Can one record a professional quality recording with the vs1680?

TexRoadkill said:
Anytime you look for one box to do it all you will be making compromises.

TRK,

This is true to an extent, although it is becoming less and less the case as better equipment is being developed more cheaply all the time.

If you want a better shot at professional results just use the recorder and effects on a portastudio or DAW.

If that is your mindset, you are probably better off not going with a portastudio, or an all-in-one solution. You would probably be better off getting a Mackie, Tascam, Radar, or some other recording medium, and adding the outboard to your liking. People who purchase all-in-one units have generally made a trade off. They have traded portability for flexibility. In some cases, this lack of flexibility is purposefully built in by the manufacturers. Roland is one of the worst offenders where this is concerned. They puposefully make things proprietary, so you have to come to them for solutions. A perfect example of this is the lack of compatibility with other CD burners on the VS units. They want you to buy their burner.

That being said, the Roland units are noted for having excellent quality mixers, and excellent quality internal efx. You'd better like them, you're not going to be using anyone elses plug-ins.

Whenever possible use external pres, DAC's, processors and yes even an analog mixer for mixing. I would rather mix on a better board even with the additional DAC if I get more headroom, seperation and depth in return.

I'm not at all against using better outboard gear. I'm for it all the way. However, with these machines, you do have limitations. If you want to use an external mixer, don't buy one of these machines. It is not practical, if not impossible, to mix externally on one of these machines. You don't have analog outputs for all the channels.

It might be possible in some type of incredibly inane way. The only way I can think of would be to somehow dump all the tracks into a computer, then acquire all the extra output gear it would take to acquire the analog outputs to route the tracks to your analog mixer. Then you would have to master down to two tracks and go back to a digital medium if you were wanting to have a CD master.

Don't get me wrong. I'm not disagreeing with you in principle. I agree that going from the digital to analog domain and then back again is desirable if you have a decent analog board and you can benefit from it's headroom, eq, or effects. It's just really not in any way a practical option on these units.

TRK, let me ask you this.

I am very much a student of recording technology, I find it fascinating, and there is a lot of things I don't understand as well as I would like too. This headroom issue is one area where I will have to plead ignorance.

Let's take a hypothetical situation. Lets say you did have analog outputs for each track on a VS unit. Would you be gaining anything in the way of headroom by going out to the analog mixer? Wouldn't you still be constrained by the limitations of the digital track mixer on the VS? Is their any way to gain head room after you've gone through the digital mixer on the VS?

Regards,
Taylor
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let's define headroom as:


Headroom - 1) The level difference (in dB) between normal operating level and clipping level in an amplifier or audio device. 2) A similar level difference between normal tape operating level and the level where the distortion would be 3%.

simple eh?

to some ppls headroom is a mysterious magical thing. they talk about it but dont seem to understand it.


its the difference between mean or average levels (or whatever instantaneous level that can be measured) and clipping level which with digital gear would be 0db.

analog gear can be pushed higher with distortion. digital distortion is so unpleasant that you dont want to push it higher.

tube distortion can sound good so tube gear would have "more headroom" cause you may want to drive it into distortion. you can actually drive it into distortion without the distortion being apparent.

solid state distortion doesnt sound so pleasant so you really dont want to drive solid state equipment into distortion. some people do however so they feel it has more headroom. really it doesnt of course because once youre clipping you have no more headroom whether youre talking about digital or solid state.

so if someone is talking about solid state gear of any kind having more headroom than digital then they are being illogical at best. maybe they like solid state distortion.

tape saturation is another thing entirely. one thing in common between tube distortion and tape saturation is a natural compression which can be quite pleasant and is sought after. its a softer kind of clipping. this "soft clipping" is usable and can be considered an extension of headroom.

but to talk about solid state gear and say it has more headroom must mean that the user enjoys hard clipping and unpleasant distortion and considers this to be an extension of usable level.
 
MrZekeMan said:
jo,

I seem to be pretty lazy. I can't motivate myself to work on either guitar or singing much lately for some reason.

Taylor
Click to expand...

