Customer Reviews

Yamaha Audiogram 6 audio interface

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

If you're looking for a USB device with mixing abilities, 48 phantom volts of power, then the Yamaha Audiogram could possibly be what you're looking for. However,If you have no patience to figure things out, then this is NOT for you. From my experience, it is not a plug and play product. You may have to go into your control panel and play around with your sound settings until you get the right fit. I bought this product, because I had a desire to get into music production. I wanted a device that would allow me to use my keyboard and a condenser mic on my laptop, while producing good quality sound into Fruity Loops. I assume that there is some tweaking for professional producers, that I am unaware of, because I am simply unable to get my mic to produce that professional crisp recorded sound that it produces when it is in function ex-Fruity Loops.

Having said that, I was able to use this device, in conjunction with a Powered USB Hub and plug it into my iPad2 with Garageband for iPad. The result was excellent. My mic produced the crisp sounds that I expected it to, and I was even able to simultaneously use another mic and instrument. I would therefore conclude that the my initial problem has nothing to do with the product, but rather with my inexperience in using Audio Interfaces in conjunction with music production software.

I gave the product a 4-star review, simply because it wasn't plug and play and requires a little more than a basic knowledge of computers to set it up correctly. This may not be suitable for everyone. The advantages far outweigh the negative. It has a sleek, sturdy, light build, and gives one the ability to revolutionize music production with very little. I also like that its features allow it to be used as a mixer, controlling compression and gain. For me the biggest plus was the 48 Phantom volts of power. This is very important for those who own condenser mics.

If you have experienced with DAW (digital audio workstation) before, than this little thing is very good and handy Mixer with USB connectivity to Computer.
I actually used it (most of the time) as a Mixer for 'mini home theater & mutimedia' setup. (See IMAGE).
So I can record TV program (sound only, from DirecTV).
Singing, Recording VO,Podcasting, using decent Large Capsule Condenser Mic with Phantom, with Ableton Live and facilitate lots of Plug-In (The Latency is acceptable though, and without plug-in the latency is zero). Also Sony Sound Forge or Cakewalk Sonar. But never use the Cubase!

If you know electronic and all those ground-loop things, you can avoid all noises! But if you just casual user, and dont want to bother with proper setup, do not buy this!
Read NO further!

(But if you do:)
As mentioned above, I am having fun using this Audiogram 6, for ;mini home theater & muti media' setup.
(See my setup on the IMAGE!)

This setup can rival Thousand Dollar Home Theater in Sound/Picture quality with only fraction of the cost. And it has tons of features and capability you can ever imagine.

Complete setup:
'mini home theater' which is cheaply bought but very 'HIGH' in Quality:
* TCL 32" 1080p
* M-Audio AV40
* BIC Venturi V80 subwoofer
* DirecTV HD-DVR HR24 with Network Adaptor(can play My Computer Video, Music, Photo ETC)
* Yamaha Audiogram 6 as MIXER (connected to My Computer)

My Computer:
* Decent Quad Core with 8GB dual-channel RAM, GigaByte based Mobo, Cooler Master HAF case
* 2 X 1 Tb RAID-0 SATA-2 for Workspace , 1 TB SATA for OS
* 64 Bit Windows 7 with VMware Workstation (running Mac OS X)
* Dual Head nvdia based
* Dual Display (1920X1080)

Software:
* Cakewalk Sonar 8.5
* Sony Sound Forge 10
* Ableton Live
* Adobe Premiere (part of CS 5)

first, they sent me the Anagram 3, not the 6. Anyhow, check out asio4all for windows asio driver. Not sure it makes a world of diff. No probs with the Yamaha drivers, Windows vista 32bit.

Have static real bad if my laptop is plugged into 110, on battery the system is crystal clear.

Data has some skips during recording. using laptop w/ 5400 rpm sata or usb 7200 drive, both skip.

Decided to go with a Mackie 8 channel (802 VLZ3) mixer and a Tascam dp 004 recorder and bypass the computer/interface all together. The computer interface is too complicated for a two channel mix. Too much to set up and tear down for live performances.

Love the Mackie for a 1000 reasons! It's my favorite piece of equipment. Haven't got the Tascam yet, 1 more week.

Note on the Audiogram: the channel level controls are not full kill. If you have a mic plugged in and turn the level all the way down, you still get signal from the mic in your mix.

The users manual is very good.

The Cubase AI4 is rock solid, extensive activation process, updates are available.


Update on Tascam dp-004 pocket studio with which I was going to replace this yamaha recorder and my laptop, didn't like the Tascam at all, doesn't record directly to WAV (or any other usable) format and converts in real time, a two hour recording takes at least two more hours to convert. Sent it back. Looking at a Zoom H2 for the same price.

I use this mostly as a headphone amp connected to my computer, which it does quite well. But its also nice to have it as an interface for recording which I haven't used so much but have been able to do. It's like any USB so when you reboot, you might have to disconnect and reconnect if it conflicts with other devices. It has a nice layout.

Don't have too much time with this item on my hands but it has been a good experience until now. Good featues and performance for the price.

This is a product that I'm sure would be great... if you could get it to work. Steinberg has so many DRM measures put into place, it sure does a great job of making sure nobody who shouldn't be using it is using it. Unfortunately, it pretty much makes it so ... nobody can use it. I bought this recently at a local music store, and after over four hours of trouble shooting, uninstalling and reinstalling, updating drivers, and going through multiple guides and trying to install it on TWO different operating systems / computers, it still did not work fully. There was always some kind of an issue. It's rather unfortunate, and especially frustrating, because from what I can tell it both could and should be an excellent product.

Unless you're ready to risk an ungodly amount of trouble shooting, anger, frustration, and possibly total lack of success in regards to using this product, I would not recommend it. I didn't want to rate it 1 Star just because I've had a miserable experience with it, because I HAVE heard good things about the software that comes with this product, Cubase, and the interface itself. But, as this whole review is to say, it means absolutely nothing when company that has an over the top, paranoid, totalitarian grasp over it's digital rights management and software distribution, making it near impossible for some people who legitimately buy their products to use, I can no where near support or recommend.

Buyer beware.

I haven't worked with it very much. It seems a little noisy. Other reviews I have read mention changing the driver settings. I haven't done any of that. It worked out of the box with very little tweaking. The Cubase 4i is somewhat daunting. There is a lot to it. In all, it seems like a good package for the money.

Though is a great device, the software included in the box (Cubase) is a nightmare, the instalation drives in the DVD were damaged and it took like 2 days do get it done, and i am really good at software things.

Once installed it works fine, as i said, the Audiogram is beauty and easy to handle, but Cubase is reaaaaaaaaaally complicated. A bad partner for Yamaha.

This item was advertised as being very simple to use, that is why I bought it for our family as a xmas present. Here it is, September, and I'm still struggling with it. I should have sent it back a long time ago.