Roland Virtual Studio 880 or 890

[wolfpack]

Are these older Roland Virtual Studios good for anything more that being used as a mixer ?
What are they worth ?
Tiny screen, no usb, no built-in CDR

[Greggy]

I've owned the VS 1880 and now own the 2400CD. They are very good bang for the buck machines. If you develop the ability to effectively record, the machine will not hold you back from making outstanding mixes. Have you tried the VSPlanet website? Lots of users there.

[jlummaa]

I used my VS-880 Expanded for 6 years (sold it 4 years ago for 350 € if i remember right). I don't think they are worth much these days but are still probably usable where the number of tracks and the sound quality (VS-880 is using data compression of some sort) is not critical. However the recording quality is okay with the better multitracking mode (i think it was called MT1). The mic preamps are not the best ones. If you have an extra mixer with (real) mic preamps, connect your mics there and then input your signal as line level to VS.

It never crashed and i even updated the software a couple of times. Never had any trouble with it actually. At the same time of course it could be too limited for some purposes. Two FX from the internal FX card (=Expanded) at the same time could be used and two external FX hooked up via aux sends (2) and the inputs (4). Liked quite a lot of the guitar amp sims and still think they sound good when i listen to some songs i made. Other FX was the same basic stuff as many others

I had a lot of fun with mine after i learned to use it. I used many "advanced" functions like mixing automation, track editing and syncronizing to external devices for the first time with my VS. I used external SCSI hard drive to make backups (the files system is PC compatible). Made many quite okay recordings with it as my own skills developed. The weak point was certainly the user not the machine.