Page 2: Roland MV-8800

Audio Tracks & Audio Phrases

Although the audio tracks in the MV‑8800's sequencer don't work quite like those of a traditional multitrack recorder, the recording process is pretty much what you'd expect. Connect up your sound source exactly as you would for sampling, run it through internal effects if you like, and even add some monitor reverb if you're doing vocals. Then press Record to get to the setup parameters and metering, sort out your recording level, count-in, metronome settings and punch-in points (if necessary), before pressing Play to go for a take. Dropping in and out manually is smooth and quick from the transport controls or via a connected footswitch, and the loop and locators are usable enough. If you need to tidy up any rough edges, there are simple cut-and-paste editing commands, and you can refine the edit points with the same Preview To/From buttons used on Roland's VS-series multitrackers. Again, if you make a mistake the Undo button will save a single rasher of your bacon. The only thing I really missed was virtual tracks — a question of practicality here, I imagine, given that you're recording to RAM, not hard disk. I was also annoyed that the input level meters disappear when you actually start recording!

The main Pattern screen has much in common graphically with that of a software sequencer, displaying not only MIDI tracks and their contents, but also a great deal of status information about the Pattern as a whole.That's about as far as the traditional stuff goes, though, because after you've recorded your audio the recorded regions (Roland call them Audio Events) respond like triggered phrase samples. You can, for instance, open the Audio Event and edit it just like a sample (changing start and end points and adding a loop); adjust its level; reverse playback; and change pitch and tempo independently of each other, as well as synchronising playback to sequencer tempo changes. Cutting an Audio Event into bits first allows you to get fairly creative, because each resultant new Audio Event then has its own playback parameters. The only fly in the ointment is that the real-time pitch-shifting and time-stretching isn't the most transparent I've heard, so some samples will sound better matched to tempo with the Auto Chop routine or the MV‑8800's more hi-fi off-line time-stretching.

To blur the line between recording and sampling still further, you can assign up to 512 snippets of audio (recordings or samples) to the pads as Audio Phrases, whereupon they can be played whenever an audio track is selected, in much the same way that the main sampler can be played from a MIDI track — albeit via a slightly unwieldy 32 pad banks! Audio Phrases can be looped, reversed, pitch-shifted and time-stretched just like Audio Events, and will respond to velocity.

The ease with which you can swap audio between Audio Events, Audio Phrases and the sampler is a real strength of this machine.

It's no accident that Audio Phrases and Audio Events have almost identical parameters, because this means that you can record triggered Audio Phrases in real time or step time directly into an audio track, whereupon they appear as Audio Events. You can even quantise your performance as you record, to make sure loops start exactly on the beat, in case your timing's as sloppy as mine! Any Audio Phrase parameters you set up before recording are then transferred to Audio Event parameters, so everything plays back as you expect.

Well, actually, not quite. When you're auditioning Audio Phrases from the pads, you can play different Audio Phrases together. However, when you record an Audio Phrase performance you're not actually recording audio, but rather a series of trigger events. Once recorded into the track, the Audio Events cannot overlap, and you'll only hear each one until the next plays. If you wanted to record the mixed output of a number of Audio Phrases, you'd have to resample the MV‑8800's outputs while you played. Fortunately, audio tracks can resample just like the main sampler can.

The ease with which you can swap audio between Audio Events, Audio Phrases and the sampler is a real strength of this machine. For example, a simple audio-editing procedure can chop a section out of an audio track and make it an Audio Phrase; and the Clipboard button will freely carry samples (and as many settings as will translate — very slick!) between sampler pads and Audio Phrase pads; so it's very simple to take a sample and transfer it to an Audio Phrase to lock it to tempo, before recording it as an Audio Event. The only down side of the MV‑8800's very fluid approach to using audio is that it can be a bit confusing to start with, because samples, Audio Phrases and Audio Events can interchange and overlap their functions in so many ways.

Roland MV‑8800 rear panel socketry.

Mixer & Socketry

The mixer is basic but functional, with its most fully-featured channels catering for the sampler's Parts and the audio tracks. These have fader and pan control, three-band parametric EQ, and sends to two of the internal effect processors, providing global delay/chorus and reverb effects.

