roland vm3100

[solarweasel]

a recording friend of mine owns a roland vm3100 mixer and that thing is awesome for the price. sadly it has been discontinued and i cannot find any similar products (by any company). i'd like to get a used one of these if I cannot find anything else, but why was it discontinued and do I have any alternate choices that are reasonably priced?

 

[solarweasel]

oops i jsut realize dthis is probably the wrong forum for this... o well, any help is still very much appreciated

 

[Twitch]

The reason why it was discontinued was it had many flaws:

pros
Compact.
Low cost.
Flexible signal routing.
Good built-in effects.
cons
Restricted use of digital inputs.
Roland-specific digital buss format.
Digital mastering to 16-bit devices results in bit truncation and consequent loss of quality in masters.
summary
The second digital mixer available for under a grand. Neat and flexible, the VM3100 Pro packs a lot of facilities into its diminutive frame, with surprisingly good-quality effects and processing. However, technical restrictions with the digital inputs limit its usability slightly, and the current lack of dither options on the digital output rather preclude its use for digital mastering to 16-bit recorders.
the bottom line is that although rather flawed in its intended role as the hub of a small digital studio, the VM3100 still represents reasonable value for money. If you consider the mixer as a simple, flexible and well-specified analogue console (analogue in and out, that is), but with good built-in effects and processing, MIDI control and 32 snapshot memories, it remains an attractive proposition for a great many potential users.

This was taken from http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/jul....htm?session=149734aca3a9ae7dbf8443e22ab20657

You can check out the tascam D1000 that is not discontinued to my knowledge (although I could be wrong) you can still find the roland VM3100 on ebay I've seen it there quite often and you can SURELY find the Tascam TD1000 for certain (probably like 5 of them) here are some links:
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=3735908621&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=3735770463&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=3735732824&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=3735655979&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=3736191949&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=3736400368&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=3736138119&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=3735939161&rd=1
http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewItem&category=23785&item=3735617002&rd=1

You get my point the list goes on , you should have no problem finding any of these mixers on ebay
Peace
~T~