REVIEW: Yamaha MD8
Moron
So far I have come across a couple online and at least one magazine review
(Sound On Sound) but feel that there is still room for another user
review. Here goes. . .
The Yamaha MD8 is a cool mini-disc based 8 track recorder with an analog
mixer and some decidedly upscale features.
Yamaha have started with the standard cassette multi-track setup and
swapped in a mini-disc plus added some very useful "logic". The mixer
sounds pretty damn fine though obviously not as good as something like a
Mackie. There is not that much headroom (at least compared to my Mackie)
and it is not too fond of hot low end signals. When it distorts it does
so in a decidely non-musical way. Keep things toned down though and it
behaves, quiet and for the most part transparent. The noise floor is very
low which is great (lower than the rest of my setup). The EQ is is
generally useful though I would have liked to have the low end centered
higher than 80HZ. Also, I wish it had mute buttons to silence incoming
signals. I find that if my guitar is noisy I have to mess with the fader
if I don't want that noise in my temporary "mix". If the track is blank
you can use the playback switch to stop this but it still would have been
a nice option. As with any system the trick is to get it right on "disc"
instead of trying to fix it in the mix.
Where this unit veers away from the standard cassette multi-track formula
is with its sync and editing functions. These are much closer to what you
would find on a hard disk based system and are very cool to see on a unit
in this price range.
I have an old Roland MC500mkII sequencer and it syncs up perfectly with
the MD8. I can press record and have the MD8 send out time code and
locate pointers. I've never done this before so to be honest I am still
blown away by it. Since most of my stuff is sequencer based this is like
have an integrated midi/audio sequencer. Amazing. I also totally dig the
fact that I can view the time display in measures and beats. The MD8 lets
you set up a tempo map and the meter for the song which works like a hot
damn for my setup. Very very very cool indeed.
Editing is also better than expected though a bit time consuming and
sometimes cumbersome. It is possible to copy one section of a track to
another. For some reason you cannot paste to the same track but you can
copy to any other. The process is a fairly simple though it can be time
consuming if you are dealing with a largish chunk. The manual (which is
pretty terse) seems to suggest that you cannot offset what you are copying
into or paste into the same time region as the source material. Blame a
bad diagram I guess as this is not the case. As long as it is to another
track you can paste where ever you want (assuming you have space left).
There is only 11ms accuracy but this is fine for most applications. One
annoyance is that you cannot tell it to copy say 5 times. You must repeat
the operation for each time you want to copy. Don't know if this is a
limitation of the mini-disc or whether it was just forgotten but it would
have been nice to be able to do it. Still, word processor options for
audio are very sexy indeed.
I haven't had this puppy long yet so I have not tried out the cue list
options very much. in any case, these let you remix your song by using
"markers" to define song sections which you then make into a play list.
Since I am working with tempos this is very simple to do and again lets
you treat the audio like a sequence. Nifty. Supposedly you can use this
to create a "new" song though the manual is VERY vague on this so don't
take my word for it. I will try it at some future point.
You can copy and erase parts, tracks and whole songs. Copying tracks
takes forever (seems like longer than real time though I have not tried
it). I am assuming that copying a song takes even longer. Erasing a part
is kinda strange. Essentially the MD8 just records silence so it happens
pretty much in real time. Why it doesn't just "copy" silence I do not
know but that is the way it works. Slow but effective.
When locating a specific point in a song you can use the jog shuttle to
zoom around. This is pretty nifty and if you are used to tape you will
love it to bits. You can fast forward and reverse while playing and at
various speeds from .5 to 32 times. The half speed option only works in
forward mode but these options are very slick for getting around since you
do have an audio cue of what is going on. One thing that caught me until
I read the manual (this affects copying so beware) is that if the time
display is flashing, you are not "really" at that point. You have to hit
"enter" to select it. If you just hit stop you will jump back to where
you were which I did not realize at first and so when I was copying I was
copying to the "real" position (which was totally wrong). I thought I
had found a glitch and luckily was proven wrong by the manual. Not
intuitive since the enter button is nowhere near the transport controls.
Still once you know that you are fine and can copy away with impunity.
The display is pretty useful and you can tell what is going on with little
hassle. Lotsa meters, icons and info crammed into it. In very little
time you can instantly tell what mode you are in and where you are
timewise.
The final thing that I'd like to mention is the sound issue. This is my
first exposure to the mini-disc format and before I had actually heard it
I was dead set against it. For years I have dissed mini-disc as a
substandard medium. I would like to formally say that I was suffering
from the "I don't like sushi! - But you have never tried sushi!?!"
syndrome. Mini-disc sounds fine. What I record sounds like what was
playing. I have not tried thorough A/B listening tests with a CD and
mini-disc version but I have to say that unless you are Mr or Ms Anal it's
doubtful you would notice any obvious sound impairment. The quality is
miles ahead of tape and probably as good as anything like the Roland
VS840 is capable of.
The sum of this is that I'm gonna buy the one I am renting. You get the
immediacy of a standard cassette multi-track recorder, the reliability of
the mini-disc medium, the benefits of digital recording (i.e. editing),
wicked sync functions and excellent sound quality. Nothing I have seen
really comes that close in its price bracket if you need more than two
tracks simultaneous recording and want cheapish removable media. It's
portable and affordable. . .just what I have needed for something like the
last 5 years. Praise technology.
Cheers
| __,,______________ "Self preservation = Extreme Paranoia" |
| < ____________/ |
| / /-' . . . . . . MORON . . . . . . |
| /___/ N A R C . mo...@deterrent.bc.ca . |
| c/o . . . . . . . . . . . . . . |
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| http://deterrent.bc.ca/deterrent/narc/narc.html |
Bravin Neff
> So far I have come across a couple online and at least one magazine review
> | http://deterrent.bc.ca/deterrent/narc/narc.html |
Hello from the future. Great review, I have one myself.