vs-840GX VS THE ADAT STUDIO PACK

[Salvadore]

OK HERES MY QUESTION IM TRYING TO GET SOME EUIPMENT SO I CAN START RECORDING MY BAND AND TRY TO MAKE SOME MONEY RECORDING SOME OTHER BANDS. IM STEPING UP FROME MY 4 TRACK SO IM GOING TO ASK A FEW QUESTIONS.
1.THE VS-840GX LOOKS LIKE IT HAS ONLY 6 INPUTS HOW CAN YOU RECORD DRUMS WITH THAT MANY.

2. CAN THE VS-840GX BE HOOKED UP TO A BIGER MIXER FOR MORE INPUTS.

PLEASE ALSO LISTS SOME PROS AND CONS BETWEEN THE TWO. VS-840GX AND ADAT STUDIO PACK.

[zophim x]

vs840 is the way to go, yes you can hook up another
mixer, ideally a four bus if you were going to record a band live. 840 is much more portable, fx built in so your not running more wires for fx, virtually no maintenance,
much more convenient to use on the fly than the adat setup. the biggest reason overall is that it's not an alesis product.

http://www.mp3.com/zophimx

[Blue Esq]

The biggest limitations of the 840 are:

1) Compression. You can't escape it, and I hear artifacts on my tunes, and the artifacts become more and more noticable with bounces.

2) The two linked Stereo channels. This is NOT an 8 track deck - it's a six track, and there's nothing you can do - short of using an external mixer - to change that.

3) You'll only have four direct outs - Left Main, Right Main, Aux A, and Aux B - but this won't matter until you get the external mixer to try and solve the linked stereo pair problem.

4) It's extremely difficult to rely on just the internal effects. They're basically global effects, meaning that the effect you select is the ONLY effect availabe to all tracks. Yes, there are multi-effect patches, but even still you're stuck with those for all tracks. So, if the multi-effect is a small room reverb and a single tap, eighth note delay, you can't dial in a plate reverb with a double tap quarter note delay for the vocal. So, sooner or later, you'll be thinking about using external effects.

5) But, you can only return external effects to open tracks or V tracks - or use the external inputs on mix down - but they're panned hard left and hard right, and I've never found a way to change that - so you can't place a mono effect anywhere but full left or full right...

But with all of that said - this is still an amazing machine, and you can make some good recordings with it. You can have a bunch of fun with it, and you can learn a lot from it. At current prices, it's a screaming steal.

Before you do put down your cash, though, ask yourself what you really want to do with this machine, and what you want to get out of it.

If you're interested in making demos, and you're basically going to do no more than record yourself and another person, and you're using MIDI tracks or drum machines or loops, this is a great tool.

If you're thinking you're going to be recording masters with a full band - you may want to look at a machine with more tracks, no compression, and better (more versatile) I/O.

After two and a half years, I'm moving away from a VS based system. But, I'll still keep my 840 because it's portable, useable, and a great tool for working out and capturing ideas.

I've had a blast with mine, and don't regret buying it in the least.

From your other question about the TM D 1000, I think you'd be frustrated with an 840. You might want to look at an 880 VSR - the rack version of the 880.

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally posted by zophim x
vs840 is the way to go, yes you can hook up another
mixer, ideally a four bus if you were going to record a band live. 840 is much more portable, fx built in so your not running more wires for fx, virtually no maintenance,
much more convenient to use on the fly than the adat setup. the biggest reason overall is that it's not an alesis product.

An XT20 will easily outperform the vs840 in both performance and sound quality... your decision is really the difference between recording demo-quality only (via the vs840) or having the possibility of pro results (via the ADAT.)

There's a world of difference between the quality of the A/D converters of the Roland and the ADAT.

There's also a world of difference between the ADAT converters and say the Lucid, but that's another story that Sjoko2 already described in another thread.

