SeriesRoland VS

The only real problem that I have with the 2400 is that it has NO SCSI, USB, FireWire, or any other way to connect it to the outside world. The CD-burning capability is fine for doing your own little projects -- but if you expect to make a living from recording other's stuf, and expect to be able to easily archive artists' work (to be able to erase and reuse the hard drive) forget it. There is no way to even attach an external drive. The 2400 is a completely sefl-contained piece, period. $2,700 UTILIZATION NO -- this thing is NOT easy to use!!! I finally figured out how to use everything that I wanted to be able to use it for -- but even now, there are things that I wish that I could do with it that I can't. Ordinarily, Roland stuff is pretty road-worthy -- but this sucker was only in my studio, and began to exhibit some problems with the data wheel about six months into heavy use. After I sent it out and got it back, it began to show signs of wear on the faders. Ugh. SOUNDS Mine came with the two VS8F cards, which jacked the price up. It sounds exactly like I would expect it to sound -- which is to say that I don't hear the sound. I hear the music that I record onto it. OVERALL OPINION I do love this sucker after all. It has helped me to create some really good-sounding music. At the end of the day, whatever works is what works. Originally posted on FutureProducers.com Posted by: SammyJames (January 0-, 2005)

- What are the effects, or types of effects available? Reverb, delay, chorus, RSS, speaker amp & mic simulations, mastering tool kits, compressor, limiter, flanger, phaser, distortion, panner, robot fx...and some more...EQ... - What technology is used? (analog, digital, tube...) Digital. - Can they be edited? through a Mac/PC editor utility program? Not sure. I think you can via Logic VS and possibly some other third party software but i've never tried that. - What connection types are there? (Audio/MIDI) This is an expansion board for the Roland VS recorder series. I used this on the VS-1680 and VS-2480. - Is it rackable? N/A - Is the sound or effects editing easy? Yes, extremely easy. - Is the manual clear and sufficient?... Yes. - Are the effects good, usable and sufficiently realistic? Yes, for most of them. - With what instruments do you use them? All instruments & vocals. - Which are your favorites and/or the ones you hate? I quite like some of the reverbs, which most people might not agree with cos they might not sound very natural but i like them anyway. The mastering tool kit can also be very efficient, even on individual instruments sometimes, such as bass or cello or even clarinet! The amp simulations car work well on drums. - For how long have you been using it? 10 years - What thing do you like most/least about it? A wiiide array of effects & lots of parameters! - What is your opinion about the value for the price? Roland options are all overpriced. You have little choice, however, and that explains their rip-off price policy on options of course... - Knowing what you know now, would you make the same choice?... Yep.

Samples at 24... All sorts of sync ability...Wave format ...DVD storage...80GB hard drive and DVD archiving...Has full mastering capability as well as surround sound mixing, etc...VGA output is great...mouse makes it easier to use too...The motorized faders are a nice luxury too! UTILIZATION There's a learning cure for sure...It's steep at the beginning but once you know your way around, it's a very functional box.... There's great compression available on all channels and the FX are all very good...There's even Auto-tune and Lexicon reverbs available... It's failed on me once...It was a disaster as I didn't have everything backed up....I learned fast! The manual is very good although it's thick and comes in different versions, User's Guide - Owner's Manual, etc- each with different info... The saving grace here is Roland's tech support....AWESOME! They've helped me out a ton over the years... SOUNDS Gives you back what you put in....The preamps are pretty good and the recording is smooth and goes without issue...16 tracks at a time....Full mixing automation! The mastering is something I've only played with but it is quite impressive...If I didn't use a TC Finalizer I would use the VS2480... The reverbs and other FX are great and blend well.... The available plug-ins are more than I expected and quite impressive... OVERALL OPINION I like its ease of use and functionality most...It's great for recording at home and in the studio...It's a much more solid piece of gear than it gets credit for...It still stands up to its competition albeit with fewer bells and whistles...It's great for giving back what you give it in a creative and functional way....You can't go wrong with these units...If you find one, grab it and give it a whirl...You'll be surprised... If mine died, I'd buy another... High quality and a bit dated but still amazing...

