Sonic State Studio / Digital Mixers / YAMAHA 01V

The O1v is fine for very small project studios, but I quickly ran out of channels on it. If you have more than a couple of synths or samplers with multiple outputs, you quickly run out of room with the main 16 channels. The sound is on a par with an entry level 16 channel Mackie desk. I thought Yamaha could at least give you a couple of digital interfaces with the desk, but you need to buy more options if you are using ADAT, SPDIF or AES/EBU. By the time you add the digital interfaces it's almost as expensive as the 328.

Sadly Yamaha seem to have moved on to other products, and the 01V software updates are now just bug fixes.

20bit AD :(

The effects alone are worth the price. This desk is extremely clean and flexible, IMO, doen't sound "better" than a Mackie.

Like above, NOTHING can touch this for the money guys, unfriggin real!

R,

V

I did have a Mackie 1604 (not VLZ) until 6 months ago, and although I liked it a lot I found that to get the results I wanted would take a ton of outboard compression and more EQ than I had access to (ie unsweepable 3 band on the 1604).

The result was I sold the mackie and traded up to an 01v. Compression & 4 band EQ on every channel (unexpanded) it is sooo flexible I absolutely love it, the noise floor is really low too even with heavy compression on quite a few channels.

I have now expanded it to 24 channels via the 8 analog in board and my setup pretty much close to how I want it; I just use it for MIDI seq, no mic recording at all so I can't comment on the preamps.

I found it really easy to use too; the only thing Yamaha gets points off for are:

-Manual could be better: setting up digi input gain levels, etc is different from an analogue desk with regard to headroom etc, and they don't cover it in much detail like Mackie do with their products.

-Expand to 24 channels and the 'new channels' only have 2 band EQ and no dynamics processor access, although you can route (swap) them digitally to channels that do have such facilities.

-Can't overdrive the inputs, he he he, not a fault of Yamaha but the nature of the beast so can't complain, but a little subtle analog warmth (distortion ?) on the input channels is all I miss from My Mackie.

That's all folks !

I recommend the 01V for anyone !