Yamaha AW4416 Song Files Backup
July 14, 2015
This randominium is about backing-up song files from the Yamaha AW4416.
The CD-RW method I use to ensure the best possible backups of song files, is as follows:
AW4416 (Song File) > CD-RW (Burn To) > Computer (Save CD-RW ISO Disc Image To) > CD-R (Burn An ISO Disc Image From Computer File) > AW4416 (Restore From CD-R - Creates Duplicate Song) > Test (Open/Playback Duplicate Song File) > Delete Duplicate (Or Both) Song Files From AW4416 > Back-Up ISO File From Computer To 1 or More External Hard-Drives > Store CD's In Normal Size Jewel Case And Protect From Elements
The following is the full detailed explaination.
The CD drive is used. I haven't tried a SCSI hard-drive yet, nor have a I tried pulling the internal hard-drive out to try and copy it that way.
Files are backed-up to CD-RW. The AW4416 does not allow back-up to CD-R. It does however, allow restore from CD-R.
There used to be three kinds of CD-RW's in stores; 4x (Normal), 12x (High Speed), and 20x (Ultra High Speed), (all referring to maximum write speed). The 20x (Ultra High Speed) ones were terrible, and I do not recommend using them for your song files, and if you have already, you should immediately back those up. The (Normal) slow speed ones may be slightly problematic as well, though all three types are problematic and unreliable. The 12x (High Speed) ones are what I've settled on.
Important songs should be backed-up individually, as the CD-RW's seem to have more problems when the entire disc is used, though multiple discs can be unavoidable on large songs.
Never re-write a CD-RW. Be grateful if it worked the first time. If it didn't, only reuse that disc for something unimportant.
Since the CD-RW will be so unreliable, you will need to make backups of that disc as well.
Note: If you keep constantly getting errors while writing CD-RW's, you may have a bad batch of CD-RW's. Try to exchange them at the store.
Now here are the detailed steps to backup & restore songs on the AW4416:
Backing-Up
With the recorder on, push the "File" button, located at the top left of the machine, second-row down, second-button from the left.
Select the "Disc Utility" tab from the screen by pushing its corresponding button below the screen.
Switch the "Read" & "Write" speeds to maximum with the cursor & enter buttons, located on the middle-right-side of the machine. (I don't believe there is any benefit to using a slower speed, nor disadvantage for the fastest one; but if the write speed of your CD-RW is slower, select a lower write speed instead.)
Now open the CD tray by holding down the "Shift" button below the screen, while then pushing the button for the "Unload CD" tab that then appears at the bottom of the screen.
Set the disc in the tray, and it will close itself automatically later. Note: if the song is larger than about 700MB, it will require more than one disc, and the discs will need to be marked so you know which order they go when restoring.
Now select the "Backup" tab from the screen.
The machine should automatically select the CD Drive to use for the backup. If it does not, manually select the CDRW Drive from the SCSI options box on the bottom of the screen by selecting it with the cursor & enter buttons, and cycling through it by spinning the black jog wheel, found on the right of the machine. (This is also where you could select to use an ancient SCSI style external backup hard-drive here as well, if you are trying one of those.)
From the top of the screen, select the song you wish to backup, and the CD tray will also close itself. You can select more than one song, but I don't recommend doing this with important songs.
- (Around this time you could get an error message or some other problem. Make sure the CD drive is selected, and you are using a CD-RW. Try another disc too, and remember, a CD-R will not work for this part.)
When ready, select "Execute" at the bottom of the screen, then confirm the backup.
It takes around 21 minutes to backup 700MB, (a full disc), at its full 6x write speed, and it will automatically eject the disc when complete, and ask you to insert the next disc, if necessary. Once you are all done, you should back-up those CD-RW's you made, and test that your backups will restore the songs properly, before you erase them from the machine. Here are those steps.
How to back-up CD-RW files/Discs that you have taken off the AW4416
Using seperate computer burning software with your desktop or laptop, make a "Disc Image" of your CD-RW. This is a file you will be able to store and make as many copies of as you want on your computer and external drives, and also then be able to put them on CD-R's to archive and restore to the AW4416. A "Disc Image" is an exact copy of how the disc has been written, and can be used to trick the AW4416 into thinking it's restoring a song from a CD-RW it made, when you're really using a CD-R you made from your computer.
After you have the "Disc Image" saved on your computer & backup hard-drives, copy it onto a CD-R disc using a "Burn Disc Image" option. This way, AW4416 will read the CD-R like it was the CD-RW.
How to double-check that everything has been backed-up correctly
Take a CD-R with the burned imaged from your computer, (this will be from your computer's backup file, so you will also be checking that that file is good as well as your original file from the CD-RW), and put the song on the AW4416 using the "Restore" option, (the AW4416 does support multiple songs with the same name). After restoring, open & play the song to see if it works. Now here's the restoring proceedure.
Restoring from a CD-R or CD-RW
With the recorder on, push the "File" button, located at the top left of the machine, second-row down, second-button from the left.
Select the "Disc Utility" tab from the screen by pushing its corresponding button below the screen.
Switch the "Read" & "Write" speeds to maximum with the cursor & enter buttons, located on the middle-right-side of the machine. (I don't believe there is any benefit to using a slower speed, nor disadvantage for the fastest one; but if the read speed of your CD-RW is slower, select a lower read speed instead.)
Now open the CD tray by holding down the "Shift" button below the screen, while then pushing the button for the "Unload CD" tab that then appears at the bottom of the screen.
Set the disc in the tray, and it will close itself automatically after the next step. Note: if the song is more than one disc, they will need to be inserted in order. If you put the wrong one in, it will tell you to switch.
Select the "Restore" tab from the screen. The CD tray will automatically close.
The machine should automatically select the CD Drive to use for the restore. If it does not, manually select the CDRW Drive from the SCSI options box on the bottom of the screen. (This is also where you could select to use an ancient SCSI style external backup hard-drive here as well, if you are trying one of those.)
- (Around this time you could get an error messege or some other problem. Make sure the CD drive is selected, and a CD-R will work for this part. There may be an error with the disc. Make sure that a "Disc Image" was created from the original CD-RW, and that a "Disc Image" was burned to your CD-R. Also try putting the original CD-RW back in to see if the song/songs are showing up to select. Worst case - song has already been deleted off the AW4416, and you need to use gross media restoration software to recover data from the disc, or recover it from the AW4416's hard-drive itself, if it hasn't been over-written yet with other data.)
From the top of the screen, select the song you wish to restore. If there was more than one song, you can select the ones you want.
When ready, select "Execute" at the bottom of the screen, then confirm the restore.
It takes around 15 minutes to restore 700MB, (a full disc), at full 8x speed, and it will not notify you when it is done, other than a message saying insert next disc, if neccessary.
This concludes this randominium.
Now, had the AW4416 come with a USB port...
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