Roland VSR-880 Recording and VSWE

I pulled out my Roland VSR-880 to record again for fun. I used it to record some basic tracks, to transfer into my DAW to be edited and mixed.

Roland VSR-880 for remote recording.

I had converted it to record to SD card a few years back, but quickly moved onto recording remotely with a Steinberg UR-44 with an iPad. Going back to the VSR-880 and changing up my workflow has led to some inspiration to record.

Video of a recording tracked to the Roland VSR-880.

I find myself enjoying the constraints of fitting all my instrumentation into 8 tracks. It could be interesting for further limit myself to 6 tracks on my lower fidelity Roland VS-880EX. I need to refer to the manual to remind myself how to use the unit after every layoff. When I am regularly working with the unit, I have the key sequences memorized to compound actions.

A number of users have contributed on the VS Planet forums over the years to refining VSWE to move files off of the VS units as conveniently as possible. I was able to get Version 1.25 from one of the users through email, which allows for the 24-bit VSR-mode encoded files to be extracted.

I don’t know if VSWE will continue to work beyond Windows 10. The application was only updated through the Windows 7/8 era. I will occasionally use it for the oddly-inspiring novelty as long as my Windows setup can support the software. I am slowly transitioning to a Mac-based DAW, and already use an iOS-based remote setup.