Roland VS840

[mingus2112]

I have a chance at buying a Roland VS840 from a friend (he's selling it to recoup some of the cost for his AWESOME new MOTU Ultralite. . .HIGHLY reccomend that thing by the way!!)

Anyhow, if you've read some of my posts in the last few months, i'm looking for an easy mobile recording rig. This thing may have the easy down, but i'm fearing it will sound like ass. Am I right? I'm using a MOTU 828 mkI right now 24bit @ 44.1k. The VS840, i BELIEVE, is 16bit/44.1. That's the first strike. . .Second strike is that i'm sure that the pres suck. I don't think there's a digital IN (that would be nice to hook the behringer AD8000 into).

What it has going for it is that it's VERY portable and it has ADAT OUT. I can hook it into the 828 to dump projects out to for mixdown, etc. I was thinking about picking up an SM Pro Audio PR8 and using that as an 8 channel preamp for it.

Assuming this would be cheaper than one could find a VS840 for on ebay, would this be worth investing a tiny bit of money into? Or should I just help him sell it on ebay and leave it at that? I'm thinking that $150 or so for a unit like this would be a small enough investment that I could upgrade later without feeling guilty. The live gigs I record are usually school concerts, music school recitals and things like that. . .so i'm not sure i'll even notice the fidelity loss.

What does everyone think? Anyone have one of these?

-James

[;ivlunsdystf]

I used one for about four years while I was in school - I think the mixer part is 24 bit - but the AD and DA conversion are 20 bit (according to the manual) - the pres are legendary for being bad, but they are usable - if you use an external pre there is no balanced input,

but it's pretty decent for what it does. The editing, while not as easy as Cubase and such, is pretty user-friendly. I never used the ADAT out. The effects are pretty good for one-size-fits-all effects.

If you have a fairly powerful PC you'd do better to skip the Roland gizmo altogether and instead use the PC with a small USB or firewire type soundcard (that's if you are only taking in two tracks at a time)

The Zip discs are pretty limiting and the drive makes a characteristic chirping/squealing sound at all times (which can be heard in the background on the song that autoplays over at my myspace site)

The optical and coax digi outs are handy for mass dumping, although sync-sensitive dumping could require MIDI sinc, not a huge deal if you're set up to run a simple MIDI clock deal...

No digital input ...

Anyway, if you aren't going to take the PC route and you want the VS 840 for mobile stuff, I'd say you should offer the guy about $125 for it - that would be a fair price.

I keep mine around and never use it anymore (maybe I should sell it, now that I think about it) When I got it in spring 1998 I thought it was the be all, end all coolest device ever. I had a lot of fun and committed many atrocities with it before moving along to PC/soundcard recording.

[thearnicasync]

I had one of these some years ago, and I'd totally pick another up for $150. Yeah, the converters kind of suck, but go figure the thing doesn't sound that bad! It never broke. I never had to restart it. It doesn't need drivers. Eight tracks with bouncing facilities. You're killing me. If it's in good shape, that's a great deal, no matter what they're currently going for. Fun, easy little boxes. That's what music should be all about.

I think they're 20 bit, but they have to compress somehow...the stock one came with 100mb zip capability.

Fun. And they can sit in the living room.

[apropos of nothing]

Don't have any experience with the 840. I have a 1880 that I like and use a lot. It has its failings, fershure, but they're failings I can live with.

Good thread here:
http://messageboard.tapeop.com/viewtopic.php?t=31219&

[wardshorsehead]

i used to have a vs-1680...

it was ok.

keep in mind, that it doesn't have an 8 channel adat out, but a stereo optical out. it looks the same (toslink) but it only carries two channels.

the biggest drag about those roland boxes, aside from the newest ones, is that roland used there own proprietary data compression scheme, and the only way to move audio in or out was via the analog or digital outs in real time.

i spent a few weeks sending stuff out of my 1680 before i sold it. pita.

but for a portable deal, it wouldn't be 1/2 bad. and at $150, if it meets your needs otherwise, i'd say even a good deal.

just don't count on moveing audio out of it at more than 2 tracks at a time digitally, and in real-time.

frank

[mingus2112]

Thanks for the info guys. . .it's probably not for me though. . .i mean. . .I'm usually using 3 or 4 mics for these live gigs (a stereo pair and a couple "spot mics" on certain instruments). i'd want to run all of them out individually. not only that, but i bet a 2 hour concert would never fit on one disk!

guess i'm back looking for an adat and tiny rack mixer!

-James

[orbb]

If you want all the ins and outs, check out www.vsplanet.com and go to the message boards. It is all things Roland, but it is not a Roland site.

[ampguy]

i've had one for about 5 years, don't use it anymore, but with the zip drive it was pretty useless, it just didn't have enough storage, until I did the hard drive upgrade.

I removed the zip, and upgraded from the original to I think GX firmware which has mic sim and other fx, and allows a 2.5" hard drive to go there for 2gb of storage, this finally lets you have decent record times.

on the 840, it's always compressed, though one notch up MT1 i believe sounds OK, mine has 20-bit AD converters, not great, and no digital in, but a digital out.