I was in the shower this morning (hey, it was the weekend again) and I wondered if the Planet had ever had a list from the brilliant people who visit like this.

My thought was it could be a brief tip, VS related, that may be of use to someone else - one that you've discovered or learned somewhere along the road of life. Perhaps it's just something someone else may not have thought of. This might be a list that would be worth printing and hanging on to to try in those spare moments. Maybe an idea would prove to save your BIG PROJECT? Anyway...

Tip for monitoring on the VS: Over 80% of all music produced is listened to in cars. Most people will also listen on headphones or a boombox. Therefore, I don't think it makes sense to monitor on some $4000 system. To hear your music the way your fans will is simple. Run the master outs from the VS into an open input on your home stereo amp. Not only will you be better able to match your CD's sound to commercially produced stuff, but you'll save a ton of money!

My little studio trick , Is that I love
to record some guitar parts to a tape machine to get that analog warm saturated sound and bounce it to my VS.(synced up-via time code) with the right adjustments it does a great job in warming up the vs.

JC

Yours was a great idea about this thread, KaptainK. Congrats! I also read the article in Home Recording, but it didn't occur to me to apply it to our species of recorders.

Thanks for suggesting it!

Check out the following URL:
http://64.176.159.83/library.htm

I have a Marshall JCM900 half-stack, that doesn't sound so great, due to the infamous preamp design of the JCM900 (diode clipping and op-amps plus tubes). The power amp section however is pretty much the same as the classic Marshalls and doesn't have any solid-state components in its signal path.

I like to plug the guitar in the VS-880 and use the amp simulators. I then take an AUX out and run it through the amp's effects return, bypassing the shitty preamp and warming up the sound. There are many sonic options available by simply adjusting the ratio of the master volumes on the VS-880 and the amp, let alone whatever patch you choose.

The selection "EZ BOUNCING" will provoke that you AUTOMATICLY have that 3-Band EQ available.
After having recorded, I arm the (EZ)"USE User routing", and I start mixing. That is how I use my recorder all the time these days. (Me = a lazy bastard)

I just push the red buttons OUT and save the USER routing (under the EZ-Routings => Push parameters. (Change the numbers with the jogwheel if needed).

When I'm ready mixing I push the red buttons for channels 7&8 ON, and I Do-Da-Bounce.

I love this most recent way of working.
I hope that some of you find it usefull.

Hano

Also learn to use - and know the difference - between "pre level" and "post level" in the display. It really makes a difference when playing back and mixing.

"Play list" is a handy display too, though early on I had no idea what all those lines meant, especially in the middle of a song, where it appeared that nothing was happening. "Play list" is an odd description. It should be named "Track Data" or something like that, because it shows in a linear fashion if there is any data recorded on a track. It is useful in conjunction with the status buttons.

Let's say I pull up a song I haven't worked on in a while. I see that the track status button on tracks 1-6 are lit. But as I listen (in "post level" display), I don't see a signal in the meter for the first minute of a song on track 6. Hmmm. Is there anything on track 6? If I fast forward during the "play list" display, I can visually see that track 6 is used - only in certain spots - like a vocal harmony in a chorus. It's faster than having to listen solo to track 6 to find out if and where data may be recorded.

Jeff and tjs' ideas on monitoring in car is really cool, but impractical for me right now...

Another spin-off from that is mixing through Walkman earphones too - I've tried it occasionally with varied results... Don't know if that's any use but there you are...

I KNOW THIS TIP IS PROBABLY TOO SIMPLE FOR ALL THE ELITE'S OUT THERE, BUT THIS "NEWBIE" STRUGGLED IN ASSIGNING INPUTS 'TIL I MADE A STANDARD ROUTINE TO ALWAYS PUSH THE ORANGE STATUS BUTTON FOR THAT TRACK AND THEN "CLEAR" BEFORE PUSHING THE SAME ORANGE STATUS BUTTON AND THE INPUT BUTTON TO USE.
REGARDLESS OF WHETHER IT IS SAME INPUT/CHANNEL OR NOT.

THIS IS NOT MUCH OF A TIP, BUT IT'S ABOUT ALL I'VE LEARNED IN 4 MONTHS!

2) A great tip - and not of my origin - is the idea to use a short length of black (well looks techy)pipe insulation over a snare or high-hat mike to reduce the ammount of bleed from other parts of the kit. You have to 'bury' the mike head about 2" inside the pipe but it really does cut down some of the HF bleed

Hope you get to the magic 100....now that 100th tip has got to be reeeeeally special !

