Internal Effects

All VS workstations have the ability to use a wide variety of internal effects. These effects are contained on a Roland Effect Expansion Board. These effect boards contain two internal stereo effects processors. Each stereo effects processor can also be used as two mono effects processors.

The first version of these effect boards was the VS8F-1. This effect board can only be used in a VS-880. All other VS workstations use the VS8F-2 effect board, shown in Figure 2.5. Both the VS8F-1 and VS8F-2 include a wide variety of effects, including reverbs , delays, choruses, flangers, phasers , filters, compressors, limiters, gates, and Roland's COSM (Composite Object Sound Modeling) modeling effects. The 16-bit VS8F-1 effect board provides 200 effect presets and the ability to save 100 user-customized effects. The 24-bit VS8F-2 effect board can hold up to 250 effect presets and 200 user -customized effects. The VS8F-2 also includes Roland's MTK (Mastering Tool Kit) effects, which provide mastering effects such as multi- band expansion and compression.

Figure 2.5. The VS8F-2 Effect Expansion Board

Some of the first VS workstations that were produced, such as the VS-880 and VS-1680, were shipped without any effect boards installed. More recently, VS workstations were shipped with one effect board pre-installed by Roland. Table 2.1 lists the effect processor configurations for each VS workstation.

Table 2.1. Stereo Effect Processor Configuration

VS Workstation	Onboard Stereo Effect Processors	Optional Stereo Effect Processors
VS-880		2 [*]
VS-880EX	2 [**]
VS-890	2 [**]
VSR-880		2
VS-1680		4
VS-1880		4
VS-1824CD	2	2
VS-2000CD	2	2
VS-2400CD	2	2
VS-2480CD	2	6

^[*] The VS-880 can only use the VS8F-1 effect board.

^[**] The VS-880EX and VS-890 have one VS8F-2 effect board permanently installed.

In 2004, Roland introduced the VS8F-3 Plug-In Effect Expansion Board. This new effect board, which is compatible with all VS-1xxx and VS-2xxx workstations, uses 56-bit internal processing and works with sample rates up to 96kHz. Roland opened up its architecture with this new effect board, allowing various third-party vendors to write VS plug-in software. The VS8F-3 card comes bundled with five plug-in effects from Roland, including Stereo Reverb, Tempo Mapping, Pre-Amp Modeling, Vocal Channel Strip, and an enhanced version of the Mastering Tool Kit. Plug-ins from various third-party vendors , such as Antares, IK Multimedia, Universal Audio, and Massenburg DesignWorks, are now available.