Foreword

It's a great time to be a musician. The Internet has opened up new and exciting ways to market all kinds of music. You no longer have to be signed to a "major label" to have some good options for letting people hear your music and even for selling your songs.

But more importantly, very high-quality tools for recording, mixing and mastering all of this music have become incredibly affordable. It really wasn't that long ago that it could easily cost $10,000 per song to get professional recordings of a band . And when you were in the studio, the pressure was on... not exactly the easiest atmosphere for artistic exploration. Today you can spend a fraction of that and have what you need to make high-quality recordings of as many songs as your creativity and time will allow!

The VS recorder series was one of the first, and it was certainly the most successful, pioneers of this new wave of affordable, high quality workstations. With hundreds of thousands of units sold, the VS series is arguably one of the primary forces in giving musicians a way to take their music as far as they can. From award-winning records done all or in part on a VS, to (no doubt sometimes great, sometimes painful) family Christmas CDs, the VS series has been used by many musicians and artists to bring their creativity to fruition.

All along its path of development, much thought and many engineering resources have been brought to bear for the VS, so that it could have new and innovative ways to help this creative process. The VS-880, in its seminal form, had many brand new, ground-breaking features designed to help musicians make better-sounding music. A great example of Roland's innovation for the 880 is virtual tracks. Although the VS-880 only had 8 primary playback tracks, the addition of Virtual Tracks greatly expanded the choices that songwriters had at their disposal. In traditional studios , many tracks were often used to record multiple takes of an important lead vocal or guitar solo. Using Virtual Tracks, VS users could also have access to many different choices in their search for the "best of the best" takes, but in an affordable format. Who knew whether the guitarist was a "one beer" or "three beer" player? Instead of throwing away early takes, part or all of which might turn out to be the best ones for the song, the VS owner could store them all on Virtual Tracks, and then later decide what to use, with lots of choices. This was impossible to do with traditional 8 or even higher count tape-based recorders . Virtual Tracks greatly increased the VS-880 owner's ability to experiment.

Another enabling benefit of Virtual Tracks was storage of the sources for bounced tracks. How often did even large studios bounce their drum parts to free up tracks only to find out later that the snare level wasn't quite right once they began mixing the whole song? With the VS's Virtual Tracks, the original tracks could be recalled and re-bounced easily; and the song's mix would end up much better for it. Or guitarists could store their "dry" guitar part on a V Track in case during mixdown it became evident that a different processed sound would be better for the song.

The VS studio was also designed to include lots of effects processing. The idea behind this was that implementing effects, especially for the less technical musician, was one of the more difficult parts of the recording and mixing process. Not only were external effects processors expensive, but they were also fraught with potential difficulties, including possible ground-hums, and cabling and routing problems. In addition, the VS development team knew that many VS users were musicians who only had a limited amount of time to spend making their music. If the VS could instantly recreate the last state of their song, including the effects, this would greatly increase the amount of time available to users for actually "making music," as opposed to tracking down the processor that had been moved to the closet, to say nothing of hunting down the cables.

The Scenes feature is another tool that the VS development team spent a lot of resources developing. Another industry "first" for the VS series, Scenes are probably one of the most useful features of the VS series. They are a great learning tool, and are great for enhancing your creativity. How many times have musicians and producers , sitting at a traditional console, given up on what might have been a great direction for a song, because they didn't dare risk losing their current mixer settings? Scenes, at a touch of one button, by storing all of the mixer, FX, and Virtual Tracks settings, allow musicians and producers to quickly and easily try many different ideas. From a new approach to vocal FX, to differing amounts of drum processing, to comparing song arrangements, Scenes make it very easy to store and compare mixing and processing approaches. What a great way to learn! Not sure about how much reverb to use on the snare? Do several mixes with varying amounts, store the new versions as Scenes, and then compare them quickly and easily. Scenes are also useful for improving your bounces . If that drum submix isn't right, recall the stored scene from the bouncing process, push the snare level up a bit and hit record. Another Scene button press will put the newly bounced track right where it needs to be, so you can immediately continue the mixing process.

Roland also pioneered 999 levels of undo stored with the song. This "no fault" capability of the VS-880 was a real anxiety remover! Users could try different versions of their song, maybe by doubling the chorus or shortening the intro, without fear of erasing or destroying any tracks. More than any feature, the stored Undos helped VS owners proceed with abandon, trying anything they could imagine, knowing that they wouldn't ever cause any permanent damage to their tracks. This is a very enabling feature of the VS!

Virtual tracks, built-in FX, Scenes: All of these powerful features were developed for the first time by Roland for the VS series. This is an incredible legacy. The VS series was also the first affordable digital workstation to have a built-in CD burner , Mastering Tools, VGA output, mouse-based graphical editing, and a well-supported third-party plug-in program. This plug-in program is very important for the VS series, supports even the legacy VS products back to the VS-1680, and bring to VS owners the rich resources of third party processing algorithms from Antares Auto-tune to Universal Audio's vintage dynamics processors to IK Multimedia's T-RackS vintage mastering suite.

The book you hold in your hands can aid you in opening the doors to your VS workstation's great features. It can help you find, and encourage you to explore, the many diverse VS features that have been designed to enhance your music-making experience. The VS series offers many different ways to process, edit, automate, mix and master your music. The better you understand all of your VS's features, the more options you will have to experiment with, and the more tools you'll have on hand to help you to improve the sound and quality of your music. Read, enjoy, and experiment with your VS. Only the sky and your creativity are the limits!

Tom Stephenson

Manager of Recording and Mixing Technology

Roland