I might seem like a troll with this post, but I have to share with any of those here that might be thinking about purchaing this hardware. There is what I would call a major glitch in the function of the unit as a digital recorder, that CW customer service said cannot be fixed unless Roland in Japan fixes it--and after over a year and follow ups--Roland will not fix it.
 
Here is the glitch: If you're like me and need to start the recording of additional tracks over one that has been laid already from a marker you created--tough luck. The unit will only start an overdub recording at zero--completely ignoring your marker. If the song is say, 5 minutes long and you want to add a track at say, the 4 minute mark--too bad. The recording will go all the way back to 0:00 and there is nothing you can do about it.
 
If you don't understand what I'm talking about, then you probably won't have this issue and you're lucky. For me, it rendered the unit useless and I had to sell it on eBay for over $100 less than what I paid for it. I love Sonar--I've been a customer of CW for many years (back to v 3.1), but Roland not willing to fix this major glitch is unacceptable.
 
Again, if you're thinking of buying this unit--you need to know this.
 
Peace!

hey razor, i don't see this post as trolling at all, sorry to hear you had major deal breaking issues. i had that recently with some tc helicon gear, luckily i was still within the return period.----------------------------------- just so that i can understand the problem better, are you referring to an overdub in stand alone mode? (track 1 panned hard left, track 2 panned hard right, starting at a point other than the beginning of track1?)

M@ B


hey razor, i don't see this post as trolling at all, sorry to hear you had major deal breaking issues. i had that recently with some tc helicon gear, luckily i was still within the return period.----------------------------------- just so that i can understand the problem better, are you referring to an overdub in stand alone mode? (track 1 panned hard left, track 2 panned hard right, starting at a point other than the beginning of track1?)

Thanks. I bought the gear from a dealer with a zero return policy--especially on special orders, which this was...
 
Yes, stand-alone mode. I would have the instrumentals on say tracks 1 and 2 and want to record vocals on say track 3. Say I wanted to record the vocal of the chorus which was 2 minutes into the recording--so I would create a marker at the 2 minute mark so I could get there quickly in case I needed to do more than one take of the track (which always happens with me). I would go to the marker that I created and as soon as I started recording, I would see it starting at 0:00, not the marker I created at 2 minutes.
 
I used the above times as examples--but it would happen no matter where I wanted to start (other than zero) and CW techs confirmed the glitch, and after I didn't hear and followed up, I was given the information that CW could do nothing about it. It had to be fixed by Roland in Japan and until they saw it as a major glitch they would not fix it. I waited for over a year and then took the loss and sold the unit.
 
Hope this info helps someone. I won't be buying any hardware from CW in the future. I'll stick to something they can patch if necessary.

I don't think I'm following you. How do you record 3 tracks on the sd card in stand-alone mode?

M@ B


I don't think I'm following you. How do you record 3 tracks on the sd card in stand-alone mode?

That's right. I was trying to record vocals in mono over a stereo recording of instrumentals. Here's the specs:
 
Wave Recorder Channels Record: 1 Channel Stereo Playback: 1 Channel Stereo (NORMAL MODE) Playback: 2 Channel Stereo (REC-ON-PLAY MODE)  
Hey--what do you want--it's been a year and I only (tried to) use the unit 3 times!

Oh, ok. I didnt realize you were dubbing over a stereo file. I understand now. I can see that as being a lot of wasted time if you happen to be working on a section that's late in the song and you have to wait through everything before the cue point. Never knew about that, the only stand alone dubs I have ever done were song length guitar takes. Thanks for pointing that out. I won't hold my breath til they fix that. Rock-on.

Hi,
I think this post should be directed to the VS100 product manager.  I would be interested in the VS100 product manager response to this post.
 
I work as a software engineer.  When a user has a product issue we distinguish between a bug and an enhancement.  But basically the distinction boils down to what was the unit designed to do?  What was the spectification given to the engineers?
 
It appears to me that the overdub spec was to assume that the user will always start from the beginning of the track i.e. that the user will never use markers.  So it is likely that this behavior is not a "bug". 
 
However I think Roland are being given some great feedback on the VS100 in this post.  Also in my opinion this enhancement could be handled through a firmware update - anotherwards without any hardware changes.
 
So how about a response from the VS100 product mangement team?  Would you consider this enhancement.  I agree with the user - it would make the VS100 much more useful as a recorder.
 
Regards,
clontarf

Razor: Can't say you are trolling since this is a valid complaint.

I remember your older post regarding this:
http://forum.cakewalk.com/tm.aspx?m=2074598 

I read that in detail before buying mine - and carefully weighed the risks. Fortunately I don't use the VS-100 in a way that it affects me, but I can understand how this could be a big problem for you.

you lost 100$ by buying VS100???? man I lost 2 millions when stock market collapsed and don't complain...
You lost because you sold, you should never sell on bear market.

I think it's important to note that I did contact product support, they had the CW engineers test my complaint and they were able to recreate the issue. I don't have the email with me now, but it was referred to as a problem, weakness, or bug--not a design enhancement request. It also was told to me that Roland in Japan would have to make the patch and then only if they agreed it was worth it (my words).

After about a year, I think it's safe to presume Japan didn't think it was worth patching and I gave up. The V-Studio was new to the market when I bought it--I did a lot of pre-sale research before I bought it by contacting CW support. I'm satisfied with the due diligence I did before buying it to make sure it would suit my needs, but there is no way I could have known about this bug considering CW engineers didn't even know about it before then.

Lesson learned--and now if I can help others, that's the purpose of this post. 
 
PS--One lessoned learned is spend a little extra with a retailer that allows returns and stocks the item(s).