Roland VS880 question

[stylie]

Well of course it's old and outdated... thats what makes it cheap!!!

Hey everyone, brand new user with a quick question, hopefully someone knows. Been itching to create some music again but my mates are a good 2000 miles away, I hatched a nice idea last night and am looking for any help some may have.

Well years ago we bought a VS880 while HDD recording was this new-fangled thing. Our old guitar player moved away but took it with him. Im thinking about buying a used one from ebay and simply shipping the hard drives back and forth so he can add his parts.

A couple of questions...

Does anyone think this is even possible?
Does anyone have any better suggestions? Keep in mind, this would amount to less than $100 to make happen, a big plus. I really dont need "new" stuff as I probably wouldnt get the most out of it anyway!
Will software versions play any roles here, should they be the same version?
Are these HDD's raw? Aside from any drivers, could I simply throw a new HDD in there and be rolling... 2GB's isnt very impressive, I know!!!

Thanks for any help everyone, much appreciated.

 

[pipelineaudio]

If you guys both have decent net connections, you might want to try NINJAM, its free

http://ninjam.com/

 

[stylie]

Wont work, he's too remote for any kind of Broadband. I like this idea though, is there some sort of adjustment for ping times? I cant imagine this sounds good and synchronized, but then again, Im using 1996 technology!!!

 

[pipelineaudio]

it uses a "faketime" system, but it ends up working out pretty well.

 

[NRS]

First, why would you need to physically mail harddrives back and fourth? As I recall does'nt the VS880 have the abilty to back up its files directly to PC with the proper connection cable? Seems you could both just email that raw data back and fourth assuming you also had a PC connected VS880 on your end. No?

Better yet, you should look into using Reaper as apparently not so long ago some savy VS users over at VSplanet.com wrote a program which converts backed up VS tracks into Reaper files. Beauty of this is you may not even want or need a VS unit on your end so long as you both didnt mind working, mixing, and sharing data exclusively in Reaper. His VS880 would then pretty much just become an interface for getting tracks into his computer and you could then choose the interface of your choice.

By the way, both Reaper and the VS conversion software is free!

http://www.vsplanet.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=655738#Post655738

 

[ermghoti]

Well of course it's old and outdated... thats what makes it cheap!!!

Hey everyone, brand new user with a quick question, hopefully someone knows. Been itching to create some music again but my mates are a good 2000 miles away, I hatched a nice idea last night and am looking for any help some may have.

Well years ago we bought a VS880 while HDD recording was this new-fangled thing. Our old guitar player moved away but took it with him. Im thinking about buying a used one from ebay and simply shipping the hard drives back and forth so he can add his parts.

A couple of questions...

Does anyone think this is even possible?
Does anyone have any better suggestions? Keep in mind, this would amount to less than $100 to make happen, a big plus. I really dont need "new" stuff as I probably wouldnt get the most out of it anyway!
Will software versions play any roles here, should they be the same version?
Are these HDD's raw? Aside from any drivers, could I simply throw a new HDD in there and be rolling... 2GB's isnt very impressive, I know!!!

Thanks for any help everyone, much appreciated.

It's no problem, the drive bay is intended to be accessed by the user. There is a list of compatible SCSI drives somewhere, try vsplanet.com. The 880 will not recognise more then 4GB, but there are some compatible 10-12GB drives, you just don't use the extra space.

Edit: Oops, the prior posts didn't display a minute ago.

 

[stylie]

First, why would you need to physically mail harddrives back and fourth? As I recall does'nt the VS880 have the abilty to back up its files directly to PC with the proper connection cable? Seems you could both just email that raw data back and fourth assuming you also had a PC connected VS880 on your end. No?

Better yet, you should look into using Reaper as apparently not so long ago some savy VS users over at VSplanet.com wrote a program which converts backed up VS tracks into Reaper files. Beauty of this is you may not even want or need a VS unit on your end so long as you both didnt mind working, mixing, and sharing data exclusively in Reaper. His VS880 would then pretty much just become an interface for getting tracks into his computer and you could then choose the interface of your choice.

By the way, both Reaper and the VS conversion software is free!

