Ok I have heard that the with the fostex vf-16 you can record 8 tracks simutanisly. So does that mean it has 8 places to hook up microphones and record all 8 mics at the same time?(I really only need 6 but you know) Also one more quick question if I did buy a vf-16 should I buy an effects processor like the digitech quad 4 or a rocktron Chameleon 2000.
fostex vf-16
- Thread starter Thyst
- Start date
dobro
Well-known member
The website says 16 tracks simultaneous recording, but only 8 of those are mics inputs!? If the removal of the hard disk is as easy as it looks in the picture, that's a cool feature - you could use a hard drive for an entire album, for example, and use it as storage. So, yeah, you can record 8 mic tracks simultaneously, but what are the other 8 inputs for, I wonder? Just taking up space and adding to the price of the unit? Here's the link:
http://fostex.com/vf16.html
http://fostex.com/vf16.html
dobro
Well-known member
It seems to be standard for standalones to have only 2 XLR ins. It seems to suggest that they don't expect you to be putting mics directly into the box very often. Which doesn't say much for what they think of their own pres. I don't get it - why only 2 XLRs on standalones?
skippy
New member
Well, XLRs are physically big connectors: they burn a lot of acreage on a tiny unit like this one. My reading of the specs on their web site indicates that they actually do have 8 mic pres: but only two are equipped with XLRs, and only those two have phantom power and analog inserts. The others are on 1/4" TRS jacks, and have no phantom or inserts- but they *are* mic ins.
If you think about it, it makes some sense given a product engineering/cost reduction mindset: most portastudio users work alone, so a stereo pair of condenser mics is probably the max that they are going to screw with in 90% of the cases. If they are going to do more complex things like micing drums, the chances are that they'll use dynamic mics for a good fraction of the inputs, so only having to supply 2 XLR inputs with phantom is a defensible cost reduction in the circuitry. You don't want to have to short-circuit-proof the phantom supply to cope with the continual shorts caused by hotpatching TRS connectors. Or, for example, the eternal dead short created when plugging in a TS line-level source! Its seems to me that the rest of the time, most portas will have line level sources like synths plugged into many/most of the inputs. Having all those pres represents wasted money in that case- but you do need to include enough to be able to mic drums, so at least they did do that. It strikes me as a compromise intended to save some money.
I think that it *would* be a nice thing if they included 4 or 6 little 6" XLR-1/4" TRS adapters, though. (;-) The good news is that they are cheap and easy to make.
Looks to me like the basic product spec for this unit was "make it small, make it as cheap as possible, and try not to piss off too many people in the target market". Your guess as to who "the target market" might have been is as good as mine, but it looks more like "portastudio plus" than "SSL/Studer minus" to me.
I'm actually kindasorta interested in this thing as a potential location recorder, since I seem to be getting dragged kicking and screaming towards doing more of that. My real question is "how noisy is the damned thing?" I'll bet a beer that they didn't do any acoustic noise control inside the box. I just spent part of the weekend reworking my main recorder (a D1624- that process is described elsewhere in this forum), and no effort whatsoever had been spent in making it quiet. I'd like to lay hands on one of these guys and see if it has been engineered with acoustic performance in mind...
If you think about it, it makes some sense given a product engineering/cost reduction mindset: most portastudio users work alone, so a stereo pair of condenser mics is probably the max that they are going to screw with in 90% of the cases. If they are going to do more complex things like micing drums, the chances are that they'll use dynamic mics for a good fraction of the inputs, so only having to supply 2 XLR inputs with phantom is a defensible cost reduction in the circuitry. You don't want to have to short-circuit-proof the phantom supply to cope with the continual shorts caused by hotpatching TRS connectors. Or, for example, the eternal dead short created when plugging in a TS line-level source! Its seems to me that the rest of the time, most portas will have line level sources like synths plugged into many/most of the inputs. Having all those pres represents wasted money in that case- but you do need to include enough to be able to mic drums, so at least they did do that. It strikes me as a compromise intended to save some money.
I think that it *would* be a nice thing if they included 4 or 6 little 6" XLR-1/4" TRS adapters, though. (;-) The good news is that they are cheap and easy to make.
Looks to me like the basic product spec for this unit was "make it small, make it as cheap as possible, and try not to piss off too many people in the target market". Your guess as to who "the target market" might have been is as good as mine, but it looks more like "portastudio plus" than "SSL/Studer minus" to me.
I'm actually kindasorta interested in this thing as a potential location recorder, since I seem to be getting dragged kicking and screaming towards doing more of that. My real question is "how noisy is the damned thing?" I'll bet a beer that they didn't do any acoustic noise control inside the box. I just spent part of the weekend reworking my main recorder (a D1624- that process is described elsewhere in this forum), and no effort whatsoever had been spent in making it quiet. I'd like to lay hands on one of these guys and see if it has been engineered with acoustic performance in mind...