Best $400 ive ever spent and would of paid up to 800 for it. The only thing missing is XLR inputs, but 6 1/4" are cool $400 UTILIZATION This is probably its lowest, its extremely hard to use (unless you have the bundled emagic software for it ). The manual is straight garbage, it was written for the most skilled and knowledgable engineer. Probably done so to make money off the video manual (Hey it suckered me into getting it) SOUNDS Hey sounds are great, if you use a mic with no preamp it will sound like crap but you can doctor it up with the 2 effects that come installed with it, keep bouncing on over 128 virtual tracks and you have unlimited effects. (not like the 1880 and 2480 those effects cards cost 300 and thats on ebay, plus you would have to buy two) give me two of these bad boys for the price of the effect cards OVERALL OPINION Very very durable, have gigged with it for two years now, the only thing bending out of shape is my back, who wants a job as a roady. Customer service line is cool and they know there stuff, although it sounds like they're over there beating on something other than a set of v-drums hahaha One of the most important pieces in my set up and im trying to get a second one Originally posted on FutureProducers.com Posted by: Unknown ( 5-, 2003)

This unit boasts 24bit 96kHz capability. It can record 16 tracks simultaneously, which is a great advantage for tracking large ensembles including drum kits. The data is saved onto the hard drive; it can be backed up onto “data discs”. UTILIZATION No installation worries here as the unit is self contained. The scrolling functions would be a bit painful to learn, but the optional VGA output allows an interface which is way more intuitive than the included small screen. Many people knock on the manual, but I found the information to be very organized…though it is extensive and massive. The DVD manual is ok; I watched it once and never again. If you ever used any vs type machine from Roland- like the 880, 1680, or 2400- then you’ll jump right into this unit seamlessly. SOUNDS Brand new these units came stock with a vs8f2 effects card. Decent sounds available, from delays to reverbs to mastering compressors- pretty much anything you would ever need. The only poor sounds were from the COSM guitar sims, which I found unusable. The real problem is the number of times you can use it: if you’re using inserts, you are quite limited. Post fx is more plentiful, so one can put reverb on every track if desired. It’s almost a necessity to upgrade by installing additional fx cards, up to 4 total. The vs8f3 is a step up in quality, and the 3rd party plugins are a huge step up. These are becoming more scarce as production stopped a few years ago, but if you are staying in the box, this is a great toolkit to acquire. Best scenario may be to find a vs2480 used, forget finding the fx cards (because they are scarce and expensive) and utilize the vs for tracking knowing that you can bring it into a cpu for mixing and fx. This strategy makes the unit good bang for your buck in terms of tracking 16 at a time relatively cheap. OVERALL OPINION Best thing is the stability- this unit is much more stable than most pc and will not embarrass you by crashing and losing data. It is a rock. The 16track capability is wonderful. Negatives include load up time- saving and recalling projects takes waaaaay longer than any modern day cpu DAW. The extra components- if you can even find them- are pricey. You will need the special cables and interfaces to be able to transfer 16 tracks at a time into a pc. Otherwise you’re stuck with 2 at a time through spdif, which is totally horrifying. I believe the capability to add PC/Mac interface was available at the time of production, but Roland attempted to keep their system isolated from the rest of the world’s DAWs. This philosophy killed the platform, as technology and musicians gravitated towards universal DAWs which are easily transferred. This was a great value 8-10 years ago, but now (even used) one may be advised to look elsewhere. There are too many issues trying to bring the projects onto DAWs to allow collaboration. The one application which may still be useful is in recording live performances: the unit could be setup at rehearsal or live shows pretty quickly and the results are fairly good. For a long time I praised the vs platforms, but I have since migrated…if you can find one used and cheap cheap, give it a shot- but don’t pay close to the thousands that it originally cost. Bottom line: this was a "10/10" in 2004; in 2012 it's a "1/10"

I was interested in recording, so having done business with Moncton Music Stop I decided to look at what was available. Paid somewhere around $3'ooo Lost my receipt. It's a great piece of equipment especially after using a four track cassett recorder. It's very flexable, amazing what one can do with it. The only problem is understanding the manuel. Other than that everything is great Everything works well and can put out quality recordings I'd liked to have been able to buy it's big brother, could use more XLR's hook ups, really impresed with this machine,and will look foward to see what Roland will come up with next. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

