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Chapter 7: Advanced Applications and Tips
Additional Equalizers in VS8F-1
• The optional VS8F-1 effects board not only contains many useful effects, it also contains a
stereo 4 band fully parametric equalizer (configurable as 8 bands in mono), and a stereo 10
band graphic equalizer.
Additional Recording Time
An additional hard disk drive can be added to your VS-880 to increase the storage capacity for additional
recordings (see V-Xpanded Owners Manual pgs. 130-131 “About SCSI”.) Some removable media drives
may work with your VS-880. See your Roland dealer for information.
You cannot record continuously from the internal disk to the external disk. Your
entire song must fit on one disk or the other.
Synchronizing Your VS-880
The VS-880 has extensive synchronizing capabilities which are explained in the V-Xpanded Owner’s
Manual, Chapter 5. However, there are a few important items to remember.
Slave Mode - Master Mode
When the VS-880 is operated in Slave mode, some external device is controlling the VS-880. (The VS-880 is
“slaved” to an external “master). The VS-880 is capable of slaving to MTC (MIDI Time Code) or MMC
(MIDI Machine Control).
When the VS-880 is operated in Slave Mode, the sample clock will “resolve” to the
sync signal. This is very important to keep the VS-880 from drifting in time.
When the VS-880 is operated in Master mode, it becomes the controlling device for external “slave”
devices. The VS-880 will output MTC (MIDI Time Code), MMC (MIDI Machine Control), SPP (Song
Position Pointer) from the Tempo Map, or SPP (Song Position Pointer) from the alternate Sync Track.
Sync Track
The VS-880 provides a special Sync Track. A complete tempo map including MIDI clock and Song Position
Pointer can be recorded from an external sequencer, into the VS-880 Sync Track. The Sync Track can then
be used to synchronize the sequencer and the VS-880 (see page 109 of this manual).
Stereo Grouping / Channel Linking
When working with stereo signals, the Channel Link function allows you to link two channels together so
that they respond as a stereo pair. (see V-Xpanded Owner’s Manual - page 112)
Automation
• In addition to MIDI automation, there are three types of automation built into the VS-880:
Realtime, Snapshot and Gradation. (see pages 106-107 of this guide.)
SMPTE time code and the VS-880
The VS-880 sends and receives MTC (MIDI Time Code). MTC is traditional SMPTE time code embedded in
a MIDI signal. If you have an external device that will ONLY send or receive SMPTE Time Code, you can
obtain an external SMPTE - MIDI translator. For example, the MIDIMAN ‘Video Syncman’ device
translates MTC to SMPTE and SMPTE to MTC.
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