Assigning a track to itself:

Yep, if the button is flashing red and green you have assigned the track to itself.

First, here's HOW a track is assigned to itself.

With the fader/input button green, and the track's status button orange, you hold down the track status and press the same channel's select button. The status button will then flash red and green and another track will be disarmed.

Now, here's how to fix it:

With the track status green, and the fader/edit green, press the track's status button and when it's select button flashes, press it. This will unroute the track from itself.

Now, here's how to route an INPUT to a track.

With the appropriate track status button orange, and the fader/edit also orange, hold down the track status button, and select your input with one of the select buttons. There you go!

You see, it's the whole fader/edit button that will determine whether you assign a TRACK to a track, or an INPUT to a track. When that button is orange, you will be assigning an input, when it's green, you will be assigning a track.

Now, having said all this, you can use the assigning-tracks-to-themselves thing to your benefit. Ever wanted to double a track EASILY without having to use up 3 track just to do that (1 original track, 1 for the double, and 1 to bounce them to)? Well, just assign a track to itself and you can layer on as many parts to that same track as you'd like! And if you goof up one of the layers, just UNDO it!

I use this trick all the time! It's great for layering on thick vocal harmonies and things when you're short on track space.

VARIPITCH

Rate = Key = Semitone
49.67 = B = +2
46.72 = A# = +1
44.10 = A = 0
41.59 = G# = -1
39.41 = G = -2
37.00 = F# = -3
34.93 = F = -4
32.97 = E = -5
31.33 = D# = -6
29.58 = D = -7
27.84 = C# = -8
26.31 = C = -9
24.78 = B = -10
23.47 = A# = -11
22.05 = A = -12

. i'm an okay guitar and keyboard player, but recording at halfspeed ,returning to 44.1..i'm Steve Morse and Keith Emerson ! (i know...cheater !) of course , speeding up the pitch when recording a vocal helps you to
hit those Barry White-range bass notes..slowing down while recording provides instant soprano and is much less painful than
castration. Thanx for the table !

Good stuff FTF! Thanx mon! I use the Vari-Speed constantly for
doubling rhythm guitars and layering harmony vocals. You can easily turn a 3-piece harmony into a 9-piece choir by recording 3
different Vari-Speed takes of each harmony.

In case you have trouble understanding what I mean here's an example:
Record the first harmony at 44.1k (A), then set the Vari-Speed to 39.41k (G) and record the same harmony line again.

Next, set the Vari-Speed to 49.67k (B) and record the harmony line one more time. Return to 44.1k and adjust the levels and listen to the result.

Do the same for the second and third harmonies and there's your 9-piece harmony section.

No, bouncing doesn't do it. You have to record it 3 seperate times,
each time at a different Vari-speed. This is easy to do and you don't have to use up 3 tracks for each harmony because you can
bounce the track in place while recording and mixing in the 2nd and 3rd layers of the harmony* (See tip above).

*Note, not the 3 harmony lines, but the 3 layers of each harmony line!

Here's mine.

Once you have everything set up the way you want in your first song, instead of creating a new song, just do a Song Copy to the same partition as the first song. If you know you'll be recording, say, 10 songs for a project just copy the song until you have 10 of them, all with the exact same settings in them. All you have to do is give them different names.

Here is a great tip that Roland have now come back to me with (excuse the syntax)

To INSERT globally (that means select ALL your tracks & Vs) what you do is:-

- TRACK ,
- select INSERT from the list
- turn the twiddley wheel until you get *-*

Enter GLOBAL INSERT !!!!(captures all the tracks )....Kaptaink kindly put in this thread but may I just clarify it as Roland's instructions were correct but left out quite a bit. Here goes.....

- from TRACK menu select INSERT

- display will show ?-? ?-? so push, say,
track 1 button.........display changes to
1-1 ?-?

- spin the wheel of fortune 'till its last
position where the display shows *-*
(means all)...press YES

- at this point, the display flashes all the
tracks and V tracks

- push PARAMETER > and display now says TRK
TO....this is confusing because it really
means 'where' ie; where do you want the
insert to start from

-use a LOC button or the wheel to put in
your desired start point

-press PARAMETER > again...it now says TRK
LEN...meaning LENgth or how long do you
want the insert

- use a LOC button or the wheel to put in
the time where the insert will end

- press PARAMETER again....press YES...and Pooofffff !!...its done...all those 64 tracks have been 'moved'

Unfortunately, I can't get this global *-* to work in the MOVE command...ah well...

Hope this works for you guys

cheers
Moggy