The Steel Guitar Forum

Looks like a SCSI based 250Mb ZIP drive should be a cheap solution, anybody got experience with what works and what doesn't?
I don't have the CD burner yet, I think it's around 600 bucks... I'm still recovering from the purchase price.

Cool machine BTW....

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bterry.home.netcom.com

<FONT SIZE=1 COLOR="#8e236b"><p align=CENTER>[This message was edited by Bill Terry on 26 November 2000 at 10:02 PM.]</p></FONT>

I also just got one of these amazing machines...your options for back up, besides CD-RW, will be utilizing the SCSI port. A ZIP will work, as will an ORB (2.2GB). Something else you may consider is to upgrade the hard drive, at some point. They are the same drives found in laptop computers. You can verify the model with Roland. Mine has a 13GB drive onboard. If you haven't already got the Video Owner's Manual, I recommend this purchase for accelerating your learning with the 1680.
Take care, Howard

Hi Bill,
good luck with your new machine....but take care, I am pretty sure that the only CD burner that works with it is Roland's OEM one, and the price reflects this.

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Basil Henriques
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and
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Bill, check your email. I'm curious about how you like the Roland.

Thanks for the advice guys.... Hard to believe the audio quality of this guy for the amount of money.

If you haven't already found it, I found a website that has quite a bit of info on the Roland VS products:

www.vsplanet.com

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bterry.home.netcom.com

Bill, the Zip will work on it, but you'll probably only get 2 songs/disk on it as most tunes are around 100+ Megs each. I'm using a DAT machine for backup but the ideal is the Roland burner. It's actually made by Plextor and you can buy the Plextor cheaper than the Roland. I'll give you a link to the VS Planet site, it's a forum like this one devoted to Roland VS owners.
http://www.vsplanet.com/cgi-bin/ubb/forumdisplay.cgi?action=topics&forum=VS-1680+Group&number=1&DaysPrune=5&LastLogin=

Thanks John, I had just found the site you mentioned. Looks like the Plextor is the way to go.

Meanwhile, I have a Sony DAT recorder with digital I/O, but I had ruled that out based on how slow it would seem to be. Not so???? That would also be a stereo backup right? How 'bout backing up the multitrack data? Can I do that to DAT?

Thanks for the info....

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bterry.home.netcom.com

I'm pretty sure that my old VS-880 will make multitrack backups to DAT, although I've never tried it. I do have a DAT machine, but I also have the CD burner. IMO the CD burner is the only way to go if you want to back up more than a couple songs at a time.

You're going to want to have one real soon anyway.

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Rick Richtmyer
Good News

I have been considering a Roland unit also. There is a current post by Steve Stallings about live drums vs. drum machine. My specific concern about the Roland is that it has only two balanced inputs. I plan on recording drums live with my son (great drummer), so I can see the need for 5-6 lowZ inputs. How do you deal with this? Sorry, this ia a little off subject, but Bill started it.

Chris, I think that the 1/4 inputs are tip/ring/sleeve and can be used as balanced Lo-Z with the correct adapter. I'm still wading through the manuals, but I think that's what I read.

Call me, I'll core dump all the research I did before I bought this thing.

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bterry.home.netcom.com

Ok Folks, Do Not repeat DO NOT rely on the DAT back up procedure to back up VS material. While that does get your stuff of the machine, there is a possibility it won't come back. I had problems with that and got a guy I know at Roland who said that is not the best backup system going, and it's not if but when you will lose data and not be able to retrieve it.

I've gone to Zip disks-I use the Roland for vocals and guitars, and the Layla rig for everthing else and synch them together. But the files are large. Eventually even one song won't fit on a zip and you'll have to archive them and bring them back to the machine every time off the zip-but at least it will always come back.

John

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Fulawka D-10 9&5
Better Late than Never!
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The $600 price for the Roland burner is a ripoff - I can get (got) the same stand alond for half the price (6 months ago). I know that you can head out of the Rolands using SCSI. Why can't you use a SCSI burner for backing up tracks and to transfer to a PC??

This is why I have avoided buying an 1880. Seems to lock you out of the PC world from what I can tell. I am going with the Roland ED U-8 for now. Hooks up to my (otherwise wasted)powerful PC with a burner using USB interface.

The problem is that it is 16 bit and 8 track. But at $500 it allows me to bide my time and use cakewalk, BIAB, and the built in burner ($250) of a laptop.

Am I missing something about the SCSI interface of the VS Rolands, or are they doing us dirt with their pricing. Standards are standards and they are doing something to keep their margins double what they should be.

A burner is a burner is a burner as long as you stay within standards. Let us use our existing burners (I now have 3 and hate to buy a fourth at double the value due to some tweek bit Roland engineers have thrown in to increase profits.)

Otherwise I would buy a 1880 with 24 bits, etc. Thoughts???

John

John, I agree with your thoughts about the Roland CD burner, but I understand that several models of the Plextor burners are compatible. Check out the users group mentioned above: www.vsplanet.com

I thought the incompatibility of trasferring backups to the PC from a backed up CD is because of a proprietary formatting of the data storage, not necessarily a hardware interface issue? Am I missing something?

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bterry.home.netcom.com

I use a SCSI Zip drive with my VS-880. It works fine, but the capacity is sort of small. I've found it best to just have one song per cartridge.

Also, you can record directly to the Zip cartridge, if you're only doing one or two tracks at a time. It sounds like it's torturing the cartridge, but I haven't had one fail on me yet.

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<small><img align=right src="http://b0b.com/b0b.gif" width="64" height="64">Bobby Lee - email: quasar@b0b.com - gigs - CDs
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