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Oh dear, the Roland and the VP gets a royal roasting on this message board whilst the pro audio mag reviews both at http://www.sospubs.co.uk/sos/jun00/articles/rolandvp9000.htm and at http://emusician.com/ar/emusic_roland_vp/ have a different sentiment and are consistent in their conclusions. These guys own studios and test equipment more often than you guys mess up programing your video (VCR to americans) so their opinions hold more weight than what I read here.
I picked this machine up a week ago for a mere £370 or $500 in your american currency thanks to it's chronic depreciation which is thanks to you guys here. Major ommision for me is the lack of filters which is very bad news for a "sampler". How pretentious is "Variphrase Processor"? It's a sampler OK and we all know it. It cost an arm and a leg and you didn't get all of standard sampler features to it's not a total sampler solution. You usully see it lined up next to other samplers in studios because of it's weak areas.
I spend my working day infront of a computer so I don't want to do the same when I toy with my music. I like hardware....it's got flashing lights and it might actually have a resale value unlike software. This sampler can't be beaten for productivity. My days of spending hours crafting a multisampled sound are over. Just load in one sample and you've at least got an octave in both directions which sounds as good as a multisample. Newsflash: This means you can actually spend time making music and not 80% making your one octave of your multisample sound like it's supposed to be the same instrument as the other octave. With my old (but loved) Ensoniq ASR-X, I could only use a sample for a few semitones in either direction at most. Just imagine the time involved with that....looping, normalising etc for 61 keys worth. After creating a multisample like that, you've had enough of your sampler before you;d made any music with it.
Would have been a nice tough to be able to install JV ROM sound boards into it but I guess it's not a module. The screen is nice. Wished Roland would have updated and added feature with OS updates. Long sample lengths limited by RAM for non-encoded sounds should have been implemented. Oh did I mention that realtime pitch/formant/time controls are great creative tools.
Anyway, I'm still getting to know my new machine but I think it will really help me to be creative because I can work with it so fast.
I'll post back when I've got a few more months experience with it.
Am I the only one who likes this machine out there?
Alan
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