Fostex VF160?

A

ap-emerger

New member
I might buy one for $250. Is this a good, easy way to build a small home/project studio?

I already have an outboard analoge/digital CD burner so I don't need the more expensive VF160EX (cd burner included) and I already have decent outboard gear. I'm switching from an old 8 track analoge TEAC to the digital domain.
Does anybody already own the VF160? Pro's &/or cons?


Thanks
AP :cool:
 
I own a VF160 with built in CD burner. Paid $1300 4 years ago. I find it to be a very versital machine. You can do lots of tweaking with it if you have the patients. The manual sucks. Its simply terrible. However, there is help at the Fostex website. They have a discussion forum there also. Between this forum and the other, all your questions and frustrations can be resolved. $250 is a good price if the machine works. I would try it out before forking over any money tho. If you are already familar with recording lingo and terminolgy you have a head start on neophyts like me. I knew nothing, repeat, nothing, when I purchase mine. Thanks to these forums I have been able to sort most of it out. I'd say if the machine works, buy it.
 
I've had mine for two years(paid $799, new). I love it. It is so easy to use. I downloaded the PDF manual and read it three times before the vf160 arrived so I was ready.
My only complaint is that the low EQ is a 400Hz shelf. You cannot adjust frequency or bandwidth. Not really a show stopper for me, but it might be for some. Oh, the mic pres are pretty weak too.
My teenage daughter sat on it and now only 11 of the 16 channel faders work.
 
I have 2 VF160's............I love them for tracking.
I do most of my mixing on the PC and all of my treacking on the VF.
I would get one with a CD drive.
 
Hey AP go for it!
But ask yourself this question: if you don't have a CD burner how are you gonna backup your tracks? And you do need to backup. Hard drives are not like tape, they do not last like tape does.

Orc
 
I'd say if it doesn't work, offer to take it for $100.00 or less. Chances are if anything is malfunctioning it would be the hard drive (the only part of the machine with moving parts). Hard drives are not that expensive or difficult to replace. download and install the latest version of the OS from Fostex and you're good to go.
 
I've got a vf160 that I use for location work. I have found it to be very reliable and simple to track with. Editing takes forever, but whatever. I would highly recommend it for that price (as long as it works). BTW, how are you guys moving the tracks from the vf160 to your daw systems, scsi? burn each track seperatley to cd? rerecord? I'd be interest in knowing.
 
Yeah man, if it works grab it. I use a VF160 for all my drum tracking and I love it. Dont even try to use it for editing or eqing or anything though. Just record on it and do all the editing in your daw. If you want to hear it, go to my soundclick page http://www.soundclick.com/bands/pagemusic.cfm?bandID=500073 . All the drums were recorded on the VF160. Really only pay attention to the last song as far as its clarity, thats the only recording that I actually knew what i was doing.
 
I just got my Fostex VF160. Paid $435 used with shipping. I am very well pleased
with it so far.

I use it for field recording live bands at the park. I find that using xlr
cables to the deck and then using xlr to high impedance transformers to plug it
into the 1/4" inputs keeps me from having to max out the gain to get good
signal.

This deck has the cd/rw included and I have found it to be the preferred way to
back up my tracks. I also used the sp/dif toslink connection but it has some
problems.

Using the sp/dif cable all the tracks are recorded to a single .wav file on my
DAW. There are audio markers that indicate the start of a track. When the Fostex
loads the tracks back it uses these markers to break up the tracks.

This works but.

It would be difficult to reconstruct this session on a daw or any machine other
than a fostex.

It always records at least 8 tracks. Even if you only used a stereo pair. The
unused tracks are recorded silent, something only John Cage could love.

Using the CD/RW I choose .wav file format when I save. Each track recorded in
the project is saved as it's own .wav file. These tracks can be played on any PC
even without DAW software. Or they can be loaded into a multitrack DAW software
in perfect sync.

A one hour stereo program can be backed up to a singe CDR. Last week we were
changing drum kits at the turnaround and I didn't stop the machine so I recorded
2 hrs on a single program. No problem each track was saved to a single CDR as a
single .wav file ready to be read by any post processing setup.

Where the CD/RW comes in handy is in saving smaller projects. You can save them
to CDR but each program saved closes the CDR which means only one program can be
saved per CD.

I write each program to CD/RW and then copy it into a folder on my DAW. I can
use the same CD/RW letting the fostex initialise it between saves. Then when I
have saved all the programs I want (or that will fit) I can write them to one
CD, not just for cost savings but for convenience and reduced storage space.

When the Fostex reads this CD, written on my DAW, it determines the program name
and track numbers from the file names and you can scroll to select which program
you want to load. Then it loads all the tracks right back where they were when
you saved them.

Even if I lose my Fostex at some time in the future I still have the CDs. I
don't have to but another one to restore my sessions.

Because of this you can see why I like to use the CD/RW. I have not tried to use
the SCSI option but it probably works similarly to the CD option. You will,
however, have to be able to read the SCSI hard drive on a machine with a CDR in
order to make a permanent backup. Even large SCSI drives eventually run out of
space.

The sound on the hard drive is always temporary. The saved programs on CDs are
the equivalent of your tape archive.

To quote Robert Wilkens ... You got to move ... that data to a CD sometime.

-------

Cross posted at my blog, MixRemix.

http://mixremix.com
 
Cool & Thanks

I do have a Pioneer studio grade outboard CD burner. So, I should be able to just connect my cd burner directly to the "tape out" RCA jacks from the back of the VF-16 unit & save material that way. Right?

Thanks guys for being so great. Long time analoge junkie here (reel to reel) tube power dude. So, I don't even know what SCSI or WAV or any of these acronyms mean but I sure as heck am going to learn.

Andy in Portland :cool:
 
LP2006 said:
I've got a vf160 that I use for location work. I have found it to be very reliable and simple to track with. Editing takes forever, but whatever. I would highly recommend it for that price (as long as it works). BTW, how are you guys moving the tracks from the vf160 to your daw systems, scsi? burn each track seperatley to cd? rerecord? I'd be interest in knowing.
Click to expand...

I've done it using the ADAT interface. Just pop in a cheap souncard with ADAT interface into your pc and you can transfer tracks 8 tracks at a time simply by playing tracks on VF and recording them with the software of your choice on the PC. Having midi i/o in PC simplifies the process as you can synchronize the playback and recording. Otherwise you'd have to manually align tracks after transfer which can be a real PITA.
 
Andy: You could backup to your CD burner: but it will be two tracks at a time, and will take forever.
The internal burner is the best way to go for backups and track transfers, IMHO.
The ADAT transfer method is good but fiddly if you have more than 8 tracks.

Orc
 
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