News for Roland V-Studio machines... VSR-880 (etc)

[clintrubber]

Hi,

Anyone still using Roland VS-studio stuff ?

(might as well address the single other VSR-880 user directly:
Hi NYD :wink: )

There's news on the get-stuff-from-Roland-VS-machine-to-PC front. I recall you spotting that Presonus box, but after a long hiatus (and my VSR-880 collecting dust) I recently visited the VS-Planet forums again to see what's new.

Guys there have been busy, there are a few 'new' ways now to get the Roland-encrypted song-data to a PC as wav-files or whatever. And at zero cost. Or for convenience put Reaper into the equation (there's a plugin that throws the songs directly into Reaper) and it's still only $40 then.
It's now much easier, no more two-tracks at a time by S/PDIF.

Just yell if interested, I'll post a few links.

Regards,

Peter

 

[NewYorkDave]

Hell yeah, I'm interested! I haven't used my VSR-880s lately and they're probably too old now to be worth selling, so let's hear it! :grin:

 

[clintrubber]

Hi,

The basic idea is simple, but as we recognize from over here, long threads may make it confusing :wink:

So far I've just tried getting stuff from Backup CDRWs (as written by the VSR-880 in its own format) into Reaper and then exported as wav-files (works brilliantly).

Next thing to try is to swap a SCSI-drive from VSR-880 to PC, but I haven't done so yet, no suited SCSI-HDD handy now.


OK, on to the links:

The thread, first post on page 1 contains all info:
http://www.vsplanet.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=022237;p=1

Someone was so kind to compile the various info:
http://www.marahaleymusic.com/collabs/rdac_to_wav.pdf

I barely looked at the rest of that 10-page thread. Some people seem to have had problems, but it works fine here so far (WinXP).

As said, must now try to get it working with a external SCSI-disk: this would enable me to record stuff on the external drive and just take that external disk home and transfer to PC.

I rather don't do this with the internal IDE, as I understood it's less suited for frequent re-connecting.

Might even work with Zip100 but well, ... 100MB...

Enjoy !

Peter

 

[clintrubber]

Zip100 works as well for me I found, so making that a larger HDD can make it even easier:
- record rehearsal or simple demo with band on internal IDE-drive of the Roland,
- copy song to external SCSI HDD,
- take that home,
- attach SCSI HDD to PC,
- simply copy files to PC (now no conversion of ripping needed as is the case when using Roland backup CDRs),
- open Reaper and the complete song appears on your screen, all tracks aligned... ready to go ! (or export as wav-files to use in another program).

Massive improvement over the previous transfer-method of 2 tracks at a (real-)time ! And if I understand it correctly it'll also be quicker than the Presonus-box route which is still real-time transfer.

It'd be cool if there's some SCSI-to-USB thingy that you plug onto the VSR-880 SCSI-port, then you could simply take a multitrack session home on a USB-stick of a few GB :thumb:

Please post if you got it running. It's really simple.

Bye,

Peter


BTW, nice co-operation of the people over there, not unlike how things can go over here. I think they did a very nice job, especially the guy who managed to do the R-DAC to WAV coding without any assistance from Roland.

[quote author="FunkyBeat"]"How the RDAC to WAV Convertor Came Into Existence"

This all started with randygo joining the planet just a few months ago, searching for a simple tool that could convert VS tracks to wavs for his newly acquired vs1680. He couldn't find one so he decided to create one. He then proceeded to spend over 100 hours trying to decifer RDAC for MT2... AND HE DID IT!!!

That started the spark and the fire was lit. Due to the sheer exhaustion of what all that hard tedius work put randygo through, he gave up on going any further... that's where danielo came into the picture. He jumps into the thread and kinda "kick starts" randygo to keep pushing ahead to tackle the other formats and offered to help him.

That was the push that randygo needed and from that point on, IT WAS ON!!!!

From there, a slew of threads were started for those two to communicate, experiment and document their progress. For me (and probably mostly everyone else reading) it was WAAAAAAAAY over my head. It really seemed like rocket science. The things these two were discussing read like chinese to me. Soon after those threads began, I tuned out because it was just way too confusing for me.

I believe many others did the same thing.

Then I learned that the only way this was gonna work was by using external drives like zips, etc... Backup cds were out of the question. Well, once again, I got disappointed and tuned out again because all I use is backup cds... but at that point, no one could figure out how to get a pc to recognize the data on one.

Then I came back later and saw that bear joined in and said it would not be difficult for him to write a program that would recognize and rip the RDAC files right off a backup cd.

THAT'S WHEN I REALLY GOT INTERESTED!!! Man, if he could pull that off... that would be the sweetest icing this cake would ever have! So I sat by the sidelines and just watched the threads in hope of bear being able to actually come through... AND HE DID!!! YAY!!!

Then my soul brother Hook put all the pieces together and did it from start to finish... and he posted about it in the 880 forum. I had to try this for myself so I followed Hook's post in the 880 forum... but I had a lot of problems getting it to work because Hook referenced other threads for further instructions instead of including it in his thread. And I felt like I had to search through too many confusing threads to find basic information I needed to make this work.

