Review: Akai DPS-12

be...@akamail.com

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Jul 8, 1998, 3:00:00 AM7/8/98

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The following are my initial thoughts on the Akai DPS-12 hard disk recorder.

I have been an avid 4-tracker for 8 years, having only recently parted with
my trusty Yamaha MT-120 cassette based 4-track with the intention of
upgrading to something digital. I had experience with both PC-based recording
systems and the Roland VS-880, though neither were truely satisfactory. The
PC-based systems require that you spend more time dicking with the mouse and
keyboard than recording, which was a huge negative. The VS-880's limit of
recording only 4 tracks at a time made recording a full band at once too
difficult. It also has what I consider to be a terrible interface and poor
support for looping in external effects and other tracks during mixdown. I
also was pretty unhappy with the built-in effects on the VS-880, the reverbs
in particular, but I can be really picky when it comes to that. At the time
of my purchase I figured that the 8 tracks of the VS-880 would be plenty, but
now that I have 12 I realize that 12 is a HUGE improvement over 8,
particularly if you like recording tracks in stereo.

The Akai DPS-12 seemed to be the best combination for my needs: A very
intuitive and easy to use interface. 6 (8 if you use the 2 digital inputs)
tracks of simultaneous recording, 12 total tracks of uncompressed audio with
16 bit linear resolution, effects loop with 2 mono or one true stereo send,
ability to route in up to 6 (8 if you use digital ins) additional tracks
during mixdown. I didn't buy the built-in effects card because my dealer
didn't have it available with the 2 gig hard drive, and I've heard too many
bad things about the JAZ being unreliable and slow. I would like to pick up
the effects card at some point, even though I'll probably still use an
external box for reverbs.

A nice feature of the Akai is you can pan directly from a knob on the mixer. I
could be remembering wrong, but I believe the VS-880 requires you to do this
through a "digital" interface, which is a major inconvenience for such a
commonly adjusted parameter. Now only if the DPS-12 allowed you to adjust
individual track EQ through the mixing board instead of through the digital
interface....

Within a few minutes of starting up the machine I was able to sit down and
lay down a few tracks. The unit is very intuitive. Input 1 is routed to track
1 (and 7) so you can simply plug into the input, press that "channel select"
button for the track, hit record, and start jamming. In about an hour I had
a complete, simple instrumental which I was pretty happy with. Mixdown is a
bit more complicated since things like EQ need to be adjusted through the
digital menu instead of directly from the board. It can also be tedious to
adjust the levels of the additional inputs you are using (e.g. effects
returns, externally sequenced tracks, etc.). Another quibble I have is that
the panning of the stereo effects loop sends is independent of the panning of
the track. It would have made more sense for Akai to simply use the pan knob
for both track and effects send panning.

I haven't really played much with the digital editing, which from the manual
looks really powerful, but I did really like how simple it was to set
auto-locate points (up to 12 directly accessible with two button clicks..
"locate" and then the number of the locate point), and the instantaneous
"undo" operation was a godsend (I'm really good at accidentally recording
over the perfect track...)! The locate points can also be used for auto
punch-in, which was pretty easy to use but could be easier (it requires a few
menu selects to get into punch in mode... it would be nicer if you could
simply hit one or two buttons on the board since this is such a common
operation.

But the bottom line is this is a very fine sounding, easy to use, and
powerful machine. You can more quickly record better sounding stuff than you
can with a cassette based system. Sound quality is top notch. While some
people complain that 16 bits is not enough resolution, I cannot notice any
degradation. What I put in seems to be what comes out. Hell, if you like how
CD's sound, you'll be happy with the sound quality of the Akai.

In my opinion the only contender to the Akai is the Yamaha MD-8, which offers
more "knob-based" mixing board parameter adjustments than the Akai (such as
EQ), and therefore could be what I consider as easier to use. It also allows
you to record off of 8 instead of 6 analog inputs simultaneously. It also
offers removable media -- at some point I will have to buy a SCSI based
backup device or a DAT to backup my DPS12. Disadvantages of the MD8 are that
it uses compressed audio, has only 8 versus 12 total tracks, and the
reliability of the unit has not been established at this point. It also does
not offer built in effects, and its mixing board is analog (though in my
opinion the degradation arising from the analog mixer is probably
insignificant).

That's all so far. I'll try and post another review if I get the effects card
and/or gain more experience with some of the more advanced features such as
digital editing. I would be happy to hear any pointers or opinions from more
experienced users out there.

Bert

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JSVice

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Jul 9, 1998, 3:00:00 AM7/9/98

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>
>A nice feature of the Akai is you can pan directly from a knob on the mixer.
>I
>could be remembering wrong, but I believe the VS-880 requires you to do this
>through a "digital" interface, which is a major inconvenience for such a
>commonly adjusted parameter. Now only if the DPS-12 allowed you to adjust
>individual track EQ through the mixing board instead of through the digital
>interface....

That is indeed incorrect. You must be thinking of the 1680.

John Vice

Paul Cochrane

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Jul 9, 1998, 3:00:00 AM7/9/98

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I have to say that I too find the DPS12 very good. I've only recently
started using multitracks and found the cassette tape 4 tracks to be far too
limiting for the equipment these day. Most stuff, modules, guitar pedals,
effects units are all stereo these days and you are immediately limiting
yourself using only 4 tracks.

The other main problem with tape is the dreaded hiss and bouncing. I'm
expecting all the tape owners to say Blah Blah Blah my unit can do this and
I know it can be made to do good stuff if you're willing to persevere with
it and use the correct equipment.

As soon as I got the AKAI, the hiss problem is right out the window. It
stores what you put in and plays it back the same way. The benefit of the 12
tracks the that you can record your intruments in stereo. Bouncing down is
quite easy and suffers very little in quality. I couldn't tell anyway.

The unit also has a feature called virtual tracks (250 i think). This means
that once you've bounced you can store your original tracks in your project
just in case at a later date you're not happy with you're original mix.

I tested the unit on a new song I'd wrote and was very happy with it.
Relatively hiss free, 6 tracks of stereo, 10 tracks of vocal, complete with
midi automation.

The Midi side of things seems quite good (once you figure out how to get it
working). I can start , rewind and play from my sequencer playing back the
audio alongside the sequence. The sequence data is not recorded so you can
add or delete bits as you like. Very useful

I got the effects unit as well. Seems good to be but they may not be to
everybody's taste. I don't bother too much with brand names. If it sound
reasonable and doesn't degrade the sound much then it's OK by me. I like the
TAPE echo effect on vocals.

All in All I'm really happy with the unit. The interface is a bit of a pain
since there's not a lot of knobs but thats since it's digital through and
through. In the future the cost will be down so we'll get the knobs back
eventually.