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Who's using Roland VS recorders?


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I've had just about every model made in the VS series, including a VS2480CD . I still have a VS1880 and have thought of using it for live backing tracks. I've played with artists who've used a VS800 and a VS1680 for those purposes with no trouble. I would not use my VS2480 live as it is too large and valuable to me. They are all solid as a rock.

 

Two caveats for any hard disk devices used for live backing whether a standalone DAW or a Laptop :

1) A UPS is critical to avoid power fluctuations that will cause hiccups.

2) Vibration isolation can also be an issue that will cause hiccups. Place the unit offstage if at all possibly for more reliable performance.

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All three of our studios are exclusive Rolands--have stayed since the 880's ...My favorite DAW ....our clients have always been happy to return:thu: We could not ask for more ...no PC even in the studio ...2480 will perform more than adequate >> for any recording task...we have encountered.

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Double post!

 

I've done a complete circle, had Reel-to Reel Tape machines, then a Roland VS880, the VS1680, then went down the path of Computers for few years, now I'm back to the VS2480 (in fact I have two). I've used them/it for over 5 years now. I have never had downtime when recording (and that under professional contract). I haven't heard a recording on a DAW (as in PC) to date that actually exceeds the quality of the VS2480.

 

Admittedly I use expensive front-end Microphone Preamps, but this isn't unusual and the same applies to software based recording. What can I say, I'm hooked. It's the stress free experience...

 

I know of a number of guys who now use VirDIS Software with the VS2480 and this free software http://www.thegoodlibrary.com/VSWaveExport.html which converts the VS2480 Projects into .WAV files inside the PC - using VirDIS. VirDIS allows all of the Roland VS stuff to go direct to PC (Projects and all!) and you can copy these VirDIS files around just like you would a Word Doc. Even store them to USB of Flash. See: http://www.virtualscsi.com/virdis.htm

 

What I'm saying is that you can have the stability of the Roland VS2480 and the option to use Recording Software all in the PC. If you own a Roland VS unit you really owe it to yourself to check these products out. Some guys have been running the Roland VS2480 without an internal IDE HDD and VirDIS!

 

I'm not going the software path any time soon. My clients are happy and until there's some $$$$ reason to switch, I'm staying right here!

 

My trusty JBL LSR28P's really improve all recordings I do, I'm sure that my Masters would suffer without these beauties...

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If it works for you go for it. For me, my VS-880EX was a way slower process since I'm capped at only 8 tracks instead of 48 stereo tracks that I have in Pro Tools. Effects, editing, and MIDI are also easier in a DAW to me. So even with the sound quality being equal, I'll take the speed and ease of a DAW over a VS station. But again, to each his own.

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I bought a new VS2000 about 4 years ago and I still have less than 20 hours on it. I had been using Protools LE previously, but I wanted a self contained workstation with real faders. If you've never had experience with Roland workstations like these, I would recommend something a bit more user friendly. These machines are packed with features, and that's why I stopped using mine. They have too many features and the learning curve is pretty steep. The basic manual is as big as a phone book, and there are 2 more additional ones as well. Get the VGA/mouse/keyboard card and use a monitor & mouse. The user display is really hard to see, and scrolling through menus manually is similar to using a computer with nothing but keyboard commands.

 

I'm not saying they're not good machines, because they are. I used to do a lot of demos for other bands and musicians, but now I'm mostly working on my own stuff, and I always had to spend more time learning how to use it than I did on the music itself. I could never get comfortable with this unit and it's been in a closet for over 2 years now. I paid a lot of money for it four years ago, but because of the pace of technology, it's similar to a computer, but it doesn't become obsolete quite as fast as a computer. A four year old computer these days is almost like Flintstone old. The VS2000 doesn't age nearly as fast as computers, and it still has just about every feature could imagine in a small unit. That's the reason I don't like it. In fact, writing this post just made me decide to sell it.:idea:

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Resurrection time:

 

When attempting to backup via CDR, I get "function failed" and "track number error" messages. Only way I can see round this is to backup via ZIP, wipe the hard drive, then recover the songs. Problem is, I can't find my frikkin ZIP drive. I think my dad's pinched it.:cry:

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I currently own A Macbook running Logic 8. I used to sequence mainly with a keyboard synth and a MPC to a VSR-880. Never got the opportunity to use the VSR-880 with other live instruments, but my plans are to make this a part of my mobile setup with an M-Audio Profre 2626. I'll use it as a backup or as the fastest no hassle way to lay basic tracks. (Still learning to record on a computer). I see it as a crucial piece for me. I don't want anything getting in the way of quickly getting tracks laid without tweaking a computer. I'll dump the tracks to the Mac later.