Sorry skippy this is the the newbie section I have no idea what most of that meant. I am geting 2 shure SM57-LC Instrument/Vocal Mics and the Nady Drum Mic Package that has 5 mics. If the drum mics dont have XLR then I guess Im fine but if they do your going to have to explain how I can hook all of them up at the same time.
skippy
New member
Damn.
I posted a long article about making XLR-TRS cables right before this one, and just deleted it.
I had this very funny, worrisome feeling after posting it, so I want back and reread the blurb on the Fostex web site. Nowhere in the HTML do they say that the other 6 inputs were balanced. They don't talk about them at all, and that got me worried- it was my *assumption* that they would be balanced, but I hadn't seen it in print. Not good: you need good information, not my assumptions. So I downloaded the PDF prochure, which took forever, and sure enough: in *there*, they specify that the remaining 6 inputs are actually high impedance, _unbalanced_, mic-level inputs.
Screw. I hate it when vendors hide stuff like that. I can't even believe that they'd do that in this day and age, but they did...
The mics you mention are all low-impedance, balanced, dynamic mics. You'll use XLR-XLR cables for all of them, so you will need something to go from an XLR female to a 1/4" phone plug to get into the 6 non-XLR inputs on the VF16.
What you will actually need to get best results is different than the stuff I listed in that deleted post, just in case you read it before I deleted it. Just making simple adapter cables will not work very well. It would be noisy (hum problems). If you plug a balanced mic into an unbalanced input (simply shorting one leg to ground), you do not get the benefit of the balanced signal transmission- which is primarily in hum and noise rejection.
You'll need to get balanced-to-unbalanced matching transformer adaptors for the other 6 inputs, not simple adaptor cables. These adapt your low-impedance balanced mics to the high-impedance unbalanced inputs, and preserve the low-noise nature of your nice new mics.
Bad news: these matching transformers are more expensive than simple hack cables. Like $15 each, for the least expensive ones. They will have a female XLR on one side, and a male phone plug on the other. But in this case the phone plug will be TS (tip-sleeve) only, and not TRS. They are also available at all music stores with pro audio departments- and even Radio Shack has a version of if (a particularly awful version, IIRC). Hosa makes one, their #MIT-435, for about $18. Shure makes a much nicer one- their #A95UF. But that one is like $35.
Mea maxima culpa for not researching it completely before posting that first thing. I smite my head with palm of hand, consterned.
[Edited by skippy on 12-12-2000 at 15:55]
I posted a long article about making XLR-TRS cables right before this one, and just deleted it.
I had this very funny, worrisome feeling after posting it, so I want back and reread the blurb on the Fostex web site. Nowhere in the HTML do they say that the other 6 inputs were balanced. They don't talk about them at all, and that got me worried- it was my *assumption* that they would be balanced, but I hadn't seen it in print. Not good: you need good information, not my assumptions. So I downloaded the PDF prochure, which took forever, and sure enough: in *there*, they specify that the remaining 6 inputs are actually high impedance, _unbalanced_, mic-level inputs.
Screw. I hate it when vendors hide stuff like that. I can't even believe that they'd do that in this day and age, but they did...
The mics you mention are all low-impedance, balanced, dynamic mics. You'll use XLR-XLR cables for all of them, so you will need something to go from an XLR female to a 1/4" phone plug to get into the 6 non-XLR inputs on the VF16.
What you will actually need to get best results is different than the stuff I listed in that deleted post, just in case you read it before I deleted it. Just making simple adapter cables will not work very well. It would be noisy (hum problems). If you plug a balanced mic into an unbalanced input (simply shorting one leg to ground), you do not get the benefit of the balanced signal transmission- which is primarily in hum and noise rejection.
You'll need to get balanced-to-unbalanced matching transformer adaptors for the other 6 inputs, not simple adaptor cables. These adapt your low-impedance balanced mics to the high-impedance unbalanced inputs, and preserve the low-noise nature of your nice new mics.
Bad news: these matching transformers are more expensive than simple hack cables. Like $15 each, for the least expensive ones. They will have a female XLR on one side, and a male phone plug on the other. But in this case the phone plug will be TS (tip-sleeve) only, and not TRS. They are also available at all music stores with pro audio departments- and even Radio Shack has a version of if (a particularly awful version, IIRC). Hosa makes one, their #MIT-435, for about $18. Shure makes a much nicer one- their #A95UF. But that one is like $35.
Mea maxima culpa for not researching it completely before posting that first thing. I smite my head with palm of hand, consterned.
[Edited by skippy on 12-12-2000 at 15:55]