musicman9434
New member
I am using A Roland VS-890 Digital Multitrack Recorder for my tracking and mixing and I have an older M-box 2 with Pro tools 7.4 I was gonna use for mastering. Reason being that I had used computers for recording for years until I got frustrated with technical glitches and having to buy extra stuff (I just found out after all this time my hard drive is too slow!) l wanted the stability of a separate recorder. I didn't have allot of money so I got this Roland. It was cheap and the title stating that it is a 24 bit workstation I had no reason to think otherwise. Turns out that it has 24 bit AD conversion at the source but ultimately the signal is recorded in 16 bit with the standard (recommended) recording mode! You can record in 24 bit using VSR mode BUT, you cannot use EQ!! So now I gotta deal with this little deficiency, since I have never used anything 16 bit except store bought CD's!
So on to the actual questions lol! I am also limited to the number of effects I can use in the Roland to just 2, so I was thinking of using the M Box 2 as an effects box during mixing using the spdif out as an effect send to Pro Tools spdif in and then returning it back to the Roland via its spdif in. I have never tried this before so should the Pro Tools session also be in 16 bit or does that not matter? Also, would I use an aux channel only in Pro Tools and not an audio channel for said effect (reverb, EQ, ect) and would it need to be stereo or mono?
I was also wondering if, at the mixing stage, it matters as much if the signal is being converted from analogue to digital and vice versa. Reason being that I have additional outputs that could also be used for patching in more effects loops but they are analogue connections so the signal would be being converted 5 times. At mastering clearly you can see why you would want to have everything digital but are there any exceptions? Like, for example,could I use one or a pair of analogue outputs on the Roland for metering (the Roland has only a bar display), or would the digital to analogue to digital (there would be no need for a return) conversion give a false reading? THANKS !!!
So on to the actual questions lol! I am also limited to the number of effects I can use in the Roland to just 2, so I was thinking of using the M Box 2 as an effects box during mixing using the spdif out as an effect send to Pro Tools spdif in and then returning it back to the Roland via its spdif in. I have never tried this before so should the Pro Tools session also be in 16 bit or does that not matter? Also, would I use an aux channel only in Pro Tools and not an audio channel for said effect (reverb, EQ, ect) and would it need to be stereo or mono?
I was also wondering if, at the mixing stage, it matters as much if the signal is being converted from analogue to digital and vice versa. Reason being that I have additional outputs that could also be used for patching in more effects loops but they are analogue connections so the signal would be being converted 5 times. At mastering clearly you can see why you would want to have everything digital but are there any exceptions? Like, for example,could I use one or a pair of analogue outputs on the Roland for metering (the Roland has only a bar display), or would the digital to analogue to digital (there would be no need for a return) conversion give a false reading? THANKS !!!
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