From Cat Rood
"I am a female rock guitarist and I have 2 new instrumental songs that I recorded entirely on my new Fostex VF-16 and will have more up soon. The songs are 'Frantic' and 'The Battle is not Lost'. I ran the guitar (an Ibanez RG570) through a Digitech RP100 and then direct into the VF-16; used an Alesis SR16 for the drum patterns; ran my Fender bass direct; and used a Korg Poly 800 and Alesis Nanosynth for the keyboards.
"On the drum tracks (drum machine and or synth) I E.Q. them after the fact by boosting the lows for the kick and the highs for the cymbals . I also add a little doubling and a lot of reverb. The drum tracks are always centered.
"I use a little low end E.Q. (pre post) on the bass, but not much (I usually don't have to on the
Fostex- unlike my old Korg D-8) and it is always centered. I can record the bass direct in and it sounds fine.
"I pan the keyboard tracks hard left and right and sometimes add a tiny bit of reverb (but usually not).
"I pan the guitar Lead tracks slightly left and right (since I usually have more that one) and add a little reverb.
"The rhythm guitar (which I sometimes have more than one track) is usual either center or just slightly to one side and I usually add a little chorus."
Cat Rood (mp3) -
Cat Rood Website
From Alan (again)
"I sent in a link a while ago when I had three songs up from my VF-16 (Anagenesis parts 1-3) from my solo project, Original Organism. Well since then I have 2 more songs up, "Searebrum" and "The Social Creatures". They were both recorded on the VF-16, and I used pretty much the same equipment as w/the Anagenesis stuff. Anyway, check 'em out!"
Original Organism (mp3) -
Original Organism Website
From Spunn
"I've recorded a variety of things on my lil' ol' VF-16 and have been happy with the results.
"I have a multitude of "bands" that I am in and we record in a 2 car garage in the middle of a field. One of the bands I am in has four guys who all live in different cities. We get together every 6 months or so and "Make an album". We recorded four songs one weekend on the VF-16, and they are the first four songs at our site: Spunn
"Everything's Wrong was recorded live onto the VF-16 with one guitar overdub and two vocal overdubs. The drums were mic'd with an SM-57 on the snare, an SM-58 on the kick, an Electro-Voice Midnight Blue on the floor tom, and another SM-58 on the tom. The bass amp was mic'd with an SM-58, and I also ran a patch cord from the line-out on the amp and recorded a direct track. The guitar amp was mic'd with one of those 200 dollar MXR mic's they give away at Mars Music if you buy a VF-16. The guitar overdub and vocal overdubs were also done with this mic. The song was mixed entirely using the VF-16's effects - a little overall compression, and some reverb on the snare and vocals. I kept both the mic'd and direct bass signals, panning them hard left/right and it actually adds some life to the
bass.
"After the Fact was tracked with the same setup as before, only there was no live bass. The guitarist ended up overdubbing bass as the bassist had to leave, and he also added a second guitar part and overdubbed a solo as well. There are three vocal parts that I overdubbed. To mix this I ran an Alesis dual compressor as the two outboard effects - one for the bass only and one for the drums only. I also used overall compression from the VF-16 along with a little multitap delay on the vocals. I rode the levels on the vocals as well while I was mixing. I had to work with EQ a bit on the drums as well, and added reverb to the snare. On the kick drum I took out alot of the mids which really made it punchier and cancelled out some of the bleed from the guitar amp.
The other two songs at Spunn that were on the VF-16 are "Scratches and Dents" and "The Windows of My Mind." I mastered the four songs using SoundForge on my PC - mainly using the normalizing feature.
"The other track I've done is a one-man-band silly thing I did with a little help from the Alesis compressor - its called "Too Funky" and was recorded impromptu as a "theme song" for a film a friend is making. I love being able to have three drum tracks, two trumpets, two bass, two clavinet, one guitar, two backup vocals and one lead vocal and STILL HAVE THREE EMPTY TRACKS!
Please keep in mind this song was built from the drums up by one guy in about an hour - I played everything and made up the vocals on the spot - one take. Here's the link for what I call The Sassy Astronauts-Too Funky."
From Dustin (apple of His eye)
"We used our church's mixer for the drums because I didnt have the XLR-to-Phone adaptors soldered yet, so the drums were sub-mixed; but in the future they will all be on the
Fostex. The guitar and bass were recorded while the drummer was playing, causing some mic bleed (can hear drums on guitar track faintly) but it was low enough to be acceptable. Later, vocals were recorded in a quiet room with the vocalist using headphones. Compression to the drums was done by copying the track to 16, then applying compression. So we actually had 2 drum tracks, one dry and the other wet. The combination of both was better than either alone. The bass track was re-recorded, because the bass player messed up a lot; that's where the fostex really shined."
#1 God (mp3) -
apple of His eye Website
From Muffinhead Audio (aka: Danielle G.)
"This is my very first recording done on the VF-16. The song 10000 Miles is by Bindle, a local Dallas band. These guys are ex-band mates so I have the pleasure of gaining great experience with recording a real live rock band.
"I recorded the drums with AKG D112 on kick, 2 AKG C418 on the toms, Sennheiser e604 on the snare, Oktava MC012 on the Hi-hats, Audio Technica AT822 stereo mic for the overheads. I doubled the bass direct w/ART MP TUBE pre and mic'ed the bass cab with the AKG D112. 3 tracks of guitar with an Audio Technica 4033a and 2 vocals, 1 with the Audio Technica 4033a and the other with MXL 2001p. I used the ART MP on the guitar track and both vocal tracks. I had to use a Mackie board to get the extra inputs. I dumped this realtime via the in-line to Steinberg Wavelab for mastering and turning into a MP3. This is a long way from sounding pro. But we were all surprised with the quality we got with little fuss. This was fun! I hope to cut a CD EP for these guys using the VF-16. Cheers!"
10000 Miles (mp3)