 

If you could snag a VS 2*** on the cheap it will make getting basic tracks laid hassle free!:thu:

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Started with a VS840, then VS2000 and upped to the 2480

 

stellar machine! Why Roland dropped the hardware based multitrackers I will never know. I've had less hickups recording bands live with this than I have any DAW and interfaces. Once on wav, it's all good with importing to any other application. I even sent mine out to get Mic pre's in ch's 1-4 upgraded.

 

There are phone books that come with these so read a little at a time. It's not that difficult and very much like any other daw if you use the vga board option. IIRC, there are some dvd training references too.

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How can I get the cleanest sound into my VSR 880. I know Roland has an RBUS to ADAT converter and a RBUS to Firewire. But what would get me the best quality? I'm quite new at this, but I know the tracks recorded on a demo version seemed to be very high quality as if they used another preamp or something. Any suggestions for a newbie?

 

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

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My 880EX has been my primary recorder since '98. I tried once to upgrade to Performer on a Mac, but the learning curve utterly killed the music making process. Ended up selling the whole DAW off to pay bills, and have been back on the 880EX since. Not sure what to do now...not sure if the ol' 880EX is up to another project. :facepalm:

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Although I don't use it much anymore since I have a DAW, I still have my VS880EX. Great unit.

 

 

Heh, small world, I still have my VS-840EX (I believe the 880EX was the big brother unit to the 840EX).

 

To the OP: they are great units. They're outdated, but then again, I use an AKAI DPS16 standalone still. I'm still not bloody sure what "MT1" means in terms of bit/ sampling (or what "MT2" means, the next highest quality), but I know that "MT1" is great, clear sound, and it gives out what you put into it, so you definetely have to capture tones well, as is the case with digital units.

 

They can be had at a dirt cheap price now. I'd take advantage of that. The effects in the VS840EX are super great, and as a matter of fact, I still use the VS840EX as an effects send, because things like the reverb, delay, leslie sim/ gain/ rotary are great. The pitch shifter is bunk, as is the amp sims for getting great sounding dirty rock guitar type stuff, but it's worth having around just as an effects send. The coolest thing is that it has a lo-fi box, where you can add record crackle.....not something you want to put on everything, but let's say that you want some sort of old gramophone record type thing for an outro or intro or something like that. You can control the noise and the pops and the wow and flutter and things like that. It's super underrated in that regard. The defretter on the bass patch I use to make weird mellotron type sounds that have the attack chopped off, too. I got to be MacGuyver on those things, so if anyone needs any tips, just ask me.

 

If the other units added other things onto that, i'd say there would be no reason for you to go wrong with the fancier units of that time than I had.

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I used to use the Vs840ex..the one that records to 250 meg zip drives...

 

 

The thing was/is great, but the only downside for me is the whole zip drive thing.

 

I've now got a big stack of Zip disks with songs..some good stuff, all in the Roland proprietary format and, from what I can tell, no way to copy these files and use them anywhere else...

 

Has anyone ever hacked this Roland format?

 

The only way I can dump this stuff onto a computer is to re-record into something like Cubase or Garageband..Takes a lot of time, especially where a song has more than tow tracks...and it's pain to get the tracks synched up again once it's re-recorded.

 

Anyone have a dark passage to getting this done more efficiently? I never had much love for ZIp stuff and I don't trust the damn drives.

 

Do they even make replacements should the internal Zip go bad?

 

Other than that I thought the recording quality was excellent.

