i normally don't, but you assign a fader to anything you want so you could assign fader 24 as the master.

not beating a dead horse but on the M24 you can select plugins, and multiple ones at a time

however i do think this new surface will go into more detail although i need to see what the new driver does, this is from kevin the M24 product guy. i got this today from him

A new plug-in for Sonar is just about ready. It is in beta now and
>> it is possible it will be in release this week. It has even more plug-in
>> and soft synth support than the current version and includes surround
>> support and in-depth multi console support and X64 64bit drivers.

ORIGINAL: trock8500

not beating a dead horse but on the M24 you can select plugins, and multiple ones at a time

however i do think this new surface will go into more detail although i need to see what the new driver does, this is from kevin the M24 product guy. i got this today from him

A new plug-in for Sonar is just about ready. It is in beta now and
>> it is possible it will be in release this week. It has even more plug-in
>> and soft synth support than the current version and includes surround
>> support and in-depth multi console support and X64 64bit drivers.

It could use a facelift, too. Cosmetics are a bit on the Soviet side for me.

i careless about the fantom vs b/c i have a fantom G7... i dont need the fantom built into the interface.
not to mention i dont just use Sonar...
so question is..
can i just buy the control surface?
if so does it work outside of sonar... perhaps in cubase 4.5???

ORIGINAL: trock8500
i think what a good comparison would be is this

the sonar V solution vs.

1 mcu pro - 1500
1 RME FF 800 - 1700
1 roland fantom rack mount synth - 1200

so if the sonar solution comes in at 3500 AND the AD/DA is as good as RME then you have a clear winner here and more in depth control over everything

... not to mention that the comparison setup does not include the software... easy to forget since most of us already have it or are on the upgrade path, but a full license of Sonar 8 PE plus an upgrade to Rapture will run you $600 at Sweetwater - raising the total to $5000, way over the likely street value for this.

And you'd be missing the surround panning joystick, real meters and monitor section on the CS, editing from the CS, the dedicated Channel Strip / ACT and Access Panel sections, and the ability to run the Fantom directly within the software. And of course the T-Bar - how are you going to destroy Alderan without that?

So I think for zero-to-massive-production-power solution, this unit is a very heavy hitter and the price is more than reasonable. BUT for those of us NOT starting from zero, the all-in-one aspect remains a bummer, and I still think Roland/Cake are outright crazy if they don't make a CS only version soon.

ORIGINAL: trock8500

they should sell the CS seperate!

hmmmm..... actually I think they'd attract most customers if they sold the T-bar seperately, it seems everyone wants to destroy a planet or two

So if you already have the software... Cost reduction I wonder?

just a random thought. i dont remember which thread the usb 2 vs firewire discussion was in, but i think i remember the argument being that no professionals use usb and all professional equipment (like mac computers) use firewire. so i couldnt help note that the new applebooks only have usb2.0.

+1 control surface only vote. Really don't need or want a hardware synth now if you put in a vg99 that would work

And a one and a two and a three, !!!!

R!Soc,

Why not release all the parts as a modular system and hit various target points in the market in one sweep?

- VS-700 full system
- VS-700 full system + Optional audio interface (extra I/O)
- Control Surface only
- Control Surface + Audio Interface
- Control Surface + Audio Interface + Optional second audio interface
- Control Surface + Audio Interface + Fantom hardware synth
- Control Surface + Audio Interface + Optional second audio interface + Fantom hardware synth
- Audio interface only
- Audio interface + Optional second audio interface
- Audio Interface + Fantom hardware synth
- Audio Interface + Optional second audio interface + Fantom hardware synth

Eleven types of potential customers instead of just one and all based on the same four elements.

I would add some different type of I/O options and a fader bank module to increase the potential market but that's just me I guess.

UnderTow

Cake announced that they were selling a complete system. Don't mean they won't be releasing component parts later, as has been pointed out. Until it is released we really don't know much about it, user wise. In the immortal words of John Lydon,

"Its a mystery."

ORIGINAL: R!Soc

That is a good question. There's probably manufacturing costs involved in the modularity that Roland doesn't want to risk on so many elements. Being the hardware centric company that they are, I'm sure they've figured out what is most cost effective for them to launch a new product. Then, based on market reaction vs. their projections, and recovering initial costs, they would move forward in the most profitable manner.

Gambling everything on a niche part of the market that wants a control surface, a Fantom synth, an audio interface and Sonar and that also has $4000 to spend seems to me like a vastly larger risk than spreading that over a much broader potential market. Also if the product fails, they won't really know what made it fail in the way they would if potential customers were allowed to order the separate elements. Anyway, with good design, modularity should not increase cost much if at all.

