PeeJay wrote:
...Am I to understand that I can record on all 64 tracks? Is that true? I know that each track has 8 V-Tracks along with it. For a total of 64 tracks. Does that mean I can have all 64 tracks mixed down to 8? What about seperate panning for each V-Track? Is that an option?...

Unfortunately, while you can record on all 64 tracks, you can only have 8 tracks avaliable for mixdown at any one time.

If you needed more than 8 tracks for a song you could have extra tracks on the virturals and create submixes of completed tracks. But this technique requires careful planning and restricts mixing possibilities once the submix is created.

Good Luck
Erich

Erich is correct...

only 8 tracks can play back at once. I don't know this machine well but the earlier VS series that did this would allow you to "splice" different sections of the same track. In other words if you had 8 virtual takes of a solo on track 1, you could pick which virtual track plays when on that track as the song plays allowing to to do a multi-take comp track.

It is still the same as Erich described even if you do the above since no two v-tracks on track 1 can play simultaneously.

Best regards-

Karbo

Thank you Karbo and Erich for the responce.

I kind of thought that was the deal - but I just wanted to hear it for sure. I'm used to tape machines so this digital stuff is sort of new for me.

So that sort of leads to another minor question - with tape machines, bouncing tracks starts to make the sound of those bounced tracks sound weak. Do I have to worry about this with digital recording also?

I did do a song that had 10 tracks with the Br-864 - in which I bounce 8 tracks down to 2. I didn't really notice that same effect with the Br-864. But I am assuming that if I were to keep bouncing those tracks would eventually get weak too. Is that a correct assumption?

I don't know that machine... but basically if it is recording uncompressed (data compression not audio compression) then no. However, if it is compressed then eventually it will degrade...

Some of the others here will know the newer gear better. I believe Roland used to use "Rdac" compression which is nearly lossless and better than "Atrac" compression. I'm a little out of my league on this question as Im a couple years behind the times. Gonna take me another month to catch up..

Eitherway, no data compression = no loss (for the most part) so check the manual. It should state it in the specs. Even if it does degrade it will be nowhere near as bad as when bouncing with analog tape. Again, check with those who have kept up, I don't want to misinform you!

Best regards

Karbo

Thanks again there Karbo!

Yeah I'll have a look at the specs and see.

I looked at the specs but didn't notice any reference to that. Oh well, so far it doesn't seem to degrade like the old Tascam 244 that I have. (Total Old School)

PeeJay wrote: I looked at the specs but didn't notice any reference to that. Oh well, so far it doesn't seem to degrade like the old Tascam 244 that I have. (Total Old School)

I looked at the specs on on Roland's site. They don't seem to offer that information freely. They do reference "Data Type" where the choices are HiFi(MT2), Standard(LV1) and Long(LV2) and I am guessing that means compression scheme. If it were uncompressed they should be stating it somewhere but they are not. I spent some time training at Roland a few years ago but this gear wasn't out yet then.

I also played with a little math and came to the loose conclusion that their stated total time per flash card is greater than the same for uncompressed wav files taking up the same amount of space which also points to a compressed format.

However, for the uses this machine is intended you should be just fine. Any apparent loss shouldn't be as anywhere near as quick or noticable as analog. So I wouldn't fret at all. You'll get much more value and enjoyment out of it as a whole and should be able to do a certain number of bounces without any worries at all.

Best regards-

Karbo

Hiya

I to have recently purchased a br864 and have been "through the mill" so to speak myself. The manual is ok but does not go into the detail of the features of the unit.

The best way to answer your question is as follows:

If you lay down 8 tracks you can then bounce (mix) those 8 tracks down to 1 track. (eg. to track 1).
You are then left with track 1 containing all the data you have bounced (the 8 original tracks) thus freeing up the remaining 7.

If you repeat this process for all the remaining tracks it will give you the 64 tracks ( 8 x 8 = 64).

Hope this helps, i know its confusing!

Jimi

I have a similar problem being unable to upload tracks to my computer.  You say that you used a card reader.  How does this work? When I use a card reader all the files are empty despite having created one for upload.  Can you help please.