Managed to get this old beauty (visually ) for a bit of time and while the general gist of a "DAW before DAWs were a thing" is a bit interesting, I wonder if it's even possible to use as a DAW controller? As far as I understood the manual, MIDI out is pretty much limited to clocks. Still, maybe someone had some success...

Also need to do recording quality tests but that's before dealing with internal drive contents lol

 

The benchmark for 8-track digital studios

The VS-890 24-bit Digital Studio, with its crystal-clear 24-bit sound quality, fully meets the demands of even the most discerning audio professionals. This standalone, fully featured digital recording studio offers world-class 24-bit AD/DA converters, excellent CD mastering capabilities, professional built-in effects, and more. An optional CD burner is required. Please ask your Roland dealer for available models.

- 8-track digital studio workstation with built-in effects and CD mastering capabilities*
- 24-bit AD/DA converter and VSR recording mode for premium sound quality
- CD-RW mastering button and CD writing mode for fast CD burning*

Roland VS-890 Quickstart

 

I made commercially released albums for 15 years in a VS-2480. They really do have a great sound; Bob Katz mastered them and he agreed. I assume the 890 has the same preamps...

 

Read up the MIDI implementation charts in the Manual Appendices, page 81 onwards.

Looks like quite a full implementation to me, but this being Roland, some of it is straight from Mars. Why does it send "Level Meter Values" as poly aftertouch? This shit is not for mere mortals like us.

 

I suspect trying to use this unit as a DAW controller will be fraught with pain and sadness.

 

Do a bit of googling, others have crawled your path before you.

https://homerecording.com/bbs/threads/vs-880-as-control-surface.45048/

vs planet still has a forum for the 880 and its brethren (890 ect)

https://www.vsplanet.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=postlist&Board=6&page=1


https://www.vsplanet.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1309076

I have one (880) never used it much. I put and sd card in it to replace the hdd, and it worked fine.

I acquired a 1680 shortly afterwards,which has a much bigger display and faders, and so I learned that instead.

also here's some info on transferring tracks

https://homerecording.com/bbs/threads/roland-vs880-to-computer-track-by-track.429902/

if you use an sd card for recording- you can move the card to a pc and transfer the tracks that way.
They are not recorded as .wav files, they use a proprietary Roland compression codec, but there is a utility on the VS Planet site for converting them into wav files. Which can then be loaded into a daw etc.

Roland Vs-880 review on SOund on Sound

https://www.soundonsound.com/reviews/roland-vs880-0

and some use tips

https://www.soundonsound.com/techniques/roland-vs-series-masterclass

 

here's a video that might be helpful

 

Did it badly apparently lol because didn't find a lot about machine usage

Well, since I use PC and Reaper, I thought about using that Reaper plugin which can read those formats directly. Tbh I don't think that I'll get a chance to use both of those because I have this machine for a few days, week max and I definitely won't buy adapter just to use for a few days


Tbh thanks for all links, it definitely will be a good evening reading session LOL

 

Looking at its MIDI spec, it seems like most important controls, including transport buttons, will indeed send MIDI messages.
After updating your device, connect its MIDI out to your machine and watch what kind of MIDI messages you get on a MIDI monitor app when pushing knobs and moving faders. Sending this MIDI data might need to be enabled in settings.
Good luck!

 

They use MMC and MTC to sync with any other gear. MTC is obviously Midi Time Code, and MMC is Midi Machine Control. Midi Machine Control will send messages from the Transport out to other gear. It's not going to do much more than send start,stop, messages out. They have Optical in/out and Spdif coaxial (rca style connectors) in/out. If you had a bunch of other Roland grooveboxes, they are a decent way to work DAWless before putting stuff into the computer later. Editing is very rudimentary. The Effects from the (expensive!) cards sounded pretty decent.

Time Compression and expansion is slow af. (Timestretching for the rest of the world). Even though these machines were designed to be "portable" and in shock proof flight cases, their internal hard disks were another matter. They became problematic very easily, but in the worst way. Somewhere on the disk, problems may arise, but only after you have the disk filled with audio data up to the point with the problem. So you could end up with recordings that will only play part way through and then keep read failing no matter what you do, making that data very difficult to retrieve from the hard disk.

They had their day and this is no longer it. If you could somehow stick a nice ssd in one, I'd still only say "maybe".

If I remember correctly, the VS demands being the Master when connected digitally to any other digital device, for purposes of MMC and MTC sync. The Coax connection does not carry its own Timecode, but the Optical connections do. The CD-RW (or was it dv), that was an option for the vs2480 was also another source of issues for people. The (again, expensive optional) external cd-rw drive from the vs1680 was passable, but again slow as hell. Like 2x or 4x only. If you want to lose some music, there are not many more capable options available to you to this day.

