New stuff from Roland!

[masstronaut]

Looking at the way the sounds are selected I think it's possible they will offer additional sounds as upgrades or add-on purchases.

One thing I'm wondering about though is the multi-channel USB audio. If it works as a soundcard as it seems to in the Sonic State video, how is that going to work with your main soundcard. AFAIK you can usually only have one ASIO device active at any time. If that's the case it still leaves it a bit lacking in terms of studio integration. Although if putting sounds on the assignable outs also removes them from the stereo out that's not too bad.

[rob_lee]

Not sure yet BUT i don't use my Virus TI as the audio interface yet the audio/midi still fly's down the usb cable and it works fine although i know that you have to use the Virus Control plugin however i'm sure there's away around this but i won't know till i have the goods in my hand at the end of march. Would be great if there was some sort of software editor for those who want to use it within their DAW as well as live.

Rob

[griffin avid]

how is that going to work with your main soundcard. AFAIK you can usually only have one ASIO device active at any time. If that's the case it still leaves it a bit lacking in terms of studio integration.

In previous Roland models, it isn't a soundcard choice per se, it's an input. So in your DAW, you choose whatever your system will call it as a Channel INPUT choice. Like......"TR-8 Audio RL". And the sound is piped in from the unit on ONLY THAT CHANNEL. Should have nothing to do with your ASIO drivers. They have done this before. At least that's how the SP-555 worked....

probably the biggest ball-drop on the TR-8 is the exclusion of any tr-707 or 727 sounds.
I think you're sitting around, scratching your beard and trying to find something not to like. Exclusion? No, the touchdown catch was INCLUDING the 909 sounds in a box that could have been ONLY the 8 series. And we all would have known the 9-box-o-sounds were coming later in the year. It's awesome that they put BOTH in one unit. Granted, it would be great to put EVERY sound form EVERY box they ever made in this as "presets" or "Drum Kits" or whatever, but they picked the two most iconic pieces when they could have EASILY split them into two different products.

And I think you're doing the same thing with the Kaoss pad reference. Aside from the touch part, this is nothing like entering notes on a Kaoss pad, nothing. I would love a mode on a Kaoss pad where it placed any kind of graphic on the screen to denote key-range or area. The Kaoss limits you to short bursts, cause it's only a matter of time before you hit a bum note (pitch-wise). The screen is super tiny AND notes become guessing games, unless you slide to find the pitch and your music taste has that kind of patience. The whole planet has been asking for some kind of MIDI control. This looks infinitely more playable.

This is more of an iPad-inspired product.

[masstronaut]

In previous Roland models, it isn't a soundcard choice per se, it's an input. So in your DAW, you choose whatever your system will call it as a Channel INPUT choice. Like......"TR-8 Audio RL". And the sound is piped in from the unit on ONLY THAT CHANNEL.

Really, OK. Not something I'm familiar with. AFAIK a DAW usually won't see any audio inputs other than those on the selected soundcard. Is it in the form of a plugin maybe?

[griffin avid]

AFAIK, no. My guess is, it's considered a USB device that passes audio and simply shows up like another attached source/channel.

I used the oldest damn software (Adobe Audition 1.5) and it showed up. Same in Cubase and Sonar. This is years ago, so I don't think they 'forgot' how to make a product that doubles as an audio interface. It's probably way simpler than we imagine. Some expert needs to chime in, but until they show up, I trust that it will work as advertised.

[griffin avid]

Oh hey, look at this!

[mute]

how is that going to work with your main soundcard. AFAIK you can usually only have one ASIO device active at any time. If that's the case it still leaves it a bit lacking in terms of studio integration.

This isn't true, you can use multiple ASIO devices simultaneously. This limitation isn't one of ASIO but of software you might be using, shitty drivers/product, or honestly.. it can just be outright confusing to configure. I use 3 different ASIO simultaneous devices every day. M-Audio 1010 (in/out/master), M-Audio 410 (inputs only), Focusrite VRM (headphones). The 1010's digital out even feeds the spdiff on my VRM so I can do A/B'ing with it's speaker/room simulations. And I'll run multiple pieces of software simultaneously all using the same devices.

In previous Roland models, it isn't a soundcard choice per se, it's an input...

...it HAS to be a audio device ("soundcard") of some sort...

[masstronaut]

No, I get that Griffin - but did the SP-555 work alongside your other soundcard? I don't know what "attached source/channel" means exactly in this context. But quite possible I've just not seen it as I've never used any USB audio other than ASIO. I will say that my DAWs only let you select one audio driver at a time though... We shall see!

[masstronaut]

This isn't true, you can use multiple ASIO devices simultaneously. This limitation isn't one of ASIO but of software you might be using, shitty drivers/product, or honestly.. it can just be outright confusing to configure. I use 3 different ASIO simultaneous devices every day. M-Audio 1010 (in/out/master), M-Audio 410 (inputs only), Focusrite VRM (headphones). The 1010's digital out even feeds the spdiff on my VRM so I can do A/B'ing with it's speaker/room simulations. And I'll run multiple pieces of software simultaneously all using the same devices.

Hmm, OK. How many ASIO drivers are you using in any one piece of software at a time? I see there might be a way to cludge it by using ASIO4ALL to wrap WDM (or equiv) drivers into a "fake" multi-device ASIO driver but that's fiddly and iffy and I can't see that being the way Roland would suggest.

No failing in the drivers or software though - AFAIK it's inherent in the ASIO standard (unless I've missed some development, which is possible) that you can only use one ASIO driver in a program at any time.

But for what Roland are offering here it's going to either have to be some simple and straightforward solution or it just acts as the main soundcard and your other cards can go f*** themselves while it's active.

Edit - might be a bit easier to do this on a Mac as there seems to be a way to combine devices into one driver.

[griffin avid]

What he's thinking is how EACH device has its own driver. ASIO is one device at a time but you can release it in the background. That means if something is minimized or not focused on, it ceases use of the audio drivers.

But um, what problem are we trying to solve again?

[griffin avid]

To be clear, I too have several cards hooked up at once but you auto play a file , it starts o. Your default soundcard and that's probably the one using your ASIO driver. If they all were using the same driver together the file would all play on all your devices at the same time. Since that doesn't happen, you can see how they are not sharing a single audio driver.

[masstronaut]

Not a problem (only for Roland), just the question of how they are doing the multi-channel USB audio without it having to be the primary soundcard, something which of course would limit its practicality.

Maybe a plugin like the TI. Maybe it's clearer in the vid you posted; haven't watched it for technical reasons.

[masstronaut]

I mean it seems the main desirable scenario is you have the multi outs coming into your DAW for mixing along with all your other tracks and out of your main outputs, or whatever. If you can't do that it's going to be a bit of a gimmick, more limited than running an 808 through a desk, for example.

[griffin avid]

Yeah I see now, that's exactly what's being shown in the video.

[Corpse Thrower]

Any info about when these will be available in OZ?

Can't find anything about them......