Roland VS-1680 V-XPANDED, User Manual, Page: 26 / 282

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Chapter 1 Before You Start (VS-1680 Terminology)
Normally, you should set a partition’s size to 2000 MB. When
dealing with large numbers of songs at the same time, or
when you want to use the data on the VS-880 as well, setting
the partition size to 1000 MB is recommended. The song
currently being recorded, played back, or edited is referred
to as the “current song.” The following types of data are
included in a song.
• All data recorded on V-Tracks
• MIDI clocks of the sync track
• Points specified within songs—locator, marker, punch-
in/out points, loop-in/out points
• Scenes (mixer settings)
• Vari Pitch settings (p. 185)
• System settings—system, MIDI, disk, sync, Scene
• Effect settings
• Automix data
Sources, Tracks, and Channels
On the VS-1680, the recorder section and mixer section use
the term “sources,” “tracks” and “channels.” These terms
may appear similar to each other, and can be confusing
unless their differences are cleary understood.
Source: A signal which is input to the mixer section or
recorded in the recorder section. On the VS-1680,
this term refers in particular to the signals of the
analog INPUT jacks (1-8) and the DIGITAL IN
connector.
Track: A signal that is being input to or output from the
recorder section. It also refers to the location to
which a signal is being recorded or played back
from the hard disk.
Channel: A signal that is being input to or output from the
mixer section. This term refers in particular to the
faders and buttons of the mixer section on the top
panel.
Takes and Phrases
On the VS-1680, data is managed in groups called “takes,”
“phrases.” Please take a moment to make sure you
understand the differences between these terms.
Takes: The data recorded to the disk is simply called a
“take”—a take is actually your audio data
recorded on the hard disk, along with time stamp
(time and date imprint) information. Each
recording is a take. Note that when you record
material onto a track that already contains a take,
the VS-1680 does not discard the earlier take.
Phrases: A “phrase” is a set of pointers that tells the
VS-1680 what portion of a take is to be played by a
track. The length of a phrase may just be the entire
length of a take, or may consist of only part of a
take. Also, you can use any number of phrases
from the same take, and have a phrase played
back repeatedly as a sort of “break beat.” This is
displayed as one box in the playlist.
fig.01-06
fig.01-07
fig.01-08
About Events
The smallest unit of memory used by the VS-1680 to store
recorded information on disk is called an “event.” A newly
created song is provided approximately 18,000 events.
For each track, one recording pass uses two events.
Operations such as punch-in/out or track copy also use up
events. The number of events that are used up will change
depending on what you are doing. For example, Automix (p.
123) uses up six events for each marker.
Even when your disk has ample free space, one song can use
up all the available events, in which case no more data can be
recorded to the song.