Taylor,

I hope it is temporary. I think we all go through that kind of "spell" from time to time. I recently got stage fright, for lack of a better term, in my own damned home studio...I think I was afraid to record on the new setup, because I believe it capable of doing what I put it together for, and that it might become apparent that I am somehow not upto it afterall. After a week or two of that, I figured I better do SOMETHING so I went in there and started banging on things and strumming other things and yelling into yet more things until I got over it, and although none of it is beginning to sound very polished yet, I see little sparks and moments in there that really rock, and I know it's in there 'in them lil' boxes' and here in me, so it's gonna come out. I'm also going to quit nit-picking about hardware details in my mind now that I have arrived at an arrangemnt in which I am confident. I am going to continue to learn my new machines mechanically and musically, record some of my older material, let myself write some honest stuff, and see where it takes me.

Along the way I'm sure I will find new and better tools to aid me in the search for the sound I want to capture, and I look forward to that too. This thread has been great for me, from a standpoint of confidence and also perspective. And anyone feel free to email me anytime if you like to talk about writing and playing...Sneakin_About@webtv.net

jo blo
 
Got to admit I was a pit pissed off when the Yamaha units came out with their fancy-pants full dynimics processing on every channel, but I got over myself, pressed my outboard fx into service and noew I use the 1680's internal fx for dynamic processing on mixdown.

This gives me a total of up to 8 compressors for use on mixdown - and it's very rare I use that many. If (as is usual) I want to compress the snare & bass drum, I'll bounce the recorded tracks and insert one of the multi-band compression algorithms. Works great, and I get the best drum sounds I've ever had.

I run the outboard fx into the sub-ins of my E4K, which in turn goes into my Fostex VM04, which is plumbed digitally (optical) into the 1680. No repatching and it works like a dream.
 
Zeke, Jeap gave you a pretty good explanation there. The main difference between analog and digital headroom is that analog headroom is a bit subjective. It's how far you can push the signal before it distorts. Some analog gear sounds better when you push it a bit.

With digital it is actually the opposite. Since digital signals stop at 0db the difference between gear is how low can you go and still get a clean rich signal. For comparison a 16bit unit may sound great at -3db but on a 24bit unit you could the same quality of recording at -9db (numbers for example only). In that case you would say the 24bit unit has more headroom because you dont have to push the limit so closely and you can record at a lower level to prevent clipping and not be punished so much by the noise floor.

The advantage to a good analog mixer is that they have the ability to sum (combine) the signals better without adding any distortion or making the individual tracks sound thin. Digital summing on home digital gear is usually the achillies heel of home recording. It can often suck the life out of otherwise great tracks.

Headroom is very important on the summing buss because when you combine 8-32 tracks there is a lot of freq info to be combined and it is very easy to start distorting even with all the individual tracks well below unity. This is why I hate those really cheap mixers.
 
jeap said:

but to talk about solid state gear and say it has more headroom must mean that the user enjoys hard clipping and unpleasant distortion and considers this to be an extension of usable level.
Click to expand...

damn! once again, i've had it all wrong!

guess I better trade all my neve and api stuff for some nice ART gear.
 
you are being a silly dog.

again.

if you think your solid state gear clips in an especially pleasant fashion then why dont you try to reason it out?

more likely you dont push it to clipping.

you geezers like to make everything more complicated than it has to be to confuse yourselves and others and make yourselves seem more important.
 
littledog said:


damn! once again, i've had it all wrong!

guess I better trade all my neve and api stuff for some nice ART gear.
Click to expand...

Cool! I'll give you 50 bucks, 3 pizza hut coupons, and a guitar pick once owned by Leo Fender (it even SAYS fender on it) in trade for the neve and api stuff.
It must be irritating having that junk in your studio! Lemme help you out...
 
Jeap- Are you getting digital and solidstate distortion mixed up? Distortion from driving a ADC too hot obviously creates unusable results but simple solidstate distortion is the entire premise behind 90% of guitar effects pedals and rack units.
 
ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooh!

ok!

now i get it!

you want your recordings to sound you ran the whole thing through a fuzztone!

yeah man! mondo big muff headroom!
 
wascal said:
you are being a silly dog.

again.

if you think your solid state gear clips in an especially pleasant fashion then why dont you try to reason it out?

more likely you dont push it to clipping.

you geezers like to make everything more complicated than it has to be to confuse yourselves and others and make yourselves seem more important.
Click to expand...

Headroom - 1) The level difference (in dB) between normal operating level and clipping level in an amplifier or audio device.
Click to expand...

