How to bypass the preamps in a Roland VS1824

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sextion8

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Does anyone know how to bypass the preamps in a Roland digital workstation? I heard that you can improve sound quality by doing so.
 
There is only one way to completely bypass the pres on an 1824- by using the digital ins, either S/PDIF or optical. That only gives you 2 simultaneous channels. This also bypasses the A-D conversion of the Roland, which is fair, but not great. If you plug an outboard preamp into an analog input, and turn the channel gain knob all the way counter-clockwise (line), it will *reduce* the effect of the preamp, but will not totally eliminate it, as the signal is still routed through the (cruddy) preamp. Even a wicked cheap box can be used to do the S/PDIF thing. I like TC Electronics M300, a $200 reverb unit with S/PDIF out. The A-D conversion isn't really any better or any worse than the Roland. Send the preamp's outs to the balanced ins of the M300, and the S/PDIF out of the M300 to the S/PDIF in of the Roland. Use a good quality coaxial digital transfer cable. Engage the M300's "bypass" switch, which will bypass all of the M300's effects, using it strictly as an A-D convertor.
Remember to hit the "digital" button on the Roland and disable "link", or you'll have a linked stereo pair, rather than 2 independent channels. Then patch the first channel to digital (digital 1) and the other one to shift + digital (digital 2). Now all gain is controlled by the preamp, and the M300's makeup gain. In this case I can say "trust me". I recorded an entire album on a VS1824CD, using a boatload of outboard gear, and *never* used the Roland's preamps, except for a few drum tracks, where I had to record more than 2 tracks at once. At no time were the Roland's pres ever turned up from "line".
If you do this, you'll find that the 1824 is a stable, excellent hard disc recorder, with a good mixer and excellent editing capabilities. Some of its FX is very good, also. It just has cruddy preamps. You can always PM or email me if you have more questions. I've spent virtually hundreds of hours tracking with an 1824. I still use it for my remote recorder.-Richie
 
Roland

Thanks for all the detailed information. I was hoping you would still be posting to this site; you actually helped me out back in May when I first bought the Roland (my screen name was "davester"). Did you ever write that book on how to get a decent recording with the Roland 1824? I'd buy it if you had one.

Anyway, we have yet to get a decent recording. We've got the scratch tracks done for 3 originals and we're working on laying the drum tracks this week. We always seem to run into the same problem; an overall "muddy" sound and some drums sound "hollow" or "far away."

I'll tell you what gear I have to work with, maybe you could give me some advice. I have the Roland VS1824CD, a pair of Roland reference monitors, an Alesis Compressor/limiter w/ noise gate (2 channels), Audix D-series drum mics (5 mics) w/ the D-6 on the kick drum, 2 Shure SM57's and a condensor mic, a DI box. I just bought a Carvin sound reinforcement system w/ a 16 channel powered mixer - which doesn't really have much to do with recording, but we did try sending everything in through the mixer and then into the Roland at one time - but it sounded like crap (I'm assuming because the mixer has preamps too). The room we are recording in is a small room with thick insulation, sound board and gypsum board on the ceiling + carpet covering the walls and floor. We were wondering if we could use the preamps in the Carvin mixer instead of the Roland's preamps instead of buying one.

Any suggestions you may have regarding the "muddy" and "hollow" sound or recording drums in general would be greatly appreciated. I could upload some samples of what we have recorded so far onto our website or you could go to www.sextion8.net (the media page) and listen to some of our live recordings to get a better idea of where we're at. The live recordings on the website aren't what we're working on right now - they were recorded "live" with one condenser mic in the middle of the room directly into the Roland on two tracks. But you may hear something from those that may stand out as being wrong.

Again, thanks for your help.
 
The issue with your drums is more likely the room than anything else, especially the floor. Get the drums on something hard, a platform is better. We often use one of those hard plastic office floor coverings they use so your chair doesn't chew up the carpet.
You can also compensate a little by putting a D-3 or D-4 on the underside of the snare, almost on top of the kick drum. It'll compensate somewhat for what isn't coming back from the floor. You won't see a lot of carpet in drum rooms.-Richie
 
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