RE: sp808, VP9000, and system design

["Jonathan El-Bizri" <jelbizri@tellme.com>]

Title: sp808, VP9000, and system design

Ok, I've spent a couple of days with the VP9000 and I'm thoroughly unimpressed. Basicly, it's a sampler combined with recycle, and obviously designed for people with >masses< of money to spend, but mysteriously, no access to computers and software solutions.

 

As far as the actual functions you can perform, it's rather limited - pitch and time compansion doesn't get very extreme, and isn't anything you couldn't get from software tools 1/10 of the price. The quality of the sound isn't amazing; no better than you can get with the better software tools, such as Protools or Prosoniq Time Factory.

 

It's better than Acid at pitched instruments and does have this neat function called 'groove', which alters the timing of rhythmic samples from triplets to 2/4 time. It's pretty transparent, but nothing you couldn't do with other tools, if you >ever< needed to.

 

The sound also has that 'tubby' roland feel to it, and voices warble and artifact easily, but not enough to be interesting; no different from any other kind of shifting gets..

 

It might not be too bad as a live 'rhythm' sample player, but I'd be much happier triggering midi instruments from a laptop or doing all the time shifting before I got on stage, if I had to loop, and using a regular sampler at 1/2 the price for a lot more toy. It's not designed for live playing; no tap tempo, sampling and encoding take time and the UI isn't laid out for quick buttoning. The box is a overpriced dog.

 

<rant mode off>

 

bIz

 

-----Original Message-----
From: pvallad1 [mailto:pvallad1@tampabay.rr.com]
Sent: Thursday, July 06, 2000 6:34 PM
To: Loopers-Delight@annihilist.com
Subject: Re: sp808, VP9000, and system design

 

Given Roland's track record, the sort of technology found in the VP9000 will probably appear in future Roland/BOSS products at far lower prices.  Probably with far less control allowed to the user as well, but you get what you pay for. :)

 

I have no problem with keyboards like the Triton.  It's still up to the craftsman to make his art, not his/her tools.  I mean, there are people out there doing crazy things like ripping open Speak N Spells and bending their circuits to transform them into new musical instruments.

 

Paolo

   How bout the VP9000, Roland's new phrase sampler/time-pitch-groove-formant shifter?  Super-pricey, but perhaps kind of unique and novel.  Aren't we all sick of the current mainstream designs with the heavy emphasis on specialized application for timely, trendy styles of music.  I like dance music and so on a LOT, but love open-endedness and cultural innovation much more.  It was these kinds of flexible designs that gave rise to the interesting shift towards electronic-experimental-cerebral-yet-physical music culture.  But the companies seem to want to let marketing decide on design, like so much of our culture, and they really are selling out the future in favor of the present.  I'm excited about my Nord Modular on its way, for these reasons.
   People also seem to criticize the all-purposeness of things like the Triton or JV-2080, and so forth, but the expense of the VP-9000 makes me wish it were more generally useful.