using stereo tracks

[blkmonday]

im new to the br-1600 and started recording a demo for my band and now realize...that the 1600 is really only a 12 track machine and 4 of those tracks are stereo tracks. can someone give me a simple solution/setup to record a 4 piece band? this is what ive done so far..
track
1-bass drum
2-snare
3-overhead left drums
4-center overhead drums
5-overhead right drums
6-bass guitar
7-rythm guitar
8-lead guitar

i want to mix and master on the machine. where do you suggest i go from here? bouncing the drums to another track? if so what track?
is there a track that must be used to mixdown to to master and burn a cd?
i still need to add at least one more guitar track and 3 vocal tracks.
also
i own a roland vs880vs...in the future can these units be linked together via mid to run as a slave/master setup to gain more tracks?

so far the recording sounds amazing...bouncing scares me a little..ill proceed with caution.
thanks in advance for any advice

[blkmonday]

to add a question can i use a stereo track for vocals? if so do i need to do anything different?...stereo tracks confuse me...as you can tell. i wish they just had 2 stereo tracks and had more regular tracks...i would have preffered not to bounce anything and just mixing it all at once. had i known i would run into this i would have gotten the korg 24trk or the tascam 24trk...live and learn

[SteveB]

BDY - Hello there and welcome to the Forum. I have no idea how experienced you are with multi-track recording, but your 1600 (as far as I recall) has 256 tracks all told, and so that should be enough for anyone to produce a decent song. Follow this link and have a listen to this by Bluesberry, recorded on his br1200. Don't listen to the song, listen to how many sounds can be heard crisply, and that is the art of 'bouncing'. So don't be afraid to experiment. It is usually better to get some kind of drum/rhythm track down first so that the rest can follow. Enjoy.

https://songcrafters.org/community/index.php?topic=4589.0

[Bluesberry]

Blooby does this kind of thing, he is using Electronic drums, check out some of his stuff on the BR-1600 spot. 

[chapperz66]

Hi Blkmonday

I can have a go at answering some of your questions.  The BR1600 is set up to use stereo track 9/10 for bouncing and mastering.  You have to mix your tunes into stereo via the bouncing process to a virtual track on 9/10 in order to then use the mastering toolkit - which obviously masters the tune to the next available virtual track on 9/10.

That being the case, you could argue that the BR1600 is a 14 track machine of which six of those tracks form 3 stereo pairs. However, as the other chaps have pointed out, with 16 virtual tracks per "normal" track you can bounce away to your heart's content with no loss of quality.  I do it lots, and when I had my smaller BR1180 I would often do 3 bounces before I even get to final mixing.

I'm a solo player so I don't have to contend with real drums like you do, but I would advise that you try the following once you have recorded on your tracks 1-8:   

1.  Mute the bass and guitars.
2.  Bounce the drum tracks in stereo onto 9/10, then copy the bounced drum mix to one of the stereo pairs - say 15/16.  Don't delete the 9/10 drum submix as you might want to come back and do it again if the snare is too quiet or something.
3.  Change the virtual track on tracks 1-5 to the next virtual track.
4.  Unmute the bass and guitars and start recording your overdubbed guitars and vocals

The thing is not to be frightened of the bouncing process.  It really isn't that hard and the real beauty is that, if you get it wrong, you can always go back and do the mix again until you get it right.   Just be careful not to record over any of the audio tracks or virtual tracks.  The only other "trick" with bouncing is that you have to think about how the instruments are going to sound in the final mix before you have all of the other tracks recorded.  This comes with practice.  As a rule I would say never bounce bass, lead guitar or vocals.  If you get a cymbal a bit too quiet in a drum submix the only person who wil really notice is the drummer.  If you mix the bass too low (or the singer/lead guitar ) everybody will notice.

Hope this helps

Paul Chapman

[blkmonday]

thanks paul..
thats pretty much the route ive taken...so far its coming out very good. im really impressed at what this machine is capable of doing. we've started bouncing some drums....hopefully ill start tracking my vocals this week as we are wrapping up the guitar and bass tracks. i havent even begun to figure out how to master a song on the unit yet...but one hurdle at a time.

[chapperz66]

If you need any pointers on mastering, give me a shout.  I don't pretend to be a master (LOL) at it but I've had some reasonable results.

Paul