ROLAND VS 1880

[pisces7378]

I am in the market for a Multi-trak recorder and have decided to go digital despite the huge price diffrence. I have a good job, a huge passion for music,and few brains. Anyway, I am at work in Munich Germany and as it turns out one of my co-workers is an EXCELLENT home-recorder. He let (forced) me to listen to his Mini Disc of his recordings and they were clean and sounded as good if not better than something recorded for Virgin Records. He said that he used his ROLAND VS 1880 multi tracker and his ROLAND MC-307 Groovebox. Now I don't know what the hell a Groove box is except that he showed it to me and it is has a million flashing buttons and it looked complicated as hell. I am sure the Multi-tracker is just 10 X more complicated. But I have to dive in sometime, and I don't want to buy some, "test the waters" $400 thing only to want to smash it when I find I only have enough tracks to record a mouse fart.
- I want a built in down mixer, I know that.
I don't want to have to borrow my neighbors homestereo
tape deck to do my down mixes anymore. And I don't want
to have to buy a DAT or a Mini-Disc Recorder either. I
want to Record and with the SAME recorder go straight to
CD or Mini Disc.
- I want CD burning capabilities.
- I want unlimited (more or less unlimited) editing
capabilities.
- I want BUILT in effects. (a million of them)
- I want to also be able to add my own effects from outside
the machine.
- I want ZERO bias noise.
- I also want to be able to maybe work in a little computer
work (ONLY A LITTLE) later on down the line.
- I want to be able to record prefabricated drum patterns b
but also have a good machine for recording live drums.

What my situation is, is that I am in Germany for a while and am EXTREMELY intrested in recording electronic based music. BUT, I will return to my rock band in America in a year or so. I want something that will be ideal for both settings. Is the ROLAND VS 1880 worth the money or is their a better deal. Where is a good place to buy gear? Is anyone in or ever been in my internation situation? What advice in general? Thanks to all.
Mike

P.S. This is the best website on the internet. I still can't believe how helpful and friendly everyone is here.

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo 7378 of Pisces:

You should check out the Roland site on this site to gain some insight to your insightful questions.

Also, Roland just came out with the VS890; 24 bit sound and you can buy the CD package with it.

See Muscian's Friend for the ad, latest issue or get them on line and check out the product or go to the Roland site for some information on the 890.

I use the Yamaha MD-8 but am looking for that 24 bit sound footprint. I have a Lexicon Fx box [reverb box] and it does its thing in 24 bit and I like it.

Get in there and support the economy.

Green Hornet

 

[flier]

Mike,

If I were you I would not bother with the Roland at this point. Their competition is far better than they are. For one thing, it records its audio in compressed format and you can definitely hear the compression. For another, you have to add a couple of expansion boards to get the built in effects and by the time you do that, you might as well get a Yamaha AW4416 which is about a thousand times better in every respect.

Do check it out, at http://www.aw4416.com

For an even cheaper unit which also sounds terrific although it lacks some of the features of the Yamaha, try the Akai DSP-16. You can see it on Akai's web page at http://www.akaipro.com .

I'm going with the Yamaha myself!

As for working with a computer, the built in editing on these machines is quite powerful and easy to use, so for most applications you'll be happy enough with that. Not sure about the Akai, but on the Yamaha you can get ADAT lightpipe expansion cards and hook them up to a computer. If you're using Yamaha DSP Factory software, you can fully integrate computer based waveform editing and sequencing with your AW4416.

Also you can get the Yamaha with a CD-RW already built in and master to it directly, as well as back up data to CDR. Street price for the Yamaha with CDR is about $3300 US, for the Akai I believe it's $2000, no CDR.


--Lee

 

[The Green Hornet]

Yo Newbie Flier of the Golden Fleece:

Think you should check the Roland specs; their boxes DO NOT COMPRESS THE SIGNAL.

Now, the MD-8 which I use, does compress.

The New Yamaha 44 whatever, looks as though you will be reading the manual six weeks before you record.

I think by this time, Roland may be getting their act together; however, I have not read any stuff about the VS890 yet. It sure looks cool though and so the the 44 Yam. However, looks can be deceiving.

Green Hornet