The DijonStock Digital Home Recording Support Forum

I just noticed that a three-minute piece takes up 1.2GB in my Yamaha AW16G; so a CD backup of it takes two CDs. (Clearly there is not much compression in the backup procedure, if any.) I have searched online for details on the backup CD internals; file formats, file contents, and such. So far I have not found anything. I would like to read the CDs as flat-files into my PC and use some type of editor to examine them.

Comment is invited.

Are you recording in 24bit? That’s crazy high data you’ve recorded.

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GSMUSIC: Hey RZ, Im not no upper class american, the gear I own is what I have special to me. My car sucks, my house sucks, my nieghborhood sucks. Does yours RZ? Does it?

rz-land

If the project uses several tracks and utilizes some virtuals too and many takes were attempted and not UNDOne immediately and so they accumulated, project file sizes can get quite large.

The size of the current tracks alone can be estimated. for e.g. If you use 16 tracks at 5 mb/min, each minute of song would would be 5x16 = 80 mb x 3 min = 240 mb. 8 tracks recorded for 3 minutes would be half that. But all the outtakes, stereo mixes, virtual tracks ... would be added to size of the current tracks. So 1.2 is not unheard of

But you don't want all those tracks within the project. You just want to examine the current tracks. you can of course mix them on the G or/and they can be burned individually to disc as 16 bit 44.1 wavs and then used in any sound editor.

pg 131 - 2 in the G manual goes over that process. you can specify a single track or 1- 16 or the stereo track

there is a bit of a discussion re file type in the note at the bottom of 132, but the reality is that the the AW accumulates all that is recorded, unless it is immediately UNDOne after a take. all this stuff is accumulated in a project file with the suffix .AWS . You of course can't see this on a G as there is no USB, so as to look at the project files on the HD, as you can on the 1600 and 2400. On those machines you can see all those files are WAV I do believe, but they bear only a name ( 1 - ...) with no time or date stamp. So looking for a specific take, within a large project, is like looking for a needle in a haystack sometimes. But that is moot on the G, with no USB. So use EDIT > Export , specify the parameters and burn a disc.

Good luck.

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Byron

Hello to both responders; thanks for your comments. I do not know about the 24-bit factor; I had not checked on that one. The project used nine tracks, no virtual tracks, and yes, towards the end of it, I did get rather negligent about not using the UNDO. I guess that not having done that many elements for a single song before, I had not anticipated about the bloat in file size.

Second note: I had overlooked the EXPORT function that was mentioned! I will go back to the project, export all nine tracks to a CD, and then see about inporting them into a DAW. If nothing else, that should prove interesting!

Thanks again to both of you for your comments.

Brian

I did a google search and refreshed my memory.. No 24 bit option on the G. the 1600 and 2400 ( and I think also the older 4416) have a 24 bit option. Not the G though. All tracks at 16 bit 44.1 on the G.

If you were working on a 1600, 24 bit is limited to 8 tracks. you can get 12 tracks of 24 bit on the 2400.

If you want to control file size as best you can, then use the OPTIMIZE function. ( found Song screen) I believe that process gets rid of stuff that is retained within a file to populate the UNDO list. If you optimize a project the Undo history disappears, but while the file size shrinks it does not seem to go down to the size of just the current tracks. ?? So not sure exactly what goes on. The one thing that is certain is that the AW machines are quite reliable at what they do and seem to retain that characteristic as they age.

the G has a 20 gb HD ( 40 on the 1600 and 2400 ). It is best to not let the HD get too close to filling. There is an indicator that tells how much HD remains, but it is not thought to be completely telling with confidence. Optimize your projects ( Songs) one at a time, if you no longer need the Undo list for that project, and then the time remaining on HD indicator will be as close to being accurate as you will get.

If you want to ever restore a project with all the settings used in a mix, plus all the virtuals and the Undo options you will need to use the backup function, often requiring more than one disc. I have a few from a G I rented many years ago but have never used them - either to restore to a G or to try and open on a PC just to examine what is there. But as I suggested, I think it would be jumble of indistinguishable files that only a G would recognize properly. Edit > Export gives you wav files but no mix parameters. So tracks would need to go to a DAW and be mixed there.

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Byron

Hello, again, Byron. Thank you very much for the added commentary. I was able to do the EXPORT function on the G, and noticed that when I put the CD into the PC's drive, it was identified as an .ISO file. A standard version of file archiving utility was able to access the .WAV files without further ado. I loaded them into a DAW and will take it from there.

Thanks again,

Brian