vs-840, HELP RECORDING BAND!!! bad quality, bad quality, distorted

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mateenj

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Hello all, I decided I should post here first to get some direct feedback on what I should do to actually be able to hear something decent when we record...

Alright, this is the deal. Our band has been together for about 2 years. I play on keys/piano, my friend on bass, and we have a drummer who also is an excellent violinist. I bought this roland vs-840 8-track thinking I'm ready for some awesome good quality recordings, and that I can just leave the recorder on and let us jam while it records. I have a NUMBER of problems:

We have 2 Studio Project B1 Condensors with phantom power, and two shure mics. We mic all the amps (bass w/ condensor, piano with shure), and use 1 or 2 mics for the drums with real good placement. The recording has a lot of distortion... The quality isn't very good at all, I can't hear it that well. What are we doing wrong?! We set up for 3 hours yesterday ready for some great recordings. I had to buy convertors for the mics to fit into the inputs... Is it because the roland 8-track only has guitar inputs in the back. It doesn't have any mic inputs. We use a PA just to amplify the monitors, but we directly hook up the mics into the 8-track.

It really pissed us off. We had some great funk and jazz songs ready to record. The bass gets distorted if I turn the input sens up. The piano gets distorted sometimes, and you can't hear it anyway.... Should we hook these instruments up directly into the roland, and not mic the amps? I was told it's gonna sound worse if you do that. I just don't know what to do. Is it the mics? Because I have some good mics, and I know the quality is good. Should we run it through the PA, which I think we tried, and it was the same. We would appreciate any help once so ever, thanks a bunch.

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i need help with my 840...
 
Hi,

Were I to guess. I'd guess it might have something to do with the "converters" you're using onthe mics.

Regards,

Ty Ford
 
First of all it's probably not the adaptors or 'converters' - those just adapt cannon jacks to 1/4" and if they're the Radio Shack ones I've been using them for many years without a problem.

Here's the way I recommend you set up ---

Plug the keyboards into the recorders 1/4" ins. You need to invest in a direct box for the bass - if the tone of the bass track doesn't satisfy when DI'd retrack it later.

That leaves us with the drums. Use the SP B1's as overheads and use the 2 Shure mics for kick and snare. Try to combine these 4 mics to 2 tracks of the recorder to allow room for overdubbing.

After a few weeks of experimentation, and no, this process is NOT instant, you should have a good enough drum track to allow further overdubbing. Vocals and violin are the obvious candidates but once you have a well-recorded, solid drum track any instrument can be redone.

And breathe deeply. This is a big undertaking. Take your time and don't be afraid to make mistakes. And DON'T let yourselves get pissed off.
 
Do the B1's need phantom power?

There's no phantom power on the 840.
 
Yes the B1's need Phantom power but I don't know if the Roland supplies that or not. No experience with their units.
 
I already have Phantom Power supplied, so that shouldn't be a problem.
 
One Question for SSScientist:
If we hook everything up directly into the Roland and then mic the drums using what we have, then how are we going to amplify our own instruments (piano and bass). Because we won't have them running through monitor amps, we'll just have them directly hooked into the recorder. Is there like an output on the recorder which can hook into the PA and thus get into the amps?
 
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