I did finally get it to work and I was so overjoyed. I couldn't believe it actually happened after all these years of planeteers clamoring about it here on the planet.

And the coolest thing about all this? The fact that it was a 100% grassroots effort.

ROLAND DID NOT ASSIST OR HELP IN ANY WAY. Matter of fact, they REFUSED our requests for this for years. I have read that they think this is a bad thing for their business. I guess their theory is that if they make us happy with our existing discontinued recorders, then we won't go out and buy their new recorders. I really never expected them to help us with this. I am just glad they didn't try to sue anyone over this. Anyway, enough about them... back to the story... LOL!

So what I did was compile all the hard work that randygo, bear and danielo did and place it all in one very nice "ONE STOP SHOP" thread complete with easy to follow instructions in layman's terms. I did that so that anyone with a desire to convert VS tracks to wavs could do so without searching for all the needed pieces to the puzzle. By the responses I've seen in this thread, I believe I have accomplished that.

So now this thread is serving as the end result of all the hard work these 3 planeteers have done. Cracking RDAC should be considered nothing short of GENIUS!!!

And I am not sure if everyone understands just how much work and genius went into the creation of all this. Not only was RDAC cracked, but the fact that REAPER can take the SONG FILE and assemble it perfectly is AMAZING!!! See, the information on a VS backup is all over the place... it's full of takes and files and yada yada yada... just cracking RDAC was only half the battle. Yeah, the information was cracked, but then how do we assemble it?

The good news is that randygo tackled that for us too.

Like I said before, I wonder how many out there truly understand how big this really is for the legacy VS owner.

And I agree. Some awards or something needs to be given out. I am truly humbled by the genius of randygo who was the spearhead of this entire project.[/quote]

 

[7string]

Thanks for pointing that out, Peter. I have a VS880EX collecting dust. This makes it a much more useable mobile device.

I've got my Reaper all paid up as well. Can't wait to try this.

Cheers,
Pat

 

[clintrubber]

[quote author="7string"]Thanks for pointing that out, Peter. I have a VS880EX collecting dust. This makes it a much more useable mobile device.

I've got my Reaper all paid up as well. Can't wait to try this.

Cheers,
Pat[/quote]
Nice, please post how it went. Indeed gives it a new life, my VSR-880 will see a lot more use now again.

Just getting the wavs would already been nice, but the whole stuff ready-to-go in Reaper makes it really cool.

Cheers,

Peter

 

[NewYorkDave]

I looked over the PDF. It's really phenomenal to see a grassroots project accomplish so much with zero support from the manufacturer.

Although the process seems a bit convoluted, it beats having to drop three bills for that Presonus box! This makes me glad that I didn't buy the box or get rid of my VSR-880s.

I've been happy with Cool Edit Pro (aka Audition), but I suppose I'll have to try Reaper at least for the extraction/conversion process.

 

[clintrubber]

[quote author="NewYorkDave"]Although the process seems a bit convoluted,[/quote]
Yes, the software setup was dead easy, but for actual transferring there still a few steps to make, of which preparing the data from which the stuff can be converted might be the most cumbersome (relatively speaking!). You'll have read about the .bat-file, once everything is prepared the complete procedure becomes quick and requires few user-actions.

Aiming for portability (getting your data home without taking back the machine itself), the CD-backup won't be the most suited.

Alternatively you could take the interbal 2.5" drive home, but this requires an adapter for connecting this IDE-disk to your PC and as I understood frequent connecting this HDD isn't recommended.

So that leaves us with getting an external SCSI-drive, on which the recording is made right away or to which the songs are copied when the recording is done. This is what I'll be doing; my DAW has already a suited SCSI-adapter PCI-card onboard (for hardware samplers) but if you need to get one, these are really cheap second hand.

it beats having to drop three bills for that Presonus box! This makes me glad that I didn't buy the box or get rid of my VSR-880s.

Yep, the RPC-1 card or the Presonus are cool, but I realized it's still all in real-time if I understood it correctly. IIRIC the Presonus-box goes for ~$220 on eBay now, but that's still more than the cost for Reaper and a SCSI-HDD.

I've been happy with Cool Edit Pro (aka Audition), but I suppose I'll have to try Reaper at least for the extraction/conversion process.

There's also the second possibility of using VS Wave Extract which doesn't involve Reaper at all but directly gives you wav-files. But I couldn't get it to work - so since the first method did the trick for me I stopped trying.

Dunno about that second method, but the great thing with the Reaper route is that when you have a song with some tracks from beginning to end, but in combination with a few overdubs they're all aligned well.
When you export wavs from Reaper you get wav-files all the same length, also for the overdub-tracks (empty space added).
This makes placement of wavs in another program (like the multitrack-page of Cool Edit/Audition) very easy, no tedious alignment by hand required anymore.