I don't see why you assume Roland made the right strategic decision. Judging by the product, the market, the strategies of successful companies in the DAW market and the reaction in the reviews and the various forums, that is a bold assumption. Of course, time will tell...

UnderTow

I'm very close to plunking down the money for an interface. I have a 2K upper limit to spend which puts this unit within my reach (although it's a stretch). I'm also interested in the Fireface 400 UC (USB) and the Focusrite Saffire 56.

I bought a couple SOS articles... First
http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may09/articles/vstudio700.htm

The vstudio article is interesting, and I will quote a little of the bit on the VS700R (the interface) here...

While the I/O box is awash with rear panel socketry, its front panel is more restrained, featuring just a rotary knob to select sample rate, the on/off switch, and a set of LED meters displaying MIDI, Digital I/O, Main and Sub activity, and the nine input levels. Although nine inputs might seem limiting to some users, the ADAT I/O lets you add eight more via a suitable expansion box such as Behringer’s ADA8000 or one of the Focusrite OctoPre series. Another alternative for those with larger budgets would be to buy another VS‑700R unit to double up on everything (and of course you’d get a second Fantom VS synth).

I experienced no problems running the ASIO drivers right down to the lowest setting of 96 samples (2.18ms at 44.1kHz), and was impressed that Roland had declared the total output latency accurately at 3.18ms, as confirmed by the CEntrance Latency Test Utility. Some competitors fail to mention the tiny extra buffers that are used to ensure smooth playback.

I don't much care about the lack of access through the front of the device, but I do miss not having any headphones out on the device. That would have been useful for me, who would use the device without the controller for some years until I could raise the cash.

Measured with the Rightmark Audio Analyzer, the frequency response was essentially flat between about 8Hz and 20kHz with a 44.1kHz sample rate, although I didn’t measure any extension at higher sample rates. Background noise levels were slightly disappointing at 101dBA, but distortion levels were very low, down to 0.002 percent. However, it’s the subjective audio results that really count, and these weren’t at all disappointing.

The clean‑sounding VS7000R preamps are identical to those of Roland’s M400 V‑Mixing System. Their controls and those of the built‑in compressor functions are accessed via the VS700R I/O Editor software, which is available both from within Sonar and in a stand-alone version for use with other audio applications.

This is the part that caught my interest...

My usual hardware comparator tests showed that the VS700R was no slouch in the audio department. It eclipsed my benchmark Emu 1820M, providing greater focus and front-to-back depth, so I wheeled in my Lavry DA10 DAC to give it a much bigger challenge. This time the Lavry won the match with its more open and airy soundstage, making the VS700R stereo image sound slightly constricted in both width and depth. I would judge that overall this places the VS700R roughly on a par with very well-respected interfaces such as the TC Konnekt and Focusrite Saffire series.

I had just two niggles with the VS700R. First, I wasn’t too happy to hear the tiny but constant whine of a cooling fan inside the unit. Second, offering eight mic preamps but then placing all the input sockets on the rear panel of a rackmount unit won’t please everybody.

I don't really have any current need for the phantom synth, so I'm starting to think that this isn't the best interface for my needs.

So that brings me to the article on the Focusrite Saffire 56...
The basic gripes I heard were that on the mix control software, there were only in meters (not out) so if you press the fader up and clip the out, you would not have visibility to this clip. I suppose if you are only monitoring with headphones then this wouldn't matter too much if you did clip, but it's a drawback.

http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/may09/articles/liquidsaffire56.htm

One issue — at least for those who have already invested in nice interfaces — is that you can only use the Liquid preamps with the Liquid Saffire 56 acting as your main audio interface. Despite the inclusion of plenty of digital I/O, there’s currently no way in which to use it to augment your existing setup. So if you want a Liquid Saffire, you’ll need to choose between it and your current audio interface, or attempt to use them together via an aggregate device driver. As things stand, if I want to add Liquid preamps to my RME Fireface 800, I still need to splash the cash on a Liquid Channel or Liquid 4 Pre. Adding the ability to run this as a stand‑alone unit would please a lot of people, but I suspect this isn’t in Focusrite’s interests, and we can only hope that a digital ‘Liquid 2 Pre Lite’ will follow!

