Roland VS 880 Digital Multitrack

By the late 80s and through the 90s I was using my Macintosh IIci for midi composition using outboard synths and modules. But integrating live audio recording into the process was still beyond my financial means. The best I could do was sync my four track tape recorder to the midi sequencing software and record audio on tape. Full-on audio recording wasn't available until the Roland VS 880 digital multitrack arrived.

Like the Tascam TEAC 144, the original cassette Portastudio that revolutionized home recording, the VS880 was a giant technological leap for musicians. I'd purchased the 144 when it came out with faith that it could help me manifest the songs I'd only imagined in my head, and I was right. I'd experienced the revolution first-hand. The VS880 was no different. Finally 8 tracks of digital hard disk recording with automation, digital effects, editing and totally pristine audio quality were available at a reasonable price. And the VS880 shared that Portastudio feeling with its integrated mixer and all-in-oneness.

Its strengths were the sound quality and the effects board. The board was extra, but oh, so worth it! Everything from compression to chains of guitar effects where available, editable and programable. Oceans of reverb and even mic modeling. I would still recommend the VS with the effect board to anyone to use as an effects unit alone.

Weaknesses: Lack of storage space. It had a small drive and the outboard drives were proprietary and expensive. Editing was complex, as was the user interface. The faders were not only faders, but midi faders and input devices for effects and other parameters. The routing was all illustrated in the teensy display window.

None-the-less it was inspiring to use, and exciting to have swaths upon layers of super high quality vocals and guitars. After some time though, the very non-visual editing became too much of a distraction from my musical flow. I sold the thing and got a used power mac on ebay for 60 bucks, a Newer Tech G3 upgrade card and a copy of Cubase VST.

I still wish I had my VS880, however, if only to use as a mixer, effects box and musical scratch pad. Perfect for a vacation from the computer screen and a relief from mouse driven carpal tunnel syndrome.

Roland MBK-300 Midi Controller

The MKB-300 weighs a ton, on the other hand, how many 23 year old midi controllers do you have that still work perfectly?

This is the way they used to make them, solid metal all around and real wood too. Built like a tank, my MKB-300 controller has lasted over two decades and still performs flawlessly. When I got this around 1987 or so, a midi controller was still an exotic thing. I can't remember how many times I had to explain midi to my friends, musicians and non-musicians alike: "Well, it doesn't actually make any sounds on it's own, it triggers sounds in other equipment. . ."

Now days midi controllers are a dime a dozen. And they're flimsy, for the most part. But besides the build, this board was well thought out. 76 keys, semi-weighted action, and 128 memories all easily accessible, through its 8 bank buttons and 16 program change buttons. It allows two midi channels for each memory location. The two channels are set up as either programmable splits, in dual mode (2 midi channels stacked) or use the whole keyboard for a single midi channel, switchable with the second.

In addition, each of the two channels in each of the 128 memory locations had a programmable bank and program number associated with it. So when you hit a memory location, you got the channels you wanted, the split/dual or whole mode you wanted, and the program change you wanted. You were ready. If playing in a band, you could easily plan out a few sets worth of patches on a couple of outboard synths, or a multitimbral module. You could improvise as well, sending program changes at will, then conveniently snap back to your saved setups.

And no menus to navigate, a major annoyance, so for me, this early midi board hit a sweet spot in the development of midi gear. It did a lot, yet everything was on the front panel, perfect for performance. Just push a few buttons. May just one.

Ok, it had no aftertouch, but I usually turned reception of that data off in my sequencer anyway so as not to clog my midi pipeline. But it did have a bunch of midi outs, something you never see these days, and let's not forget the individual damper and soft pedals inputs for each channel, adjustable dynamics via a pot on the back and the handy-dandy transpose slider for easy key changes.

Back in the day (1984), his baby retailed way up there, somewhere between 1 and 2 grand. I have a feeling it didn't sell that well. It was overbuilt, and demand wasn't that great for midi controllers. I got it at a blowout sale for about $600 in 1988. I used it for about 10 years straight, and had it on the side, occasionally tinkling its ivories since, but less and less with the purchase of new toys that have replaced it. I hate to see it go, but I just need the space, and since it won't die, I finally decided to put it up for sale.

Garbage Guitar

Turned out my neighbor's son stepped on his guitar and snapped the headstock off. We were at curbside where he was putting it with the rest of his garbage. Would he mind if I took it? I can't bear to see a musical instrument thrown away. "You really can't fix that," he said. But he was throwing it out, after all. And I'd seen him strumming a Martin on his stoop, so it wasn't like he was hurting for an axe. What could he say? I took the crippled six-string home.

