Chapter 10: Audio Overview Of The Sw1000Xg - Yamaha SW1000XG Advanced Manualbook

Chapter 10
Audio overview of the SW1000XG
A lot of confusion over the audio capabilities of the SW1000XG exists, this section of the guide will hopefully clarify
what is, and what is not possible with the cards DSP processors.
The audio features of the SW1000XG were, and still are a complete breakthrough for computer based soundcards at
this price point. Never before had the ability to add up to 6 real-time, non CPU using effects at 24bit resolution from a
massive palette of over 170 different types been possible, and especially without having to pay any extra for them!
For those of you who have not read this entire guide so far I will begin by summarising the way in which the audio
works on the SW1000XG.
The SW1000XG has 3 physical RCA style audio output connections. 2 of them (marked L OUT and R OUT in red
and white) are for analogue audio output, which means that you can connect the sockets to your hi-fi, mixer or
amplifier. It is important to note that they are not pre-amplified outputs so you can't just plug in a pair of headphones,
or a cheap pair of non-powered computer speakers. It is also worth reminding you that the better the quality of your
monitoring system, the better the SW1000XG will sound. These 2 connectors carry all information being played by
the card, be it MIDI or audio out via an 18bit DAC converter located on the card itself.
The third connector marked in black is the SPDIF (Sony/Phillips Digital Interface) digital output connector. This is a
stereo digital output, which again carries the information out of the SW1000XG, but this time with in an even cleaner
digital form. This connector is for linking up to digital mixers such as the Yamaha 01V, DAT machines, Mini Disc
recorders, Audio CDR units and anything else that can accept a digital input in this coaxial form. It outputs data at
44.1khz.
The output from the 3 connectors is the same, so if you are playing audio & MIDI from your analogue port, you can
also be monitoring or recording the data from the digital output at the same time.
Some people may see the lack of individual outputs to be a limitation, but as we shall see later in this section, nothing
could be further from the truth.
The Analogue input on the back of the SW1000XG feeds directly to a 20bit Burr Brown Analogue to Digital converter.
This is then passed to our mixing and effects processing chips, which run at a minimum of 24bit resolution before
being outputted from the digital mixer processor at either 32bit or 16bit resolution. Currently very little software
supports 32bit recording, so many of them record the audio to wave files at 24bit (truncating 8 bits of data), although
this may change in future.
Recording audio to the SW1000XG can be as simple as just plugging in a microphone or guitar to the input jack
(which is stereo) and hitting the record button in your audio software. There are however a few points worth noting
before you set off.
The first is that the SW1000XG analogue input has no facility for input gain control (although control is possible, as
we shall see using SW1000#2 wave record). You have 2 options for input gain, one is MIC level (pre amplified – this
is ideal for dynamic microphones, and guitars plugged straight into the back of the card) and the other is Line level
(used for amplified signals such as the output from a mixing desk or guitar cab).
To maintain full compatibility with the XG spec, Yamaha have set the default input gain to MIC level, which is fine for
people who just have a MIC or guitar they wish to plug in, but not ideal for people wishing to record from a mixing
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