Bruce

[Carter Simcoe]

Bruce is right zophim x, how could you ever say the vs840 is better than an ADAT?????? Yeah its more portable and has built in effects but thats part of the reason it's inferior, you have to sacrafice quatility for quantity. This is like saying a Zoom 1010 is better than a pedal board full of Boss pedals.

[zophim x]

the original post asked for the pros and cons between the adat studio pack and the vs840. i recommended the vs 840 because of convience and price. yes the roland has compression that the adat doesn't. but it has been my experience that the adat is not as reliable and requires much more maintenance.(my friend has had his in the shop three times in the last two years). plus the adat package is bundled the the nano effects processors. which are nothing but noisy hunks of crap, and will add tons of hiss to your recordings. the roland effects are much quieter. i never intended imply that the adat wouldn't be better sound quality but bang for the buck i would put my money on the roland product. if your really wanting to go pro quality i wouldn't go either of these products. also i work at a music store and have noticed a decline in the popularity of the adat products, even with drastic price drops on these product most people aren't even interested . the market really seems to be moving towards all in one boxes like the vs series or computer based recording. even though the adat has been a popular format for years i predict that they will probably go away unless alesis does something drastic to make the adat a more versatile product. nobody wants to be stuck with a dinosaur. sorry if i offended anyone, just my opinion.

[plaidleader]

Hey, I have a question about what one of you said...
about the 840gx being a 6 track and not an 8 track machine

Are you saying that you can only record to the stereo pair at once, or can you record 2 individual tracks and then pair them up? (like say, two separate guitar tracks and then pair them to one fader, or can you only record a stereo device to the stereo pair?)

In other words, is it a 6 track as far as mixing is concerned, or as far as recording is concerned?

(I'm looking to buy one myself, and as long as you can record 8 individual tracks, I don't mind if you have to mix two pairs of them in stereo-almost everything I record would use stereo devices or stereo pairs of vocals/guitars)

Thanks for answering my question guys.

[Roel]

It's an 8-track, with the limitation of recording 6 (or is it 4?) tracks at once. You can playback 8 tracks at once.

The stereo channel can be split up into 2 mono channels. The fader then gets a dual function. (Other channel by holding the shift button while moving the fader.) (At least, this is what my VS1880 does.)

As for the VS <-> ADAT discussion... Well. I've got a VS1880. It's a fun box, but these all-in-one-box things have one BIG limitation. You cannot put extra boxes in... If you want to expand the system, well, nice... You can't!

That's one thing to keep in mind.

The nano-eff, however... Give it to your kids as a toy...

[Blue Bear Sound]

Originally posted by zophim x
the market really seems to be moving towards all in one boxes like the vs series or computer based recording. even though the adat has been a popular format for years i predict that they will probably go away unless alesis does something drastic to make the adat a more versatile product.

For the amateur/home-hobbyist market, quite possibly, you may be right...

...but there are a lot of professional project studios out there equipped with MDMs........ so no... it won't be "going away" anytime soon....

Bruce

[Blue Esq]

The 840 is different from the other VS machines in that 5/6 and 7/8 are always linked, and there is no way to unlink them.

Record on one, and you record the other - send 1 to the Aux out, and you're sending the other channel to the other aux. I've never tried copying or moving individual tracks to one or the other of the linked tracks, but once they were moved they'd be linked for evermore, so I don't see that that gets you very far.

So, in my view, it's a four track plus two tracks that can be stereo - a six track....

[wawazzat]

It's a six-track, all right...

This machine is made for The Lone Rangers out there.
Record four, bounce to a stereo pair on 7/8, record four, bounce to a stereo pair on 5/6...this is, like, the ultimete demo machine for guitarists, or even....drummers. I won't get into the quality issues, some people like the quality of the Roland recorders, some don't.

The VS 840 has been a great machine to learn digital recording. I'd say if you want to make serious recordings, using a live band, you may want to look into something a little larger.
__________
wawazzat?
That's all folks