Perhaps this geezer is just misunderstanding headroom, or at least as you are using the term. Using your own (rather nicely stated) definition, one can conclude that certain engineering designs can produce an amplifier that can add more gain BEFORE it goes into clipping than other designs. If I understand you correctly (and it wouldn't be the first time if i didn't) that design would, by definition, have more headroom.

In my experience, preamps like the API and many Neve models can handle or add more gain (without clipping) than most other preamps on the market. They also both happen to be solid state units. The fact that they are solid state has absolutely nothing to do with digital clipping, which we all agree is pretty damn ugly. The tube units I have may or may not sound better once they are "clipped", but they don't have the initial headroom (by your definition) of the solid state units I mentioned. Personally, I'm usually not crazy about clipping any unit, regardless of design.

So, one more time if you would be so kind... explain exactly where this silly (and unimportant) dog is (again) going wrong? :confused:
 
harddrive in the VS-1680

I am thinking of getting a used Roland VS-1680 myself since you can get them cheap these days. What bothers me is the small harddrive (2.1Gigs). Is it possible to install a bigger standard IDE or E-IDE drive in that unit?? I read somewhere that the partitions have to be 2Gbyte, does that mean I have to partition the hd in a computer first??
 
jo blo said:
Taylor,

I hope it is temporary. I think we all go through that kind of "spell" from time to time. I recently got stage fright, for lack of a better term, in my own damned home studio...
Click to expand...
I'm sure it's temporary. I tend to have an addictive personality. It's all or nothing for me, and I tend hyper-focus when I am involved in something. For the last year or so, I've been hyper-focusing on learning about recording gear and techniques. For now, I get more enjoyment out of the recording aspect than I do the playing.

It's funny how that mic fright thing enters into the picture. It's sort of like when the first time you started playing in front of other people. The funny thing about it, is that in the studio is one place where it's not the end of the world if you don't get ideal results. You can always do it again. :)

Taylor
 
Re: harddrive in the VS-1680

Giganova said:
I am thinking of getting a used Roland VS-1680 myself since you can get them cheap these days. What bothers me is the small harddrive (2.1Gigs). Is it possible to install a bigger standard IDE or E-IDE drive in that unit?? I read somewhere that the partitions have to be 2Gbyte, does that mean I have to partition the hd in a computer first??
Click to expand...
Giganova,

1680 owners have used the 2.1, 3.1, 4, 6,and 12 gig Toshibas drives successfully.

Also the IBM Travelstar 20gb works. Some users say the 20 gig drive slows down certain functions like FF and RW. Others say they've noticed no depreciation in performance at all.

I'm not 100% sure on the partitioning question, but I'm 99.9% sure that you can format and partition the drive inside the 1680. I know you can in the 2480.

Taylor
 
Interesting Thread.

In my opinion, I recorded a professional sounding album with my 1880. It is being distributed in Christian bookstores here in Utah and AZ. But as I went back and listened to the project compared to stuff done in multi million dollar studios, I could tell the difference. It is not a big difference, but a big enouph one to take notice. I emailed a producer/engineer named John Alagia(recorded Dave Mathews, Vertical Horizion, John Mayer) to ask how he gets his drum sounds. Of course he said that he rents very expensive Neve and Api preamps from top notch studios and of course the players have a lot to do with the sound.

That being said, there really ins't that big of a dif between spending $35,000 in a real studio and going to guitar center and spending $7,000.

Rich
www.richbischoff.com
 
Wonder what kind of prices one would encounter renting neve and api gear? When these things can be financed just like a jet-ski or sailboat, why not consider owning them? I am going on a single-item at a time kind of plan. Pay one off, get the next. The less expensive items I will bundle together a few at a time. It will take me awhile, but then I will have everything the way I really want it. I save money on some things just by avoiding the impulse to get a certain item right away. Comparing brands and models, you can sometimes be pleasantly surprised that what sounds best or works best for you is actually something less expensive than what you intended to purchase. For example I almost bought a 2480, but I decided for tons of reasons NOT including cost to get an 1824 instead. If the 2480 was a better option for me I would have gotten it, no question.
All these machines we are discussing are capable of doing what we all hope they can, with the right equipment for each specific application and in the right hands. I have heard recordings done on 840s, AW2816s, 2480s and other DAWs. Some really blew, but several (particularly on the AW4416, vs1824 and 2480) were very good, and a few were as good as anything I've heard...all recorded, mixed and mastered at home.
 
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