Roland VS1680 opportunity...

DogFood

DogFood

New member
I have the opportunity to put dibs on a Roland VS1680. For 25% under going price on ebay. Great price, barely used by a JAZZ guy. I am shopping it against a ProSonus Firepod.

My questions:

1) Does the integrated mixer recorder unit have any advantages over the DAW.

2) Is the Roland obsolete, due to the miniscule hard drive space. Maybe just plain obsolete?
 
I upgraded from a VS1680 to a PC-based system about a year and a half ago, and it's the best thing to ever happen to my production. The 1680 really ties your hands - it's tedious to do a lot of things. The PC's ability to do easy automated mixes is reason enough to switch on its own. And then there are an infinite number of effects at your disposal, as opposed to the limited selection on those effect cards (I also never liked its compressor, for what it's worth).

That said, if you do run out of disk space, you can pick up a SCSI external hard drive on ebay for cheap to expand. The compression on the 1680 is quite good, and you can fit a gazillion songs on a 9 gb drive.

Also, one plus for the 1680 is that it's awesome to bring to live gigs and use for multitrack recording. That's the only reason I keep my old beast around.
 
I'm not sure about the VS 1680, but a number of the older stand-alone hard disk recorders limit you to 16 versus 24 bit recording. In addition, stand-alone devices are sometimes hard to work with if you want to upgrade AD converters or add a new preamp. Several years ago I moved to a DAW from a Fostex VF16 for precisely these reasons. So, it comes down to something like a bad job interview: Mr. dogfood, where do you see yourself in five years?
 
Thanks for the replies. EEEEEK the five year plan...first a job interview then my girly friend now my digital recording dreams :eek: Oddly I like the idea of live performance recording. Just don't see myself doing it enough to justify the purchace. I kinda thought there would be limitations to the stand alone piece. Yer tone makes me think I was on track. Seems like I'll be saving a little while longer to afford the swank DAW.
 
I used a 1680 when I was at uni and got ok results. Shifting upto a PC system opened up a whole new world though.



I've been hoping to nab a second hand one for live recording too. I've had some pretty good results in that field with them.. If you don't want it - I WILL!!! ;)
 
DogFood said:
Thanks for the replies. EEEEEK the five year plan...first a job interview then my girly friend now my digital recording dreams :eek: Oddly I like the idea of live performance recording. Just don't see myself doing it enough to justify the purchace. I kinda thought there would be limitations to the stand alone piece. Yer tone makes me think I was on track. Seems like I'll be saving a little while longer to afford the swank DAW.
Click to expand...

Of course, you could also do both with an eye towards moving towards a full DAW setup later on. Get the Roland and use your existing computer as a mixdown device. Most computers don't require extensive capabilities or power to do a stereo mix with some type of very basic sequencing software.
That way you could get a feel of the basic workflow while gaining some insight into software-based recording.
 
I used a 1680 on a couple full projects. The last one was tracked on a 1680 and I tried mixing on the 1680, which is what I did the first time. It was a pain trying to edit and make the automated mixes that you will be looking for. So I took all the effects off all the tracks to get to the raw signal, burned them all as separate tracks to a CD and moved them to a laptop for editing and remixing. Pain in the a$$, but it changed my world!

The 1680 was a great idea when it came out, but it has been surpassed as far as a true CD creation tool. It is too limited, not to mention they didn't give you any way to bounce your tracks to a computer for editing. It can do well in a live setting, but only records 8 tracks at a time. BTW, it records in 20 bit, but all effects and editing are done at 24 bit.

If I were you, I would look for a standalone unit that has a USB out, or something similar. Then you could record the tracks using your stand alone unit and bounce them to your computer for mixing and editing. You could probably use your current computer setup to do this. Grab N-track or something like that, some kind of moderately featured software to do all your editing, effects and burning. Look on these boards for the free options of effects and software, I can't remember their names off hand.

This option would give you the greatest flexibility with probably the least cash outlay. Or you can do what I did..... :rolleyes:

Buy a powerful laptop coupled with a Firewire soundcard that allows for 16 simultaneous inputs (using an additional Behringer ADA8000 rack pre). Then you've got a powerful mobile production setup....but you'll be out atleast $2500 for that.

Check out standalone units that record in 24 bit that don't have a lot of effects or editing options that have some sort of USB or similar out. That's your best bet, IMHO.

Jonathan
 
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