 

 

 

Introspection,

 

Tip away. Just the other day I was wondering about using the 840 for some of the effects, There's a lot of stuff I like on that box...What's the best setup?

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I used to use the Vs840ex..the one that records to 250 meg zip drives...



The thing was/is great, but the only downside for me is the whole zip drive thing.


I've now got a big stack of Zip disks with songs..some good stuff, all in the Roland proprietary format and, from what I can tell, no way to copy these files and use them anywhere else...


Has anyone ever hacked this Roland format?


The only way I can dump this stuff onto a computer is to re-record into something like Cubase or Garageband..Takes a lot of time, especially where a song has more than tow tracks...and it's pain to get the tracks synched up again once it's re-recorded.


Anyone have a dark passage to getting this done more efficiently? I never had much love for ZIp stuff and I don't trust the damn drives.


Do they even make replacements should the internal Zip go bad?


Other than that I thought the recording quality was excellent.




Introspection,


Tip away. Just the other day I was wondering about using the 840 for some of the effects, There's a lot of stuff I like on that box...What's the best setup?

 

 

I have had bad luck with zip drives. I find that my discs get messed up and I have to reformat them often making them less than dependable. With that in mind I don't use zip drives anymore...well not often.

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I used to use the Vs840ex..the one that records to 250 meg zip drives...



The thing was/is great, but the only downside for me is the whole zip drive thing.


I've now got a big stack of Zip disks with songs..some good stuff, all in the Roland proprietary format and, from what I can tell, no way to copy these files and use them anywhere else...


Has anyone ever hacked this Roland format?


The only way I can dump this stuff onto a computer is to re-record into something like Cubase or Garageband..Takes a lot of time, especially where a song has more than tow tracks...and it's pain to get the tracks synched up again once it's re-recorded.


Anyone have a dark passage to getting this done more efficiently? I never had much love for ZIp stuff and I don't trust the damn drives.


Do they even make replacements should the internal Zip go bad?


Other than that I thought the recording quality was excellent.

 

 

My thoughts exactly!

 

 

 

 

Introspection,


Tip away. Just the other day I was wondering about using the 840 for some of the effects, There's a lot of stuff I like on that box...What's the best setup?

 

 

What in specific do you want to do? What I really love about them is the ER (early reflection levels) in their reverbs. It gives a REALLY great sounding reverb as those virtual walls are closer. Being a guy that had inferior sounding reverbs before that were dank, cavernous sounding ones, when I started using those ER levels in their reverbs, it really made a huge difference. It actually sounds like there's a room around you, whereas, on some of the cheaper reverb units, it just sounded like there was echoes around you indefinitely and no room.

 

Try using the defretter in the bass patch setup on keyboards--it can get a really nice mellotron type sound by chopping off the attack of the sound.

 

I really loved making recordings on that unit. I still have all my Zip disks....I am unsure of any way to transfer via sound files, other than to do a mix onto a standalone cd recorder (which I have), and then rip it as a wav file and master them on Steinberg Wavelab 6. Kind of archaic, but it works! You can find cheaper standalone cd recorders aplenty nowadays.

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I have had bad luck with zip drives. I find that my discs get messed up and I have to reformat them often making them less than dependable. With that in mind I don't use zip drives anymore...well not often.

 

 

I had that problem, too. I was recording a speech for a radio station one time, and the disk just messed up right in the middle of it. It only happened once (other than another time on one of my disks that had one of my songs on it), and it got stuck....it would get that "disk busy" error message and i'd have to reformat the damned thing. For anyone with Zip disks that has material on them, i'd suggest doing mixdowns of anything that you like and possibly run the risk of not being able to work with the multitrack files anymore. Not to make anyone paranoid as it rarely happened to me, but once is too many times when it could be your best ever song or performance.

 

The ironic thing is that disks and digital was supposed to be glitch free, but we kinda just got back to maybe tape shedding (backing peeling from the oxide layer) and splicing the wrong thing in which there's no way to reverse the process. No amount of undo can get that bloody "disk busy" to go away when it's looping itself and you need to reformat it!! It's actually sorta more equivalent to an engineer just lopping off the rest of the tape reel and you're stuck with however far the reel will get.....

