Yamaha 01V96 (Recording, January 2004)
In 1998 Yamaha introduced a mixer that was to the digital world what the original Mackie 1604 was to the analog world: a featurerich, high-quality sounding, compact digital mixer at an affordable price. Its name was the 01V, and while other digital mixers have come and gone, the 01V has remained a project studio staple for the past five years, going all but unchanged … until now. Dubbing its new model the 01V96, Yamaha has redesigned, rearranged and repackaged the 01V with almost all of its strengths intact, adding over a dozen improvements and new features. For a detailed review of the original 01V and its features please check out our review in the August 1998 Recording; for this review I will focus on what is new, improved and different in the new 01V96.
First impressions
The 01V and the 01V96 share roughly the same chassis (actually the '96 is about an inch longer), and the same architectural scheme, but the layout of the '96 has been significantly redesigned. Have a look at the photo below (the original on the left, the '96 on the right) and follow along.
The most noticeable difference is in the LCD screen. The 01V96 now sports a 320x240 pixel screen, three times bigger than the 320x80 dot screen of the old 01V. This is a significant improvement, especially on a digital mixer where most features and parameters are accessed internally and are not always reflected visually on the knobs and sliders.
Another big change is in the motorized faders. The 01V96 now has full 100 mm faders instead of 60 mm; they are much smoother, especially when linked in a stereo pair (no more of the famous clicking, stepping sound so prevalent in the old 01V's faders).There are now 17 faders (16 channel / 1 stereo master) as opposed to the odd 15-fader scheme of the original 01V (12 channel, 2 stereo, 1 stereo master). The bigger fader caps also have a more professional feel.
The new numbers
The new 01V96 mixer has 24-bit A/D converters capable of not only 44.1 and 48 kHz sample rates, but also 88.2 and 96 kHz (the original 01V's were 20-bit and yielded a maximum sample rate of 48 kHz). Out of the box, the 01V96 can take in sixteen analog inputs, convert them to 24-bit/96 kHz audio and mix them to the digital, stereo coaxial output. Due to a limitation in the ADAT format, the included ADAT I/O will only stream high-sample-rate audio in Double Channel mode (see below). If that doesn't work for you, you should consider a 96 kHz capable mini-YGDAI interface card.
Which 96k card to use will be determined by the hardware you will be interfacing with (i.e., your sound card or digital multitrack device). There are currently two formats for multichannel, high sample rate transfers: Double Channel and/or Double Speed mode.
Double Channel, which is the older and still the more common of the two protocols, splits the audio signal and transfers half of the audio data over each of two channels. This is due to the limitation of 24/48 in the ADAT and TDIF formats and using it will halve the available
track count (i.e., an 8 channel card will give you 4 available tracks at 96k).
This limitation doesn't hold for the newer Double Speed AES/EBU cards, which give a full one-to-one transfer over a single cable run. As with any new technology, however, there are not many soundcards or digital multitracks capable of supporting this just yet, and for this
reason the Double Speed mini-YGDAI cards are designed for backwards compatibility.
From the top
At the top of the 01V96 is the analog input section of the mixer. For all practical purposes this section is laid out the same as that of its predecessor, with the same number of analog inputs (12 XLR, 16 1/4" TRS, 1 set of RCA I/O and a headphone jack). However, thanks to the extra faders, channels 13-16 can now be used as four 1/4" mono inputs instead of strictly two sets of stereo pairs as on the original. Another nice touch is the addition of signal and peak LEDs to every analog input, which means no more scrolling through menus to set input levels.
The much-lamented lack of channel inserts on the 01V has been corrected with the addition of 12 insert points, one on every XLR input of the 01V96.The pad switches now offer a 20 dB cut instead of 26 dB. The rest of this section remains unchanged.
Mission Control |
Unlike the fairly limited internal routing of the original, the 01V96 allows any input, aux or bus to be routed to virtually any channel, as well as allowing any aux, bus, or direct signal; to be sent out any output. This should take care of the routing needs of just about any project or post studio.
I was very happy to see that on the new 01V96 the digital coaxial output could be routed from any aux send or bus out, thus allowing for the external patching of one of the many digital
I/O equipped effects boxes on the market today. This was something the original 01V sorely lacked.
Twice the effects power
The 01V96 offers 4-band parametric digital eq, gating, and digital compression on each channel (gating and compression aren't available on the two stereo input channels), and internal effects just like before, but with significant improvement.
The channel eq now comes in two flavors, Type I (what Yamaha calls the legacy eq from the old Yamaha 02R series mixers) and a Type II (a new algorithm). I A/B'ed both of these with the eq from the original 01V, and in both cases I found the 96's eqs to contain more presence and an overall warmth, especially in the roundness of the low mids. Overall the Type II eq curves seemed slightly tighter and punchier without being harsh. It is nice to have the choice of both.Typically I do not choose to use the eq on most digital consoles, but these may just change my mind.