I took it out of the case and looked it over. The decoration was really nice, and the workmanship seemed good. The case was solid and I ran my fingers through the plush lining. When I flipped open the storage compartment I recognized that I'd stumbled into private territory. I found some seeds, tiny bits of weed and one of those tiny ziplock bags - no doubt the remnants of my neighbor's teenage stash.

What was garbage a moment earlier suddenly became invested with meaning; this guitar part of someone's life, an emotional piece of this guy's coming of age. I could imagine him jamming with his buddies and the good times he must have associated with the guitar. I understood why he might have been hesitant to let me take it. I doubt he remembered what was tucked deep inside, but no doubt he wanted to move on, and I bet it took some doing to let the guitar go.

The guitar is a Cortley copy of a Gibson Dove, and it looks like the actual Gibson that Elvis is playing in the picture. I even found a website dedicated to the copy guitar! People said nice things about it online, and I was inspired to fix it. I got me some Gorilla Glue and a clamp, did as good a job as I could gluing it back together. A bit cruder of a repair than I'd hoped. But when I strung the guitar up, it held.

And when I tuned it up and began to play, the guitar sounded with a warmth that made me smile.

Korg Micro X

"As an absolute minimum we would suggest 32 MG and a processor running at 120 MHz. There is no maximum system requirement, but an Apple G3/300 MHz with 64 MB or more would be very cool." -FROM THE BOX OF CUBASE VST, MY FIRST COMPUTER RECORDING/VIRTUAL INSTRUMENT SOFTWARE PROGRAM.

Boy do times change. My current mac blows those specs away, but software has gotten more demanding too. My 1.4 ghZ G4 notebook starts to hicup in Live or Protools with a just a couple of virtual instruments running — sometimes with just one demanding vst. Let's face it, not everyone can afford to get the latest computer every year.

Frustrated by crashes I went out looking for an external voice module to trigger via midi out of my sequencer. My adventure with the JV101 proved less than ideal. I wanted something editable and with more contemporary sounds.

I never even heard of the Korg Micro X when a salesman pointed it out to me. It's keyboard is so short you can barely play it on it's own, but with a controller keyboard (I already had one) and almost any computer (even my lame G4) the sounds, editing and system integration of this machine really shine.

Get this: The supplied editor opens just like a virtual synth inside of your recording software, so you can work seamlessly inside your sequencer, just like with virtual synths, only here the processing chores are all off-board, on the Micro X's back. Free of the CPU load of the virtual synths, my lame mac is running like a champ.

Add to that: Lots of great sounds, ample polyphony, editable, multiple arpeggiators, realtime control knobs and even built in templates for using its knobs as midi controllers for Live and other software, the little thing is a rocket in the pocket with a sequencer, and lot's of fun to play on it's own with it's cool patches and synced arpeggios.

And it comes with an orange case. Well worth the $500.

Yo La Tengo @ the Wellmont 12/31/2008

"Yo" like to trade instruments. James McNew, on guitar in the start frame, usually plays bass; Ira Kaplan, usually on guitar, plays keyboards on this one. Georgia Hubley is the drummer.

Yo la Tengo is a band I had always wanted to see. A melodious, decidedly fringe, cult-indi psychedelic/noise groove trio from the early 80's that (gasp!) stayed together. Their style varies from folky to noisy to covers from north, east, south and west, done... differently. So here they were, the eve of 2009, true adults, still at it, and my wife and I were taking two of our kids to see them. The result: The best and most wonderful parenting moment in the history of my fatherhood and my son's childhood. More on that later.

About the show:

How to describe their sound? Well I just tried, but it's best to listen. That might not do justice to the live show I saw. A lot of their recorded songs have a sing-song, melodic calm to them that, in live performance, coexists with a wild, brash intensity. Contrast and breadth is clearly important to them: a conventional, verse-chorus pop song structure with a minimal, tight groove is interrupted by the most insane, feedback-laden, bang it, bend it guitar solo you have ever heard. And that goes on for a long, long time. And it's musical. This band doesn't suck.

The New Year's Eve plan ran into a snag right away when my ten year old looked up the band on youtube. This decade old guitarist/skateboard dude decided Yo la Tengo were a bunch of nerdy old folks. He didn't appreciate the group's avant-a-cappella in that particular video, but we dragged him to the show under protest.

