Newbie- Roland or Boss??

  • Thread starter Thread starter bawlls
  • Start date Start date
B

bawlls

New member
Hi Guys,

I need help. I've made the decision to start my recording career with digital equipment and have narrowed it down to the Roland 8 track and the Boss 8 track. I have some questions that my friendly guitar store reps are evasive on.
1. Do I need to involve my computer in the process or can i avoid that?
2. Can I plug a cd writer into the machine and transfer the finished product on to a cd?
3. Which one do I buy? are there advantages and disadvantages to each?

Thanks for your time

Bawlls
 
bawlls said:
Hi Guys,
1. Do I need to involve my computer in the process or can i avoid that?

You can avoid it. One of the great benefits of standalone systems is that you don't have to deal with device conflicts and crashes that often occur in PC-based system

2. Can I plug a cd writer into the machine and transfer the finished product on to a cd?

Yes. At least with the Roland systems.

3. Which one do I buy? are there advantages and disadvantages to each?

I've used the VS-880 since it came out and am not as familiar with the BR-8. The biggest advantage of the BR-8 is probably price. However, you can get a VS-880EX on ebay for about $650. The VS systems have more functions, possibly better sampling and A/D converters, and better storage.
 
Thanks for the advice, although i've noticed the price of the vs880ex has dropped to 550 and lower, which i think makes it the better buy.
 
As far as a CD burner goes for the VS units - to just burn 2 tracks of audio CD from the VS unit any CD burner will work. HOWEVER - to use the CD as a storage device (to free up disc space on the VS unit) you need to use Rolands burner which is relatively quite expensive.
 
I wasn't aware that you must use Roland's CD-R if you want to back up. Why can't you use another CD-R?

Also, you don't need an expensive CD-R to back up your data. A cheap SCSI Zip drive works just fine.
 
The software Roland uses for backing up song data (all your rough tracks etc.) is proprietarty and will only go to their CD burner - actually it is a Plextor CD.

Yes a ZIP with a SCSI will work as far as I know.

A good place for Roland VS workstation info is at the VS Planet site. I do not have the exact address but if you do a search using VS Planet it will come up. Lot of folks there who know there way around the Roland recorders pretty well.
 
Back
Top