The addition of two more internal effects processors brings the total to four. As before, all of the bread-and-butter effects are represented-chorus, flange, phaser, filters, delays of all sorts, simple pitch shifting and reverbs. I am an effects snob who was never really excited by the effects in the original 01V, especially the reverbs. The basic effects of the new 01V96 won't win any awards, but they are generally much cleaner, less "digital"
and overall a good collection that should sit nicely in any mix.
The reverbs were an agreeable surprise to me. The new algorithms are much more believable, open and have much nicer tails. The stereo reverb deserves special mention: I tried some
choral vocals through it and cranked up the decay to 24 seconds and the tail and decay were most surprising. Don't get me wrong, these won't replace your high-end blue and black reverb boxes, but I would defiantly put them head to head with any of the $400 and under effects boxes on the market today-the plus here being that you get four of them built in, great for a studio on a tight budget.
Only two effects processors are available when running in one of the high sample rate modes.
Software mixer and DAW control
One of the biggest drawbacks to any digital mixer is the deep levels and programming screens, often requiring a plethora of keystrokes and hunting. Years ago a few software companies
sprang up with aftermarket editors for the original 01V. Yamaha has now seen fit to include its own, simply called Studio Manager.
Studio Manager is a multi-platform computer program for Windows XP and Mac OS 9 (OS X in beta as of press time) that shows the channel status and routing of each channel on the mixer; there are additional windows for effects editing, surround, patching, eq, and library storage. Of course with the USB connection and/or MIDI, communication is two-way-all changes
made on the computer control the mixer, and changes made on the mixer are reflected on your computer screen.
The software is a great bonus, however there's one drawback: unlike most DAWs and plug-ins, this program doesn't let you enter numeric parameter values by double clicking on them, it works from mouse movements only.
Speaking of DAWs, in the past year control surfaces have been gaining a huge foothold in the marketplace, offering mixer-like control over many of today's common programs like Pro Tools, Nuendo, Cubase, SONAR, etc. To comply with this trend the 01V96 adds control surface functionality to its list of features. The 01V96's sixteen faders, pan pots and other features can be set up to control a DAW program's features without being tied to a mouse; how this works in detail obviously depends on the particular DAW.
I tried the 01V96 with Steinberg Nuendo on my Windows PC and was able to control the 01V96 from Nuendo, but unfortunately I had no success the other way around. In defense of Yamaha
and Steinberg, I don't know if it was the mixer, Nuendo, my computer, or even
pilot error. At the time of writing I have not had a chance to get to the bottom of it. This is new and constantly evolving technology without common, standardized protocols, so your mileage may vary and up-to-date investigation is recommended. [Yamaha reports their tech support staff are successfully carrying out two-way operation with Nuendo.-Ed.]
Surrounded
The 01V96 offers three surround modes, 3.1, 5.1 and 6.1. The surround functionality is very basic, but a nice touch for a mixer of this price point. I found that the jog wheel and a set of predetermined pan curves handle surround panning rather clumsily. A joystick can be used via MIDI, and mouse-driven pan movements are possible with the included Studio Manager software.
Getting around
Even with the deep levels of function and programming, I found the mixer to be very logically laid out. Finding my way around was fairly straightforward with the six soft keys for navigation. I was an owner of the original 01V, and even though the 01V and the 01V96 are like night and day when it comes to menus and pages, I had the mixer under review passing eight tracks from my DAW and running additional instruments through the analog inputs within 30 minutes of unpacking.
The programmers at Yamaha did a very good job at establishing menu order and flow. I did find one mistake in the owner's manual: it states that pressing two adjacent channel Select keys calls up the Stereo Link display menu, as it did on the 01V, but this is actually not the default behavior. Pressing the two keys usually links their channels while leaving the LCD
display where it was-a nice touch.
The sound of it all
In my tests I ran similar audio sources through both and old and new 01Vs and recorded the results. On playback, the 01V96 tracks were warmer, fuller and less brittle than those from the old 01V.The 01V96 also had noticeably increased headroom.
Conclusions
I really believe Yamaha has come up with another winner, on price alone – the new model costs barely three hundred dollars more than did the original 01V five years ago, and it delivers way more in value and new features than is reflected by this price difference. Even
with the few quibbles that mostly stem from just personal preference, I find that this mixer is everything I would expect in a unit of this price point and more. If I did not already own a larger digital board in my studio, I would have to give this one serious consideration.
About the author
Paul Vnuk (vnuk@recordingmag.com) is a recording engineer, producer, and professional sound designer in the Milwaukee area. Learn more about Paul, his studio, and his musical project Ma Ja Le at their website, www.majale.com.
More from:
Yamaha Corp. of America
6600 Orangethorpe Ave.
Buena Park, CA 90620
(714) 522-9011
Excerpted from the January 2004 edition of RECORDING magazine.
©2003 Music Maker Publications, Inc.
Reprinted with permission.
5412 Idylwild Trail, Suite 100, Boulder, CO 80301
Tel: (303) 516-9118 Fax: (303) 516-9119
For Subscription Information, call: 1-800-582-8326
www.recordingmag.com
01V96