Yamaha TX16W
The ‘16’ in TX16W stands for 16-voices, which is nice, but unfortunately it does not apply to this late-eighties sampler's specs. It's only 12-bit (as opposed to 16-bit) and shipped with a slim 1.5 MB of RAM. Albeit, this is a sampler more than 15 years old. Supposedly marking Yamaha's entry into professional rack-mount samplers, the TX16W seems to take its rack-design from Yamaha's REV-series effects processors. A narrow 2-line LCD display, numeric keypad and about a dozen other buttons makes for a lousy sample-editing experience - yet this was how it was done in 1987/88. With internal RAM expandable up to 6 MB's, floppy disk storage, digital filters, and 8-part multitimbral operation, the TX16W was good for its time but is certainly now, a dinosaur.
This 12-bit sampler has a variable 50 kHz sampling-rate without aliasing, eight monophonic outputs, polyphonic stereo out and an external audio input (Mic, Line) on the front-panel. The original TX16W's System OS had to be loaded from 720kb disks in non-DOS format, and frequently needed reloads from the System disk. Moreover this OS is one of the worst ever made. Alternative: Typhoon 2000, a freeware OS provides much easier handling, support for RS422 (you can connect it directly to the built-in MIDI interface of a Mac for SCSI-like communication), 17 factory filters and support for the AIFF audio format. Typhoon is a must have to stay healthy while working with this sampler. It is good for M1-type pianos, percussion sounds, voice samples and your basic 80's style sounds. It has been used by Jimmy Edgar.
- Demos & Media
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Manual - Download the original owner's manual from SoundProgramming.net.
- Specifications
- Polyphony - 16 voices
- Sampler - 12-bit, 50kHz (mono), 33.3kHz (stereo), variable.
- Memory - 1.5 MB (expandable) for 16.3 seconds at 16.7kHz in mono. External 3.5" disks.
- Filter - 17 including resonant types, one per voice
- Sequencer - None
- Effects - Filter, Phaser, all possible thru Typhoon 2000
- Keyboard - None
- Control - MIDI IN/OUT/THRU (8-part multitimbral), Remote start/stop
- Date Produced - 1987/88
- Websites of Interest
- Resources & Credits
Images from AudioFanzine TX16W Page.
Thanks to Malte Munster for contributing.
Errors or Corrections? Send them here.
Going by my bad memory:
One has one mem chip upgrade the other two(maybe more).
I only have the stock OS. I adjusted to the quirkiness of the OS.
I have over a hundred floppies of sounds, but they are old and some may not be any good any more.
This was a good sounding sampler, better than most of the 16 bit samplers of the day.
I also have other vintage stuff I am getting rid of.
brooklynkayak@gmail.com
I live in Brooklyn, NY, USA
The sound of TX16W interesting. Libraries piano is very good.
Contrary to what it says in the description, the unit was capable of 16 parts multitimbral operation in performance-mode.
The OS from Yamaha was extremly slow, sported no dynamic voice-allocation and the OS-disk had to be used frequently as not all of the OS would be in memory at once.
I spent some money on additional memory and the Tyhoon Os, getting a much more usable instrument, altough it ended up acting mostly as the percussion-section before I sold it off.
The 12bit sampling-resolution was adequate, but sounds with high frequency would tend to sound just a bit off on some notes.
I got into music production in the early 90's and back then there wasn't a great deal of "affordable" samplers about. I couldn't stretch the budget to get an S1000 which was the dogs nuts at the time, so I ended up buying this awkward bugger for about £500. I seem to remember bothering to get the typhoon upgrade but quickly got shot of it after replacing it with a gimmicky but usable Roland DJ-70 (also a bag o' [beep] e but was a breath of fresh air after this fella!)