 

Last edited: May 15, 2025

I was told that drive was replaced with 10 gb one but I'll open it tomorrow because, well, interesting to see what did they do there

 

the codec is pretty good at using space well, 10gb would net you 4 2gb partitions which I think is all the vs880/890 can handle. The later models could use more storage space but under 100gb

They are not terribly expensive on ebay, (around 100$ - think I paid 40$ for mine ( came with no hard drive) especially the 880/890 models. The 890 probably had the best quality lcd display with backlight. It should also have an FX card in it.

if you want something to fiddle with and understand how software DAWs came to be, the early roland machines are a great way to learn. It could also be used as a sampler. or a drum machine with the right loops.

make sure you follow the manuals protocol for shutting down the machine or you can lose a session by just powering off...

 

My conversion from hard disk to memory card for VS1880(is faster than 2.5 HDD, you can unload it on computer via sd card reader). Keep in mind that the VS organizes the hard disk in partitions and the software does not partition more than one x number of partitions even if the hard disk has 500gb(in my case SD card).

https://www.delock.com/produkt/91673/merkmale.html

 

I was at a local music store maybe 2 years ago and they had a used vs2480 with all 4 fx cards and cd-rw option in it. (or it was the model variation that had the writer as stock). $250. That writer is actually a negative, iirc. Had a few minutes nostalgia screwing around with it and haven't thought about it again until this thread. No thanks.

 

if it had the vs-f3 cards, thats quite a bargain. those cards with their plugins are probably worth more than the machine,(which was/is a quite good machine)

I have a 2400cd with motorized faders, 2 vsf-2 cards, vga output etc. Hope to start using it this fall when I reconfigure the home studio to get more surface area (aka desk space). They were nice machines. I never lost any data. I usually saved everthing to a scsi flash card reader, which is pretty fast compared to burning to cd, etc.

I like a tool that can limit my distractions, thats why my music computers don't have internet connections (among other reasons) - the only reason they have web browsers (firefox) is some software uses html help files, also its a handy pdf reader.

All told I have currently 4 different models of the vs workstations. I loved the 1680, but the control buttons stopped working and rather than repair it was simpler and easier to upgrage to an 1880 with ultra low mileage.
found out the 1880 was slightly different (not much though).

its really 3 different learning curves, but they are all based on the vs-880.
Vs-880, 880ex, 890,850 (all variants)
vs-1680,1880,1820,1824
vs-2000,2400,2480

the build quality is amazing, these machines are 20 to 25 years old and most are still going strong.Metal chassis with plastic shells over them. durable buttons and faders. well designed. I added an e-sata port to my 2400cd and moved the hard drive into an external dock so it can be accesses via esata or usb from a pc for quick file transfers. How many 25 year old machines still have hardware hacks?

 

The problem with the 2480 is that those faders die and they're pretty much impossible to replace these days.

 

I think there's a youtube video of a guy from Poland replacing his. There is an off the shelf motorized fader that has the same specs, its just unsoldering and resoldering, which for some people may be more expensive than they like. If you have soldering skills, its probably not so bad.

here's a guy swapping out the fader board.(usa)

and here's a guy that installed Alps 100mm faders into a 2400

(warning loud intro - don't wear headphones)

 

well I drilled down into the details, and it looks like adding the alps faders is a bit more than remove & replace. The board slots have to be cut longer, and an additional power supply needs to be added to power the beefier motors of the alps. (probably a few more details as well)

https://www.vsplanet.com/ubbthreads/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=1387885#Post1387885

 

There currently exists an alternative to noisy, failing SCSI drives. On any of the Roland VS digital audio recorders (VS-890, VSR-880, etc.), there are no true removable media, with the exception of an expensive and rare CD re-recordable drive.

Enter the ZuluSCSI Pico - bringing the VS into the 21st century.

The ZuluSCSI Pico is available for about $50USD. This tiny 25 pin SCSI Adapter uses micro SDHC cards to emulate up to 7 SCSI drives, depending on the capacity of the SD card (the Roland always uses SCSI ID number 8). It plugs directly into the SCSI port and can use buss or USB power.

The maximum partition available with the VS is about 1000mb. With the Pico, you simply create seven 1000mb partitions on a PC and formatted fat32 (NOT ntfs) The partitions do not have to be 1000MB, but that's the largest possible, so it seems best to go with this size.
After formating, the Roland "sees" the 7 partitions as 7 discreet SCSI drives @1000MB each.

Simple as that!

Any size SD card will do, but faster R/W speed cards are most desirable. Only approximately seven or so GB hard drives can be used by the Roland, so 8GB SD cards seems the best choice.

I successfully tried a 4GB SD card, and got three 1GB partitions, and a fourth 785MB.

The ZuluSCSI Pico can be used in any situation where a db25 pin SCSI connector is used. Some MACs are compatible with the ZuluSCSI Pico. It's my understanding that the Pico was originally designed for the MAC.

Most if not all Roland VS series digital recorders can utilize the ZuluSCSI Pico. Note that files created by the Pico are not readable by other Roland VS recorders, which is normal. Likewise, files will not appear if the SD card is attempted to be read by a PC - the drive(s) will show empty.

In conclusion, any device, not just VS, that uses SCSI drives can benefit enormously from the ZuluSCSI Pico. This includes MACINTOSH, Atari 1040, and Amiga.