There are many positives to the Saffire 56 beyond the $1000 savings off the VStudio700R. First it has two "Liquid Pres"

And so, without further ado, let me introduce the stars of the show: the two Liquid preamps. The inputs for these are presented on the rear on XLRs, but are white so that you can pick them out at a glance. Looking closely at the specifications on Focusrite’s web site, you’ll see that when running no emulations these pres offer an almost identical performance to the six Saffire preamps, with up to 60dB of gain (which is plenty). It is worth repeating that those are very nice, whisper‑quiet preamps in their own right.

As with the earlier products, the Liquid preamps employ a combination of electronics and DSP to mimic the emulated preamp, in this case via the gyrator approach of the Liquid 4 Pre, rather than the more expensive transformer‑based design. There are fewer models than on the earlier ‘full‑fat’ Liquid preamps, but I don’t see that as a huge problem. Although it’s nice to have every flavour under the sun, and while I’m sure that the cost of the higher‑end Liquid products will be justifiable for some, my own feeling is that as long as I have a decent selection available, I’m perfectly happy. If you’ve ever used the Liquid Mix, with its proliferation of models, you’ll know what I mean: think about how many of the emulations you actually use regularly. There’s only a handful I’ve felt the need to get to know and use on a regular basis, and I suspect that it would be a similar situation with the Liquid preamps.

Thankfully, Focusrite have done a decent job of narrowing your options. I won’t dwell on the models in detail, because we’ve already discussed them in the Liquid Channel and Liquid 4 Pre reviews, but as you can see from the table below, you get a good, broad range of vintage, modern, tube and solid‑state preamp designs; 11 in total (including the ‘flat’ preamp), which cover just about every eventuality I can think of in the studio. I didn’t have the opportunity to A/B them with the original units, but they certainly capture the flavour of the originals, and they all sound
very different and very usable. ...

I don't love the fact that the Focusrite Saffire 56 uses firewire. I do have a firewire port on my laptop, but the day may come when I have to pay extra for a firewire port in my computer. I would rather have a USB interface.

From Focusrite, I found this...

http://www.focusrite.com/answerbase/en/article.php?id=1005
The Liquid Pre-amps on the Liquid Saffire 56 introduce 11 samples of delay to the audio stream. This is due to the Digital Signal Processing required to emulate the preamps.

Depending on the sample rate you are using, audio passed through inputs 1 and 2 will be the delayed by the following:

Sample Rate (Hz) Time Delay (milliseconds) Offset Distance (centimeters)
44100 0.25 8.56
48000 0.23 7.86
88200 0.12 4.28
96000 0.11 3.93
176200 0.062 2.14
192000 0.057 1.97

Audio recorded through the Liquid Pres can be moved forward by 11 samples in your DAW to account for the delay, however, in 'real world' recording situations the user may choose to ignore this delay.

For stereo recording, either 2 Liquid Preamps should be used, or 2 standard Preamps should be used,

For ensemble recording, where more than 2 preamps are used to record, this delay should cause no audible artefacts. When two microphones are placed in a recording space, regardless of what pre-amps or interfaces are used, there is inevitably a delay between them unless they are placed at exactly the same distance from the source. This will mean that the audio arriving at the two mics, even if they are recording the same source will be non time coherent. The non time coherence - i.e. similar audio but with a delay between each mic, will be significantly more apparent due to the physical mic placement than any delay introduced by the Liquid Preamps.

Users of the Liquid Saffire 56 should set up their microphones exactly the same was as they always do, by moving the microphones around until the sound is right.

and this...
They talk about the resource hungry Vista and discuss trouble shooting the firewire on Vista...

http://www.focusrite.com/answerbase/en/article.php?id=1008

At this stage, it is worth considering the purchase of a Firewire Express card (or PCMCIA). We recommend Firewire 400 only cards from a known brand dealer such as Belkin, LaCie or SIIG. Avoid Firewire 400/800 and Firewire/USB combo cards and try to ensure that your card has a VIA or Texas Instruments chipset.

I don't know what I'm going to do. When I went to work this morning, I was certain for the Focusrite Fireface, but I'm still completely undecided now. I'm really wishing I could avoid the firewire and still get a high performance interface. I like the idea of the RME Fireface UC, but I will have to buy at least two more pre-amps if I choose this device to be able to record me and my friends. I'm surprised by how worked up I am over this decision. I've devoted huge amounts of time to trying to figure what to buy!

Here I found evidence that my HP Laptop likely has a TI Firewire Chipset...

http://forum.notebookreview.com/showthread.php?t=268054&page=125

As far as I can remember, most HP laptops have had TI chipsets for FireWire, which is generally a good thing.