24+Master faders, USB interface built in, and able to work as a control surface, that would be all my birthdays come at once

[sonics]

Can you imagine an 02R96+Recorder, or an aw2400 with 24+Master faders, USB interface built in, and able to work as a control surface, that would be all my birthdays come at once

I think you're describing gear that is already available there...or does it have to be by Yamaha?

[OneWorld]

Can you imagine an 02R96+Recorder, or an aw2400 with 24+Master faders, USB interface built in, and able to work as a control surface, that would be all my birthdays come at once

I think you're describing gear that is already available there...or does it have to be by Yamaha?

Available where? Though yes, I do have a fixation with Yamaha, good quality, and there kit slots into Cubase so well, as one would expect

[sonics]

Available where? Though yes, I do have a fixation with Yamaha, good quality, and there kit slots into Cubase so well, as one would expect

There are lots of examples of digital mixers with recording facilities and faders able to work as a control surface. Try this PreSonus StudioLive 32S for example.

[OneWorld]

Available where? Though yes, I do have a fixation with Yamaha, good quality, and there kit slots into Cubase so well, as one would expect

There are lots of examples of digital mixers with recording facilities and faders able to work as a control surface. Try this PreSonus StudioLive 32S for example.

Yes I had been considering one of thois, well except it was the 16S which apparently although 16 faders, has layers and a 32 i/o USB interface and I missed one of these by a whisker, a shop demo one at a ridiculously cheap price, by the time I thought "yep, go for it" it had been sold.

One thing that caused me to procrastinate was that I had read that if used as a controller for Cubase, the track selection did not faithfully 'follow' the track selection in Cubase, as it would do in Studio One.

Also I was not clear about the multi-track recording. I am lead to believe that multi-track recording with a digital mixer isn't quite the same as it is in a HDD recorder (ala aw2400) you can record a stereo mixdown, and that's great. However, say you have 8 tracks recorded, in the DAW and you record them to the mixer, and say the recorder in the mixer can record 32 tracks (way more than I need)

The mixer will not record 8 tracks but will record 32 tracks - 24 of them being 'empty' Nor could you record the 8 tracks then choose to record a ninth track directly to the mixer.

That being said, I think the Behringer Wing (and may be with an add on card the X32) can record and playback in a random manner, just as a HDD recorder would.

I first came across this restriction when I was on the cusp of buying the RME UFX then I came across documentation where RME made it apparent, even though you can record a maximum of 32 tracks (or whatever 64?) you can only record those tracks at one pass, and that one pass can be an arbitrary number up to an including 32

I have researched many, the Tascam Model 24 almost did it for me, but no flying faders and it started to give trouble so I sent it back

[OneWorld]

Available where? Though yes, I do have a fixation with Yamaha, good quality, and there kit slots into Cubase so well, as one would expect

There are lots of examples of digital mixers with recording facilities and faders able to work as a control surface. Try this PreSonus StudioLive 32S for example.

Yes I had been considering one of this, well except it was the 16S which apparently although 16 faders, has 2 layers and a 32 i/o USB interface. I missed one of these by a whisker, a shop demo one at a ridiculously cheap price, by the time I thought "yep, go for it" it had been sold.

One thing that caused me to procrastinate was that I had read that if used as a controller for Cubase, the track selection did not faithfully 'follow' the track selection in Cubase, as it would do in Studio One. I think I also read this would be addressed in an update and the issue was not Cubase but the fact that Cubase used the Mackie Protocol which means backing every 8 tracks as opposed to being able to jump from track 1 to track 27 (for example) without having to press a bank button

Also I was not clear about the multi-track recording. I am lead to believe that multi-track recording with a digital mixer isn't quite the same as it is in a HDD recorder (ala aw2400) you can record a stereo mixdown, and that's great. However, say you have 8 tracks recorded, in the DAW and you record them to the mixer, and say the recorder in the mixer can record 32 tracks (way more than I need)

The mixer will not record 8 tracks but will record 32 tracks - 24 of them being 'empty' Nor could you record the 8 tracks then choose to record a ninth track directly to the mixer - your allocation of 32 tracks would have been used

That being said, I think the Behringer Wing (and may be with an add on card the X32) can record and playback in a random manner, just as a HDD recorder would.