 

[clintrubber]

[quote author="kubi"]Too bad I sold my VSR880 some years ago, because it was such a hassle to copy the tracks to the PC. Now I feel a bit sorry.[/quote]
The moment that I saw stores were dumping the VSR-880 I wanted one.... 8-tracks at once, 24-bit, compact, yummy;
'modular stuff' as opposed to all-in-one workstation-like 'closed' systems that don't really allow you to keep using stuff as time goes on.

But I figure you might be able to pick one up again ?

 

[clintrubber]

The fun doesn't stop, this pic from VSPlanet will say it all:

(note it's just to show the idea; the actual displayed card-type won't work but others will)

 

[NewYorkDave]

oooh... :shock:

Don't just tease us with a picture, man! Link to the info :grin:

 

[clintrubber]

[quote author="NewYorkDave"]oooh... :shock:

Don't just tease us with a picture, man! Link to the info :grin:[/quote]
It's gonna cost you :wink:

But serious, I haven't read the full story there yet. As I understood there are 'flash-possibilities' for both the internal IDE-slot and the external SCSI-slot. And it's not surprising people are investigating flash for this application; combined with the 'Reaper-stuff' it'd make for a cool workflow: just go home with a complete multi-track-copy on a CF-card.

I'd be interested mostly in the latter (card connected to the external SCSI-slot), since my internal HDD seems to do fine so why change that... I'd rather not find out after an evening of recording that that flashy card instead of the internal HDD didn't work too well after all. If on the other hand the transfer from internal drive to SCSI-connected CF-card didn't go too well you always have the actual recording still available.

OK, first I need to read that 2-page thread in more detail.

Oh, the link, almost forgot :wink:

http://www.vsplanet.com/ubb/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=6;t=009525


Cheers,

Peter

 

[7string]

Thanks again, Peter. Another good fix. I might try the opamp swap too.

http://www.rolandvs2480.net/the-fix/Op-Amp-Mod.htm

It's nice to have a new interest in that old thing.

I had to keep telling myself just to consider it like an old obsolete computer.

 

[clintrubber]

[quote author="7string"]Thanks again, Peter. Another good fix.[/quote]
No thanks, I'm just the messenger, the various people at VSPlanet doing all the good work :thumb:

I might try the opamp swap too.

http://www.rolandvs2480.net/the-fix/Op-Amp-Mod.htm

Thanks for the link, I'll have a look what the situation is inside the VSR-880, no idea which opamps they used there.

It's nice to have a new interest in that old thing.

Sure ! Hope is works for you as well, tried it yet ?

Yesterday I dug up an old external SCSI HDD and while it wasn't on the 'confirmed' list it worked just fine: the VSR-880 formatted a 4.5GB Seagate in four 1GB partitions and I recorded directly to this drive. Then connected that drive to my PC on which it showed up as four separate drive letters. Dragged the song-data to PC, opened Reaper & done, wav-files on your PC in a matter of minutes. The process is now really simple & non-tedious.


W.r.t. the CF-use, I did a bit more reading at VSPlanet and saw a few messages that some people had hickups for some VS-types, probably caused by the CF being faster than the original media (might have been Zip for the '840? I forgot), causing unforseen timing issues.

Whatever exactly the story, it made me realize that the CF-replacement might certainly be fun to try some day, but at the moment I don't really have an urgent need to replace the internal 2.5" HDD; stuff just works now so why risking eventual spikes'n'stuff ?

So for now I'll just use the external SCSI-HDD as the take-along storage and be done with it - it's really great that after all these years with 'RDAC-incompability' a fast, cheap & simple method now exists, but in the end it's about doing some music I vaguely recall :wink:


Finding a way to use flash-cards or an USB-stick at the external SCSI-connector would still be cool though, taking along a flash-card or stick i.s.o. the external SCSI-HDD is more elegant.
And you have the original recording already saved on the internal drive, so eventual goofing with the flash-card is not killing.


Bye,

Peter

 

[clintrubber]

[quote author="clintrubber"]and be done with it [/quote]

OK, one more thing...

I'm after a compact recording setup with a minimum of setup-time,
so using the VSR-880 with say an ADA8000 would make for a 3HE 24-bit 8-tracker. When going for more deluxe results other micpre's can be used.

No idea which of the two has the better converters. Assuming the AKM-stuff of the Roland is the better of the two, then one thing I need to do is to make direct outs on the ADA8000, otherwise I'd be going from A to D, thru an optical cable back into the ADA8000, from D to A and then back again from A to D inside the Roland. (Yep, the DIF-AT(24) box would solve this, anyone knows one for cheap ?)

Need to check the back-panel of the ADA8000 to see if there's room for adding some multipin connector. Otherwise I'd need to use the existing outputs & skip the D to A part of that box.

 

[clintrubber]

Made a note for myself how to sync multiple VSR-880 units and posted that at VS-Planet. Might be of use for some people here as well...

It's here:
Syncing_Multiple_VSR880_Machines


I know NYD has two of these as well, but no, this isn't some trick to get him back again :wink: Hope he's making music or some new kitchen-recipe, nothing wrong with other smells than solder from time to time.

Cheers,

Peter