Sir_Matthew said:
Really? I've never noticed any difference in quality from bouncing, & I've only ever used MT1.
To be honest, I never really knew what the differences between the modes were anyway, since I got mine used & it didn't have a manual. What's MT1, then?
Oh, I can hear a difference ... sometime, when you have time, record 4 tracks of a song in MT1 ... then re-record the same 4 tracks as a new song in MAS (you must bring NEW source -- new performances -- thru inputs again; don't just transfer WAVs from the MT1 song into the computer and then dump those into the VS). MT1's lossy compression doesn't really become apparent unless you have multiple tracks ... and that IS what your stuff becomes eventually.
If you have a decent monitoring system (properly placed nearfields, or high-quality studio headphones) you'll be able to hear it. And that's without any bouncing.
The quality levels for Roland's Digital Audio Compression (RDAC) (it IS data compression, though ... I think that's what the acronym stands for) modes, in order of descending quality, are as follows:
1. MAS (pure 16 bit, no compression)
2. MT1 (the least-corrupted compressed mode)
3. MT2 (noticeable compression)
4. LIV ("Live" mode, very noticeable compression, but you can record your Grateful Dead jams or perhaps your own version of "freebird" without running out of disk space)