VS880 to ProTools

[gjohung]

I have many project that I did it on Roalnd VS-880. I want to somehow convert that into PT files. VS-880 can "play" only 2 channels at a time, but VS 880 is an 8 track Digital Recorder. Is there a way to record 2 tracks at a time and somehow synch all tracks.

Furthernore,, I have stacks of old Fostex A-8 Tapes Analog tapes. I found someone who has the Machine collecting dust. I have M-Box - record at 2 track at a time. Or... a M-Audio Quattro.. 4 track at time... but this A-8 tape has full 8 tracks.. ...how can I synch this..

ghj

[gonzo99]

I have moved projects from VS880 to ProTools in the past.This may not be the easiest way but what I did:

for projects where all I wanted was a stereo mix: record left and right master outs to a stereo channel in PT.

Where I was wanting the individual tracks: record each track - 1 at a time or one panned hard left and the other panned hard right - to a mono tack in PT. Then move the audio in the edit window to synch the tracks.

Like I say, not the easiest or fastest way, but it works.

Hope this helps

[omoanya]

I am so happy you guys raised this issue, though I was really hoping someone already pulled off a digital transfer from 880 to 002rack, time code and all . I'd really like to keep using my 880 remotely and use it to ferry tracks to the home studio, instead of buying a mac laptop which i cant really afford ..does 880 record to aiff? maybe thats a route to pursue? . Anyone else?

[gjohung]

It's a tuffy, but I was thinking if you can use the MTC to sync it. I actually tried this. Sequenced the backing tracks on Sonar and just mixed on to VS880 analog line out to 2 track. I took the VS880 with 6 tracks remaining and recorded live vocals etc. Brought it back and resync it.

However, there was a tremodous degradation of audio quality. after all it is a A-D-D-A back to A-D process. I wanted to use SPIF but my audio interface does not have one, M-Box and M-Audio Quattro,

if I use SCSI or even mix to a zip drive, can it be read on mac/pc as a audio file??

ghj

[gjohung]

doesnt oo2 have spdif??? u can do D to D recording...

[Transceover]

yes I was hoping to hear someone had already done the digital transfer as well... I have a ton of material I want to transfer in to protools and I had everything set up to do it digitally (via spdif) but I could not get anything to synch w/ time code etc... Ive thought about doing things the slower way of recording one track at a time (I have actually done a few things this way with much success) but was hoping someone here had done it differently...

any thoughts from anyone else here? perhaps check the 880 boards too... I havent yet.

THANKS!
K.elly

[s.d. finley]

I have transfered a buddys 2480 sessions into PTLE. He has a cd burner, so i had him consolidate all his tracks from top to bottom, and burn those as .wav files on a data cd. Works great!!! Also had a client the other day where we transfered tracks off his akai dps16 HD recorder via MTC. The akai is a 16 track recorder. I skipped the stock AD on my 001, and went thru a dbx and a DA7. Also, worked great!!!

rock

sdf

[gonzo99]

One issue with sound quality in the Roland stuff has nothing to do with A-D/D-A conversion.

I have been told that the VSx80 units save audio in a proprietary lossy compression format similar to MP3, which is why everything done on them ends up sounding overcompressed and kind of dead. I know I would always wonder how things ended up sounding so flat and lifeless even though everything sounded good thru monitors/headphones when tracking. Apparently this is why. Anyone know more about this?

Also, for transfer via cd-r burn found this post in the PTLE for PC forum.

[jnash]

yes I was hoping to hear someone had already done the digital transfer as well... I have a ton of material I want to transfer in to protools and I had everything set up to do it digitally (via spdif) but I could not get anything to synch w/ time code etc... Ive thought about doing things the slower way of recording one track at a time (I have actually done a few things this way with much success) but was hoping someone here had done it differently...

Been a long time since I've done this, but I remember transferring some tracks from a VS880 to PTLE/001. I sent out two tracks at a time via S/PDIF and used MTC to sync the two devices together. It IS possible. I think I remember that I couldn't get the VS880 to slave to ProTools, but ProTools was able to slave to the VS880... then again, it's possible I'm remembering that wrong--if one method doesn't work, try the other. Also, you'll probably need to play around with the clock offset in ProTools--I think I recall a discrepancy in song positioning. Also, keep in mind that MTC is FAR from sample-accurate... if you really want the tracks to line up perfectly, you might want to record a spike of some kind on all tracks of the VS880, then adjust the precise track locations by eye in ProTools. I still found it useful to have MTC get everything close, though.

Sorry I can't give you step-by-step instructions. I got rid of my VS880 several years ago.

Good luck!

James
[email protected]

[gjohung]

is there a way to back up 880 data on to CD or Zip, and then retrieve it as wav into PC or Mac. I have heard some one did that..