Having never used our original VS880 in 96 or 7. Ive since gone to a computer school and learned alot about how to deal with such issues. My buddy is in SW CO with a craptastic dialup, there will be no file sharing, unless this reaper can do a hell of alot, not to mention, he gets the data on his PC, how can he get said data to the VS880, Im sure there is a way. I was trying to make things simple and cheap, figuring $75 for an old VS880, and Im thinking these should be fully compatable and we can keep one HDD moving through the mail, pop it in and everything is there and add in particular parts and send back...

I realize this is pretty crude but for $75 My old band can get back together, well sort of!

Oh one other thing, he really knew his way around the VS880 but not his PC, Im the exact opposite!!! In terms of simplicity, and cost savings, I think if this works it would be the way to go. A little dirty, that goes without saying!

 

[MOFO Pro]

VS Planet... For everything VS...

I spent a lot of time there with a great bunch of guys back when I owned a couple VSR 880 rack mount hard disk recorders... You might want to consider a used VSR if you're just moving tracks back and forth from a PC.

Although I think the hard drive swap ship method will grow pretty old, pretty quickly...

 

[Lt. Bob]

Put a click at the beginning of the song where all 8 tracks have that opening click at the same spot.
Then burn the tracks to CD two at a time ... track 1 would be the left side od CDtrack one .... 2 would be the right side.
Three would be the left side of CDtrack 2 ....4 the right side and so one.
Then he can take any tracks he wants and put them in his 880 .... use the clicks to align them and voila!
It also has the advantage that it doesn't matter what kind of recorder either of you use.

 

[stylie]

You might want to consider a used VSR if you're just moving tracks back and forth from a PC.

Although I think the hard drive swap ship method will grow pretty old, pretty quickly...

Funny sig, I have 5 sm57's myself. I just checked and there is one VSR 880on ebay right now for $359 or something. A little more than I wanted to go, I have other things I could spend that on like some better mics and/or many other things. I agree that the sending drives would get old, but I know he has limited tech ability, but he was great with the vs880 so if he sees everything the way he would expect it, that would be awesome/simple and get us playing again, not scratching our heads.

Put a click at the beginning of the song where all 8 tracks have that opening click at the same spot.
Then burn the tracks to CD two at a time ... track 1 would be the left side od CDtrack one .... 2 would be the right side.
Three would be the left side of CDtrack 2 ....4 the right side and so one.
Then he can take any tracks he wants and put them in his 880 .... use the clicks to align them and voila!
It also has the advantage that it doesn't matter what kind of recorder either of you use.

This is a great idea, thanks!

 

[MOFO Pro]

I just checked and there is one VSR 880 on ebay right now for $359 or something. A little more than I wanted to go

I was afraid of that... I haven't looked at prices recently... I think there's still a number of people pretty devoted to the Roland RBUS format (highly invested)... I sold mine a few years ago for more than I paid for them new...

 

[Roguetitan]

Put a click at the beginning of the song where all 8 tracks have that opening click at the same spot.
Then burn the tracks to CD two at a time ... track 1 would be the left side od CDtrack one .... 2 would be the right side.
Three would be the left side of CDtrack 2 ....4 the right side and so one.
Then he can take any tracks he wants and put them in his 880 .... use the clicks to align them and voila!
It also has the advantage that it doesn't matter what kind of recorder either of you use.

+1

I was going to mention the same thing.

 

[swright]

The VS880 is actually compatible with an iomega jaz drive, up to 1 gig, i believe. Check it out. Mailing a removeable disk would be much simpler and safer than sending an internal mounted hardisk through the mail over and over. (Perhaps only slightly simpler, as the jaz is really just a removable hardisk which was never heralded by its reliability... ) The Jaz drives/disks can be picked up on popular bidding sites for virtually nothing.

Also, the software upgrade just adds some additional fx features. I don't think it will hurt you, give or take, though I can't swear by it. Mine, (yes, I do own one,) has the VS8F-1 upgrade which provides two effects engines which can be seperately assigned to individual tracks for mix down and 'mastering'.

Check out Roland's site for what support is available directly...

Hope I helped...

 

[acidrock]

The VS880 is actually compatible with an iomega jaz drive, up to 1 gig, i believe. Check it out. Mailing a removeable disk would be much simpler and safer than sending an internal mounted hardisk through the mail over and over. (Perhaps only slightly simpler, as the jaz is really just a removable hardisk which was never heralded by its reliability... ) The Jaz drives/disks can be picked up on popular bidding sites for virtually nothing.

That would be the VS840,not the 880