Optimize?

[Sir_Matthew]

Hi, all.

Okay, I have this 3 to 4 year old (not sure) VS-880 that I've used for a couple of years. I've got this song that's so big, it's leaving me 38 minutes of recording time out of the original 534 minutes on my IDE drive. I've been working on it a while, as you can see.

I've tried recording over old virtual tracks, but it doesn't seem to change the minute count. I guess it's saving all of those in case I want to Undo back that far.

Now, I saw a command called Optimize under the Song menu. I got my unit used without a manual, so I don't know what this does. I know what Optimize does in graphics programs, but what does it do to your song on the VS-880? Does it take away old virtual tracks, lessen the bit rate, what?

Any advice would be vunderbar.

 

[Roel]

It erases all the data that you have already recorded over. You current virtual tracks will be left alone. So basically, it will erase all the data that you don't use anymore, but you can't undo anything anymore...

So that could be the solution to your problems...

 

[jmandoman]

Optimizing a song essentially discards all the FX, scene, undo and other settings that are not currently used in the song's current configuration. I had the same anxiety a while back. I found that whatever Optimize cleans up/out had no effect on what I was doing with the song. Depending on what you've done with the song, you either free up a little or a lot of disk space.

There's a few places on the web where you can find versions of the 880 manual or at least user created summaries. Try surfing through these to see if you can find something that helps:

http://bleedstreet1.homestead.com/VS.html
http://www.storm.ca/~stevemp/
http://www.sasquatchstudios.com/Roland.html
http://www.geocities.com/stevemphillips/VS-880EX_App_Guide.pdf


Also, try the VSPlanet site http://www.vsplanet.com/cgi-bin/ubb/ultimatebb.cgi. It is dedicated to the family of Roland VS systems. The search function will return tons of valuable discussion and pointers on any VS system in circulation.

 

[Sir_Matthew]

Cool. That's what I thought it did, but when it said, "Optimize REALLY Sure?", I kinda got nervous, like it was gonna turn it into mashed peas or something horrible.

Thanks for the links; I really should get a copy of the manual. I got the Application Guide with it, but the previous owner had ditched the manual for some reason. Why keep one & not the other? Maybe the dog ate it. Happened to my homework all the time.

 

[jmandoman]

You really should spend time on VSPlanet. Wealth of information in between the crap. Need to figure something out? Don't know what that button does? Just post a question. You'll get lots of good advice, seriously.

There's a guy in TX (Rich Knepper) that I remember from way back in the early days of VS880 on the web. His ad for his recording studio is all over the VSPlanet site. Don't know how close he might be to you but I"m sure he's got at least one copy of the manual if you can't find it on the web.