Undo

As mentioned earlier, the VS workstations use non-destructive editing. This means that every track-editing function, as well as every recording operation, can be quickly and easily undone. This is especially helpful when performing track-editing functions.

Every time you perform a recording operation or a track-editing function, a historical record is kept with the VS. The VS-880/890 workstations can store up to 999 of these historical records per song. To recall a specific historical record, use the UNDO button. When you press the UNDO button, the VS will ask what historical record it should retrieve. Unfortunately, these UNDO records are neither named nor time stamped; they are just listed sequentially. Because of this, I'd highly recommend that you either keep track of each time you record or edit a track, or that you only go back to UNDO level once each time.

Let's look at an example of the Undo function, using the tracks we've already recorded. Suppose we performed a Track Erase to clean up the beginning of track 3-1 and then performed another Track Erase to clean up the end of track 3-1. If we perform UNDO LEVEL=1, we'd undo the cleanup of the end of the track. If we instead perform UNDO LEVEL=2, we'd undo the cleanup of the end of the track and the beginning of the track.

If you perform an undo and realize you've made a mistake, you can redo the last undo. Hold the SHIFT button and press UNDO to invoke the Redo function. The last undo you performed will be redone. You do not have a choice as to which undo point you'd like to have restored; only the last Undo function can be redone.

However, the way that undo and redo work in conjunction with each other can be confusing. Let's go back to our example above, where we used Track Erase twice and then we performed UNDO LEVEL=2. When we play back the track, none of the cleanup editing we did is there, as it was undone by the UNDO LEVEL=2. Now let's do a Track Erase at the beginning of track 4-1. Now, just for fun, let's perform the Redo. Remember, Redo can only restore the last Undo, which involved the edits to the beginning and ending of track 3-1. So what happens to the edit we performed on track 4-1 after we redo the last undo? Nothing. The edit we performed on track 4-1 is still intact. Redo only applies to the edits or recordings that were originally undone.

Confused yet? Mixing Undo and Redo operations can lead to a great deal of confusion, especially if you don't keep track of every edit and/or recording. My advice is to use extreme caution when undoing something other than the most recent edit or recording, as it's easy to undo something you didn't intend to. Instead of undoing a recording, it's best just to re-record the track without undoing whenever possible.

As I mentioned earlier, only track-editing functions and recording processes can be undone. You cannot use the Undo function to remove setting markers, changes to effect settings, changes to system settings, a.