I purchased this VS 840 at Sam Ash in Columbus, Ohio in very early 1999 for around $850-$900. I was upgrading from a Tascam 4 TRACK 242MKIII MTR. I think the sound quality is very good, although alot of that depends on how good you record, and mixdown,and what type of equiptment you are using to begin with. I feel that most of the effects are very good,with a vast array of editing options. I espically like the scene memory for storing different mixes, and the built in guitar tuner. The undo/redo feature is very handy,and the virtual recording tracks are great for recording different takes of a part without erasing the original take. The ability to Fast forward or back instantainiously makes recording much more enjoyable and saves tons of time. I aslo like being able to add effects after the part has been already recorded should I with to do so. Originaly mine used 100 MGB zip disc. It wasnt enough time to record a complete song, so I upgraded the unit and had a 250 MGB ZIP DRIVE installed. I dont really care for the inputs being on the back of the unit, and wish it had a digital input jack. I feel that it is somewhat overrated as an eight track, and would consider it more of a four track or six track machine, as each track should be able to be mixed down at the same time rather than bouncing 1,2,3,4 to 5/6 and 1,2,3,4 to 7/8. Some of the Guitar effects dont have reverb in the edit mode, and I wish I could use an effect on more than just one track at mixdown. The owners manual is not at all user friendly, espically if you have never worked with digital recorders before, as was my case. The fader distance seems short and the cut off is sometimes abrupt and cuts out before the end of the slide distance. The faders could also be bigger. The housing of the unit seems too lightweight and should be heavier plastic. It seems to be a very high quality unit as far as the electronics, circitry and all that goes. The finished recordings are plenty adaquate for demos, and as good as some finished product that Ive heard. I feel that with the 250 MGB Zip Drive installed it is well worth the money and would not hesitate to buy the larger units that they make. In fact,Im sure my next unit will be a Roland, just from my expierence and satisfaction with this unit. This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

zzounds $550 overall it sounds good This thing is a logistical nightmare. I am not a stupid person, this machine is unnecessarliy complicated, quirky and the sales pitch is 90%lies. It's a 4 track with two mix down tracks and the hard drive is a total wuss, bleeping out "drive busy" half the time you try to play back all the tracks at once. They claim it's possible to record 200 songs on a disk. This could only be possible if you recorded 200 5 second songs completely live on to one track each song. If you are actually multitracking, which I assume is why anyone would buy the thing, You're lucky to get one fully developed song on one disk. These things are $16 a piece. I don't wish this substandard piece of garbage on anyone. OK overrated piece of crap This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The features are basic but the machine is so user friendly it makes recording a flash.i 550 usd UTILIZATION I know the VS-880 is a older model but it was a good starting point for Roland..hey Roland!! Remember LED lights. I bought my VS 880 used and I've never had any problems not even in the 2 years I've had it. SOUNDS It sound great!! each channel is powerfull and the effects are the....hey!! OVERALL OPINION Are you serious.I love the hell out of the VS 880 so much I broke up with my girlfriend to have more time time recording. Hey I really love roland quality Originally posted on FutureProducers.com Posted by: galenc01 ( 9-, 2005)

Going in there are 6 1/4" jacks (7 if you count the guitar hi-z, but if you use that, you can't use the 6th connection) and 2 XLR jacks with optional phantom power (nice!). It is a 24 bit sampler. You can store your files on an upgradeable internal hard-drive (6,10 or 20gbs). The only synchronization I know are the midi in/thru and midi out. Well, you can record all 18 at the same time, but you only have 8 inputs all together, so really you can only record 8 different tracks at once. UTILIZATION The general setup is not, and I mean not easy. The manuals for these things are so convoluted and disorganized I have ever come across. I have literally spent hours looking in these things and struggling to find the answers, most of the time coming up with nothings. Very, very bad! I have to admit that I was using this thing to perform simple recording withing the first few hours of having it. But I haven't gotten much farther since then. Again, horrible manual, but you can call roland and talk to a real human and get some quick and good answers. They will get an extra point on the rating below for there stellar customer service. SOUNDS I feel a little dumb because I do not no exactly what a/d and d/a convertors are. I have to say that the overall sound quality of this unit is not that bad. If you are good at simple mixing (3 band eq per track) and panning, you can make a very usable demo with this. I would definitely recommend better equipment for an actual album. I did not purchase the internal effects card so I do not know its quality. The price on ebay for new efx cards has not changed in two years (about $125-$150) while the recorder itself continues to fall, if that means anything. You can run external effect loops, but you have to have a free track to send it to. Computer recording is the way to go in my opinion. The overall sound quality is good, so if you know how to use compressors and effects properly, the dynamics will sound good too. OVERALL OPINION I have been using this item sparingly for about three years. The best thing about it is its sound quality which is good, but not great. There are many horrible things about this unit, but the worst is the combination button pushing (hold this and push that at the same time kinda thing). There are just to many of those to remember and it ends up screwing things up pretty bad if you hit the wrong button. I have been using computer recording lately and have shunned the hardware recording units. When these were new, they were pricey (over $1200), now they are fairly cheap ($300-$450). I would go for a decent, up to date computer with a almost any music recording software over these hardware units any day. I wish I hadn't bought this item.