 

The worst: power outage RIGHT in the middle of mixing or recording. Since there's no autosave function, if you forgot to save, there went your work. I encountered that once.....nothing is more frustrating than working for hours and then a power outage happens and forgets whatever you did. You could save periodically.....but you'd have to save the edits, too, I believe there was no undo once you saved it. You could save other virtual tracks of different edits.....but then you'd have tons of different tracks and had to keep track of what was what and all that.

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Introspection,

 

A couple of things re your response...I pretty much want to just use the effects like you said..I liked the reverb and a few others..have to go back through that stuff to recall evrythingg but the reverbs were cool...thanks for the tip on the bass patch thing..anything else, cool.

 

Second..I found a website where these guys are doing all sorts of things, you may know about some of it.

 

They are replacing the Zip drives with Compact flash drives..up to 1 gig cards i think..both Compact Flash and SD memory, pretty cool and costs about 30 some dollars.

 

Someone there has also done some hacking, but only applicable to 100meg zip drives. there is a utility there that Rips Wav files from your Roland files..

 

I also found out that Roland has a utility that will do the same..can't think of it now.

 

I'm flat out of luck on it though because all the software is written for Pc and I'm using Mac..oh well.

 

the website is www.vsplanet.com

 

click on forums and scroll down to Roland DAW's..lots of really cool stuff going on there with regard to the older Rolands..check it out.

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Introspection,


A couple of things re your response...I pretty much want to just use the effects like you said..I liked the reverb and a few others..have to go back through that stuff to recall evrythingg but the reverbs were cool...thanks for the tip on the bass patch thing..anything else, cool.


Second..I found a website where these guys are doing all sorts of things, you may know about some of it.


They are replacing the Zip drives with Compact flash drives..up to 1 gig cards i think..both Compact Flash and SD memory, pretty cool and costs about 30 some dollars.


Someone there has also done some hacking, but only applicable to 100meg zip drives. there is a utility there that Rips Wav files from your Roland files..


I also found out that Roland has a utility that will do the same..can't think of it now.


I'm flat out of luck on it though because all the software is written for Pc and I'm using Mac..oh well.


the website is
www.vsplanet.com


click on forums and scroll down to Roland DAW's..lots of really cool stuff going on there with regard to the older Rolands..check it out.

 

Whoa, cool! I'll check that out. For me, I use it as an effects send, as i've said. I don't need to go back to the VS840EX to record on now that i've had a full 16 track fader AKAI DPS16 for awhile now (still archaic by today's standards!), because the VS840EX essentially becomes a 6 track at the optimum MT1 setting, and I refused to use MT2, because based on Nyquist in which I trust my ears, the sampling rate sounds like it was at something like 28K-35K in which i'd definetely hear the upper end of things being corrupted on bounces. The bounce fidelity was VERY good.....but I could still detect a little degradation in the highs on acoustic guitars, especially.

 

If I DO have one complaint about Roland's VS series, is that the data compression would rob alot of the highs of their true sound. The full uncompressed version was much better, but that's where their "up to _____ tracks came in", you had to at least use MT2 to get the full amount of tracks. On the VS840EX, anyways.....and I heard that it was the same on the VS880EX and other Roland machines too, but you'd have to ask around on that.

 

Needless to say, I would never ever record in anything but MT1, because bouncing fidelity is not up to par even on MT2, and the initial recording on MT2 loses some highs, and you start to get into the downsides of digital, much like in tape, where the medium starts to color what you're putting into the mic pres to the disk. With tape, you've got that warmth and saturation.....with digital, it just sounds like the original version of the MP3--sacrificing on upper end sound quality for slight distortion or corruption in the highs. To me, even losing two tracks on MT1 was better than having those two tracks extra to get the full 8 tracks, but with data compression adding it's thing to the sound.

 

I still have fond memories of recording on that.....I can still go back to it and know how to use all the functions lightning fast, all the setups, all the effects, etc. I always liked the 12 step phasing in there, too.

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