I first came across this restriction when I was on the cusp of buying the RME UFX then I came across documentation where RME made it apparent, even though you can record a maximum of 32 tracks (or whatever 64?) you can only record those tracks at one pass, and that one pass can be an arbitrary number up to an including 32

I have researched many, the Tascam Model 24 almost did it for me, but no flying faders and it started to give trouble so I sent it back

All things considered, I think I am expecting a lot from a mixer ?

[ajay_m]

It does feel like manufacturers don't much care about supporting older products these days. I can remember many many years ago owning a Teac A3340S four-track tape deck which at the time I purchased it was already pretty old, probably a couple of decades at least. It needed a new capstan roller and one of the VU meter lamps had failed.
I contacted Teac and to my utter astonishment they supplied, from Japan to New Zealand, at very low cost, replacement parts.
It'd be interesting for someone to comment on which (if any) of the major vendors (Korg, Roland,Yamaha etc) are best on supporting older gear. It might influence future purchasing decisions and if companies realised that providing spares and support for a longer time period was a significant sales driver, it might change the culture. After all, we only have the one planet and lots of older gear still has many productive years of life left in it.

[sonics]

Also I was not clear about the multi-track recording. I am lead to believe that multi-track recording with a digital mixer isn't quite the same as it is in a HDD recorder (ala aw2400) you can record a stereo mixdown, and that's great. However, say you have 8 tracks recorded, in the DAW and you record them to the mixer, and say the recorder in the mixer can record 32 tracks (way more than I need)

I think what you want is probably not going to be available. The market for stand-alone recorders with editing facilities is now tiny. I don't think Yamaha is going to produce anything like the AW4416 again.

Unless you really need editing facilities in the box itself, the current solutions do everything you need. The mixer can be used for recording, and a computer is used for all the editing. You could consider running the StudioLive and using Studio One for the complete package.

[forumuser641699]

The market for standalone is growing again. People are fed up with the complexity and cost of computers and the endless updates. People are finding standalone is more creative.
Which is why we see Tascam and the their model series along with Zoom and their live series and indeed Akai with their MPC series doing serious numbers.
Sure, it's still niche but Yamaha once owned this market, they'd be ideal to enter it again if the sums add up.
As an aside, Yamaha used to be a major player in pro audio, their product range today is miniscule. As they own Steinberg, and they still are market leaders in digital mixers they're well placed to produced a more modern AW4416 machine. I'd buy it in a whim.

[OneWorld]

The market for standalone is growing again. People are fed up with the complexity and cost of computers and the endless updates. People are finding standalone is more creative.
Which is why we see Tascam and the their model series along with Zoom and their live series and indeed Akai with their MPC series doing serious numbers.
Sure, it's still niche but Yamaha once owned this market, they'd be ideal to enter it again if the sums add up.
As an aside, Yamaha used to be a major player in pro audio, their product range today is miniscule. As they own Steinberg, and they still are market leaders in digital mixers they're well placed to produced a more modern AW4416 machine. I'd buy it in a whim.

I was inclined to agree with Sonics, see previous post, I too think we’ll never see the likes of the aw2400, aw4416 again. However, after reading your post I am conflicted, you are correct, the Tascam, Zoom products seem very popular, as more so the mpc x. I was on the cusp of buying one but read there is no direct-to-disk recording, it was announced by akai that an os update would add d2d, but it never happened, sort of put me off. But I feel instinctively, there is such a product on the way

[wireman]

I have an AW2816 which I don't think has been powered up for 5 years or more. This discussion does make we wonder if it will still work.

[Nik Harrison]

There's a superb place just outside Warrington called Gee Electronics. I used these guys a lot, and they can repair pretty much anything.

https://geemesh.co.uk/