- What connection types are there(analog, digital, MIDI)? Inputs: 2 XLR, 6 TRS jacks (that's symetric...), digital SPDIF coax & optical (Toslink, not ADAT), RBUS (Roland proprietary interface that allows for the addition of various expensive boxes...such as extra analogue inputs or ADAT), MIDI in and out if i remember correctly. - what is the sampling rate (bits/kHz)? Good question. The machine is 24 bits, they say, but the converters are only 20. BUT this gives you extra headroom at mixdown, i think. No higher than 48 khz, but you can go down to about 32 khz, which can be useful to create different pitches without the use of a pitch-shifter: record at 32 and playback at the regular 44.1 or 48 and you get that funny high-pitched voice you used to get when playing an LP at 45 RPM. - What storage format is used (ZIP, MiniDisc, hard disc...)? 2 GB internal IDE hard drive. Now you think that's small, it isn't. You can record a whole album with virtual tracks and still have space left. If you want, you can replace this drive with a 40 GB i believe. - What types of synchronization are supported? You cannot set the SPDIF to use external or internal clock: so if you can't set the device you're connecting to digitally you can end up having problems. For example, if you use a TC Electronic G-Force as an effects loop, you can't do that digitally unless you add a third device in the loop, or the VS will try to lock onto the G-Force while the G-Force is trying to lock on to the VS. I added in a Minidisc player with optical and coax inputs and it worked fine. As far as pure synchro goes, you have MIDI and i think various modes exist in the menus but i never needed them so i can't remember. - How many tracks can be recorded/read simulaneously?... 8 in compressed modes, 4 in linear mode. However, the Roland compression is a 3 to 1 lossless compression-decompression so i'm not sure there is much point in using the linear mode. Use 'MTP' mode. You can playback 16 and 2 mastering tracks exist, so you can bounce these 16 to a virtual couple of extra tracks. ======================== You have 8 outputs on RCA connectors that can be used as direct outs. You can freely assign signals to these, and you can send what you want to pretty much any track or output too. Same for the monitor outs and headphones. It's a powerful mixer. I put 8/10 cos the analogue outs are not symetric (which they are on the 2480), and that's a shame. Also, would have been good to have 2 digital ins that can be used at the same time, here you must choose between optical and digital. UTILIZATION - Is the general configuration/setup simple? - Is the manual clear and sufficient?... Takes some getting used to, hardest thing to understand is the routing (as for the 2480...which works differently again, eeek!). But the manual has a very clear, step by step approach, so you can't go wrong. Overall, it's an easy machine to use, i find. - Are the typical functions easily accessible? Yup. One button gives you access to input or channel settings. Other features also have dedicated buttons. SOUNDS - Are the A/D and D/A convertors transparent? Sound ok to me! I usually bypassed the pres and A/D's though, and came in digital. That does definitely improve the sound if you're using some high-end piece of gear to do it with... I'd recommend a high-end pre and compressor with a digital out. - are the effects and filtres good? The EQ is not so efficient or nice, but the onboard effects (optional with the VS8F-2 and VS8F-3 cards -- the latter takes third party VS plug-ins) are very useable. - Are the dynamics respected?... You've got to be careful not to reach that 0dB mark, of course, but if you avoid that then all is well, and you can make some very decent recordings indeed. OVERALL OPINION I used it for about 7 years and just moved up to the 2480. Best thing? Portable, reliable, NO LATENCY!!! Go find that with a PC...call me in a 100 years when you've found something... ;-p Can be used as a control surface for a PC too...although the faders are not motorized... It's a complete box that will do everything. Probably the best 16 track portastudio ever. Worst thing? The software is obsolete compared to PC's...you can't use a proper screen like on the 2480...or a keyboard or mouse... The options are too expensive... The price when new was about £2000 / 3000€. That was with the external CD burner (which you desperately need) and a couple of effects cards, ie complete. That was not cheap, but was the best value at the time. Now second hand the machine is an amazing deal, and definitely worth having as a first. It's cheaper second hand than my 8 track cassette machine was when i got one, about 10 years ago!!