Yo Dave- First, you don't have to "make it worth my while"- I'm not a prick. I'm just trying to help you. Bad news- Aidas, my engineering consultant, tossed the manual *last week*. Sorry, that sucks. OK- I'm going to give you a magic # for starters.- 323-890-3741. That's Roland hard disc support. Because even when you get the manual, there will be things that are just not clear. They were *very* helpful to me when I got stuck. Call them. I bet they'll either send you the manuals, or sell them to you. If not, I'll ship you mine at your expense, and you can have a week to photocopy them. It took my wife 40 minutes, and she's good. Then you send them back. If you want to compensate me in any way, what the hell, buy my album. It's a tutorial in how to defeat the pres and AD conversion of a VS1824CD. Lord, you don't know the S/PDIF I've seen...
Anyway, call Roland on Monday, and if they don't help you out, email me and we'll work it out. Jesus, I had enough trouble comprehending that box *with* the manual. I can't even imagine what you're going through. Here's a few clues- Anything you can send into the box by S/PDIF will bypass the Roland's pres completely, which is a good thing. shift+system > system parameters (F5) . Set the clock to digital 1 using the cursor and the jog wheel (digital 2 is optical, "int" is analog/internal). Set whatever is going in to 44.1 khz if you want it to be CD compatible. Match the Roland to 44.1khz when you create a new song. Then- whatever tracks you are going to use (you get 2 in S/PFIF), push that track status button, and hold it down, which will show you the internal patch bay. Whatever input it is patched to will blink yellow. Push the blinking yellow light to disconnect the track from the input, still holding the status button down,and push "digital".
You do the same thing with the second track, except you push shift+digital (digital 2). Now push the track button above the first track and *turn off* "link". This should do the same for the second track, but check it anyway, the same way. The track select buttons will also give you access to EQ and panning. Yay. Of course, the fader/mute button will give you access to tracks 13-18. I find it simplest to shift+song > name > push "alpha numerics" to type in the name of the song, then > "write", then "execute". That will create the new song. Then, holding each track status button down, push the blinking corresponding track select button until nothing is patched to anything. Then you can see what the hell you are doing. Then patch only the tracks being recorded to the proper input. Anytime you're stuck somewhere, pushing play/display will take you back to the song.
If you turn off whatever digital device the VS is clocking off of while the Roland is turned on, you'll have to reset the system parameter/clock when you turn it back on. Even if you are going into the Roland from an analog preamp, you'll get your best sound by turning the channel volume as low as possible ("line") and getting your gain from the outboard preamp.
More hints- under those same system parameters (shift/system> global parameters), you'll find fan control. Engaging that (play/record) will turn off the bloody fan whenever you hit play or record. Do you love me yet? Next hint- get a foot switch-
Boss FS-5U. Under system parameter2, you can engage it. The foot switch will enable "play" (or record if the record button is pushed) and "stop". This is a must if you are tracking yourself.
Basic editing- to erase a song, shift/song > erase. You have to cycle through the songs with the jog wheel and "mark" the songs to be erased, then "execute". Same deal to "select" a song to work on. Please note that when working on a song in record mode, when the track status button is green, it is playback only, yellow is armed so you can set levels, as if you were recording, red blinking is ready to record and solid red when actually recording. You can use shift/track to edit tracks. Track cut will eliminate the section of the track determined by the times you set on the clock "from" and "to", but will move the rest of the track. like cutting out a piece of analog tape. Track erase will leave silence in the space erased, but doesn't move the rest of the track. You have to select the tracks to be cut or erased by pushing the appropriate track status buttons so they light up red. If you don't want to edit a track, make sure that track status button is not lit. If you screw up, don't worry, "undo" will undo the last 1,2, or 3 things you did.
When you are done with all this bullshit, shift/song > optomize > execute. This will erase from the memory bizzillions of edits, multiple takes, whatever. If you do not do this, you will run out of hard disc space pretty quick, and backups may not even fit on the CD, and will take forever to load. Always optomize the song before you save or backup or burn. Note after you optomize, you cannot undo. Optomizing also saves the current patch scheme.
Lastly, I'll type you through burning CD's and CD-R backup and recovery.
First, backup- Push CDR/Mastering then CDRBk. Move the arrows up and down the list of songs and "mark" the song or songs you want to back up then execute. Don't use cheap CDR's, and most inportantly, use a lens cleaner disc frequently, or backups will fail. If it does fail (occasionally), just power it down, restart, and use a different CDR. You can't escape, so your song better be saved (shift/zero). Normally, you use shift/stop to power down normally. Starting to get it? CDRRC (CDR recover) under CDR/Mastering works the same way. Mark the song and execute .
OK, let's burn- first, you need to have what you want to burn on 2 tracks. If it's a stereo recording, that's already done. If more than 2, you'll need to mix it down (Roland puts on airs and calls it mastering) If it's mono on one track, do an edit track (track copy) and copy the whole thing to another track. OK- Push CDR/Mastering > mastering room (F1). To just listen, set the fields for status "record", switch "off". so mix. When you're happy with the mix, change switch to "on". You want to have CDrec mode "on". marker "on", not that it matters, we haven't covered markers. CDrec mode does matter though. As you record the mixdown tracks, the Roland will create a CD compatible image of the song in real time, which will reduce the time in burning a lot, because the conversion is already done. The default master mixdown tracks are 17-16 and 18-16. That's fine, leave it alone.
Now turn the "switch" field on, zero, record, play. You will see the mixdown tracks on 17/18. If you want to play them back before you burn, change record to play, leave the switch on, and only the master fader will work, so you know you have achieved mixdown. When mixing down, watch the master levels on the right to make sure you are not clipping.
Now exit the mastering room, put in a CD, and wait for it to stop blinking (always). Under CDR/mastering, select CD WT (CD write). Now push F1
"Sel Tr" (select track) wait... a menu of your virtual v-tracks will appear. Use the pane buttons to go all the way to the right, mark 17-16 and 18-16 as the left and right track, then push "back". Select speed 4X, finalize "on" if you want to play it on a regular CD player, "off" if you intend to add more songs to the CD. The Roland will still play it if it isn't finalized, but your home player won't. "Track at once" is the default, don't mess with it. Now "execute" and agree to all the legal bullshit. It will say "converting" for a second (you already converted it by selecting CDR Rec mode during mixdown), then "writing" for a while, then "finalizing" for one minute,and it spits out your CD. You can burn more, and the Roland will remember your settings and selected tracks as long as you don't turn it off.
To anybody who read through this, sorry about the bandwidth, but this guy needs help *now* To Dave, I hope this helps. Let me know whether Roland is going to get you a manual. If not, I will help you out. Good luck. You have entered what we like to call "The Roland House of Pain".-Richie
