Chapter 12. Advances in Mastering with the VS-16801880

Chapter 12. Advances in Mastering with the VS-1680/1880

Mastering is the process of preparing your two-track stereo mix for final playback on a separate medium. In this day and age, that medium is usually a CD (compact disc). You always have the option to take your finished mix to a professional mastering lab or send your tracks out to a computer or external mastering unit (as shown in Figure 12.1) for external mastering. However, you can also achieve great results with the tools that are already provided inside the VS-1680.

Figure 12.1. The Alesis Masterlink is an example of an external mastering device you can send your tracks to for external mastering. The VS-1680 has mastering tools similar to those found inside the Master-link. With patience and practice, you can create quality-mastered tracks inside the VS-1680 without the use of an external mastering device

VS-1680 V-Xpanded Option

The original VS-1680 did not have any mastering capabilities. These features were added later in an operating system update and were given the name "V-Xpanded." If you have an original VS-1680 that does not have the V-Xpanded functions, you can download any version (v2.0 or higher) of the VS-1680 operating system from the Roland Web site to get the V-Xpanded features.

The mastering section of the VS-1880 has some improvements over the VS-1680. With a dedicated Mastering button on the VS-1880, all the tools you need to do a quality-mastering job are just one button-push away.