A V-Studio 400?

Okay, so yesterday there was a post in VSPlanet about the V-Studio 100... I think us Planeteers consider the V-700 and V-100 something of a continuation of the original VS hard disk recorders that we all still love and use, though that continuation is no doubt more spiritual than actual. I'm guessing Roland's using a bit of the VS tech in the new SONAR hardware devices, and maybe the same engineers... who knows.

Anyway, despite the fact I already own a VS2400, a Mackie Onyx Satellite, Logic 8 and 2 Pro Tools rigs (an older Digi001/PT 6.4 setup I sync with my VS, and a portable Mbox Mini/PT8 setup), I'm thinking there is a place for the V-Studio 100 in my setup. Although at first the convergence of so many functions in one box appeared a little haphazard, it's actually pretty damn clever... a decent audio and midi interface, control surface and mixer with onboard DSP plus a stereo recorder. This plus a laptop and monitors/headphones and you've got a very compact and uncomplicated setup for songwriting and production.

One aspect of the unit though I'm thinking might have been undercooked - or let's be diplomatic and say "open to further expansion" - is the onboard recording functions. Now, stereo recording is great... record a live mix, capture stuff to sample later on, etc. etc. Apparently you can playback an internal file and record it along with other live inputs to another file... bit like using two cheap tape machines and bouncing back and forth to layer tracks.

But want I really want - and what would be very cool and useful - is a half-decent digital 4-track included in the box. Even as something as functionally basic as the Tascam DP-004 (which I've been considering as a music notepad) would be fine... so long as it does 24 bit... everything else like this on the market is 16 bit only which is kinda bad when you want to use some of your demo tracks in the eventual full production.

Throw in the basic digital functions - cut, copy, move, paste, auto punch in/out, maybe the ability to have a 4-8 v-tracks under each playback track - and make sure it records in BMF (broadcast wave format) and it would be a seriously cool unit.

Imagine being able to demo up ideas with just the one box, a mic, guitar, whatever, no computer needed... then, plug it (or just the SD card) into your computer and you can access the projects as (wait for it) OMF files.. load up the included SONAR app or Logic, PT, whatever you use, and bam, there's your 4 track project, all tracks and edits sync'd up, ready for further work, more tracks, etc.

Now I'd merrily pay a few hundred more for this sort of functionality. It would also be a great merging of the quick convenience and portability of stand alone digital "portastudios" with the computer integration that the market expects/requires in 2009.

Fingers crossed I've just blown Cakewalk's next product launch 6 months from now ;-) - hey, there is a tantalising gap between "100" and "700" after all!

Cheers, Ben.