After a forgettable first band, the second came on. They were The Feelies, a 70's group recently back together. They were all pushing 60, I'd say, but you wouldn't know it from the energy. The Wellmont is old too, a movie palace that's been recently transformed into a music venue. Clearly it wasn't build for loud rock and roll, because the sound system was too loud and muddy. I brought ear plugs for everyone, and that helped at least curb the bleeding. The Feelies have a fun rolling groove, and their set was really great.

The moment of truth came when Yo la Tengo played. They did a bit of cornball holiday music sung along with an big band backing track. My kid rolled his eyes. But within a minute or two of picking up their instruments, Ira Kaplan launched into one of those totally over the top, body writhing, feedback squealing, guitar abusing, noisy solos. For like 15 minutes.

This was not what my ten-year-old had expected. He was truly in a state of shock. He threw his hands in the air. His mouth hung open and the look on his face seemed to say: "Holy sh*t, what the hell is going on?"

Vestax MR-44 4-track Cassette Deck

You may have read about my 4-track adventures, beginning with the original Portastudio cassette multi-track, the Teac 144.

After I wore that one down I had a Porta One. It didn't measure up to the original. For one thing I don't think it ran at high speed. Also the transport buttons were mechanical push down types, not the touch sensitive electronic ones the original had. Punch-ins were seemless and smooth as silk on the 144. Nonetheless, I think I may have even had two Porta Ones over a few years.


Then came the tiny Fostex X-15. It could run on batteries and had pegs like a guitar to strap it over your shoulder. Truely portable, it lacked the inputs and sends I was used to. I did strap it on and bring it to my friend Wally's place for a session. It never got back home.

That brings us to the subject of the vintage ad above, the Vestax MR-44, shown at the top of this page. Who had ever heard of this company? I hadn't. I was taking a chance, but I went for it because of the rack mounted convenience and the good ins and outs on the front. It was simple but well thought out.

This thing was great. It was smooth mechanically, the buttons were the soft touch electronic type, and even though it lacked individual EQ, it had multi-band equalization over the whole mix that worked well to patch things up and cut the mud out.

It sounded really good and was very, very quiet as far as tape hiss went. I made some good sounding recordings on it.

To my chagrin, one day it just stopped in its tracks.

It was out of warranty but I called the California number in the manual and a guy with a heavy Asian accent picked up the phone. His seeming confusion and the clamor in the background made me think I'd reached a Chinese restaurant. After determining that I'd called the right place, I described the problem to the guy. There was a silence, then. . .

"Ahh. Yeess! Not your fault. Our fault. We fix. Send," he said.

I did, and they repaired it for free.

Later, when I went to a Roland VS-880 digital 8-track, I sold the Vestax on Ebay for $175. The father of the kid who bought it wrote me a long email thanking me for making his son's first ebay purchase such a great experience. The MR-44 seemed to have endless good karma.

Vestax is still around, but they've switched to DJ gear. I bet it's pretty good stuff.

Roland JV-1010

The JV-1010 is like Las Vegas. Lots of sparkle and polish, affordable to get there, but my short vacation with this unit is ending. (I got this 1999 half-rack at a used music store for $175 a few months ago [2008]).

And it really isn't a synthesizer, in the traditional sense, despite what it says on the panel. Yes, you can get into the JV-1010 and start raw with the waveforms and create new sounds by modifying what happens to them, "like" a real synthesizer. But editing the sounds on this is limited for me by the fact that there is no reasonably priced Mac editor software for it these days. Not surprising, because this is so old it has a serial computer connection on the back!

It's basically a "ROMpler." It plays back bits of samples of natural instruments or actual synthesizers from ROM to mimic natural instruments, synths, sound effects etc. And it does it really well for $175 (what I paid in 2008). By God there are over 1000 patches in this, probably every sound you've ever heard on a record or in performance! Drums, pianos, organs, clavs, guitars or all kinds, and plenty of synthesizer sounds. The specs are truly awesome.

That's pretty much how my ebay auction reads. Sure, it's great for producing recordings. You have all the sounds right in here. But I'm in this for the fun, and I want to do something, not just play back canned sounds. And yes, composing and arranging is doing something, but somehow the overstuffed library of sounds in the JV-1010 makes it just too easy to randomly pick and choose and get a comfortable sounding track going. Like Las Vegas glitter, it's hard for the individual personality to shine through the prepackaged glitz.

I feel like I have a brick of gold on the table, but I needed groceries. See, the folks down at the Shoprite won't accept it at the register. It's just not the currency I need right now. I'm in the market for a tweakable, knob-ladden synth or sampler serving immediate sound mangling satisfaction.