A Few Important Tips

"Persistent people begin their success where others end in failure." ”author Edgar Eggleston

Before we dive headfirst into putting the VS to use, there are few key concepts, features, and functions that are important to understand. In fact, I think they are important enough that I've grouped them all together in one spot.

Re-Initializing the Hard Drive

The internal hard drive on the VS is divided into multiple partitions. The partitions are named IDE0, IDE1, IDE2, and so on. When you execute the Drive Init function to re-initialize your hard drive, the display allows you to select which partition you want to re-initialize. The problem is that the re-initialization process works on the entire drive, not just on a single partition. In other words, it doesn't matter which partition you select, the entire drive will be re- initialized . All data will be erased, and this process cannot be undone with the UNDO button.

Splitting and Merging Songs

The VS-880/890 workstations do not have any function to split one song into multiple songs. For example, let's say you are recording a live performance. You create a song on the VS and hit record, the band plays 10 songs, and then you hit Stop. You now have one long song on the VS. Unfortunately, there isn't an easy way to split this one long song into 10 songs. The only way to accomplish this within the VS would be to make a copy of the long song and delete everything except the first song the band played. Now you'll have to make another copy of the long song and delete everything except the second song the band played . Tedious work, but it can be done.

Also, these workstations do not have the ability to merge songs or tracks from different songs together. If you want to do this, you'll need to play the tracks of one song out to an external storage medium (like a DAT or stand-alone audio CD burner ) and then record them back into the other song.

Transferring Individual Tracks to a Computer

Is it possible to transfer individual tracks from the VS to a computer? Yes. Is it easy to do? No. These VS workstations don't have any easy way to export .WAV files. The VSR-880 can transfer eight tracks at a time via R-BUS, but you'll need the appropriate PCI card installed on the computer and the appropriate cable. For all other workstations in the VS-880/890 series, it's a bit more complicated. We'll explore some of the ways to do this a bit later, but they require either a bunch of extra work or a combination of external SCSI devices and a SCSI card on the computer. Believe me, once you understand how to mix on the VS, you'll probably find it much simpler to do all your work within the VS.

Backups Are in a Proprietary Format

It's been asked and answered to death: You cannot extract .WAV files from a Roland backup. The backup file is in a proprietary format, and it includes all your audio as well as all the pointer files and other information necessary in a non-destructive, pointer-based recording system. Spend your time recording instead of trying to figure out how to get .WAV files extracted from a backup CD.

Save, Save, Save

Get in the habit of saving after every important operation. Hold SHIFT and press the ZERO transport button. You should be so used to doing this that you could do it with your eyes closed. On second thought, keep at least one eye open when saving, just to make sure you did it correctly.

Rome Wasn't Built in a Day

Learning how to use these workstations takes time, practice, and patience. These workstations may look simple, but there are a lot of powerful features and functions inside. Some of these things may be easy to grasp and understand; others may be more difficult. Sometimes the best way to learn how and when to use these features and functions is to just do it. If you're in a "just do it" mood, be sure to work on a test song or a copy of a song. In fact, if you're new to the VS series, I'd suggest you create a test song and practice the basics of recording, bouncing, and mixing.