Any of these channels can be sent to the main mix, which passes through the top-panel Master level control on its way to the rear-panel Master Output, Phones Output and S/PDIF optical and coaxial digital sockets. If you invest in the optional MV8OP1 expansion card, you can squirt individual mixer channels out of a further six individual analogue outputs as well. (This card also includes S/PDIF digital inputs and a bi-directional R-BUS interface, but has now unfortunately been discontinued in EU territories. As we went to press there was no news from Roland as to whether a successor might be on the way.)

Alternatively, you can create audio groups from the output of a number of channels, controlling and routing them through one of four EQ-less Aux channels. Other than operational convenience, the main reason to do this is that one of the three internal effects processors can be inserted into Aux channels, so you could, for instance, compress all your drum samples and percussion overdubs together.

The MV‑8800 offers eight assignable sliders (faders).

Although not motorised, the set of mini sliders underneath the display are still pretty good for controlling the mixer page's faders, as they automatically reassign themselves to whichever bank of faders is currently showing on the LCD. An Assignable Slider button next to the sliders switches them to sending a user-defined set of MIDI Continuous Controller messages instead, and these can be recorded to MIDI tracks just like Note messages from the pads. You can then route these MIDI tracks to the mixer, which responds to MIDI Continuous Controller messages, to achieve basic level and pan automation.

When you're happy with the mix of your track, you enter a special Mixdown mode where you can bounce the whole mix to disk as a WAV file. a separate Mastering mode then gives you further processing options before you burn the file to CD. The internal effects DSP, freed from its mixing duties, now delivers a powerful mastering effects chain of EQ, psychoacoustic enhancement, multi-band compression and limiting. Backing up Projects is easily done to CD-R or CD-RW as a data archive, something you'll have to do with all your Projects sooner or later, so that you can reformat the hard drive to avoid data fragmentation; there's no defragmentation routine.

Once you have bounced down your final mix as a WAV file, you can polish the sound further using a dedicated mastering mode where the internal effects DSP offers a powerful mastering effects chain.

Verdict

The MV‑8800 makes a good impression right out of the box, exuding a reassuring air of robustness with its 9kg weight and 48 x 48 x 14cm dimensions. All the controls seem built to withstand a hammering, and all the sockets are bolted to the chassis for durability, which should help endear the machine to the live musician as well as the studio producer. I was also impressed with all the operational refinements and shortcuts of the operating system, as well as its resolutely crash-free operation during the two-month review period. All in all, this feels like a mature, trustworthy piece of kit.

Getting to know the machine took a bit of time and a certain amount of head-scratching, and I think this will be the biggest problem that Roland face in targeting the MPC crowd. Part of the problem is that there is way more functionality in the MV‑8800 than in a typical MPC, but it's also because of the way samples, Audio Phrases and Audio Events interact and interchange so freely. It doesn't help that the manuals aren't tremendously helpful (not that your average MPC user would even touch a manual). All the features are dutifully explained, but I had to discover for myself how to make them work together in practice. Once you're familiar with the machine, though, I'd say that there's nothing to choose between the MV‑8800 and an MPC in terms of operational speed. You might even find working with the MV‑8800 faster, especially if you get the extra monitor and mouse involved.

The flip side of the extra learning curve, though, is that the MV‑8800 beats the living daylights out of its closest Akai competitor, the MPC2500, in terms of feature set. The main sampler is more powerful and flexible, the audio tracks and Audio Phrases are a big bonus, MIDI editing is easier, and the effects are in a different solar system. The MV‑8800 is a much more creative machine and integrates audio, MIDI, effects and mixing functions in a unique way that's lots of fun once you're familiar with it.

... the MV‑8800 is an excellent machine, combining MPC-style features and reliability with bags more creative potential.

Beyond the discontinuation of the MV-8OP1 output expansion card in the EU, my only real complaints would be the lack of a phantom-powered XLR mic input, the fact that the mouse will only work with an external monitor, and the fact that level metering is pretty thin on the ground: beyond the aforementioned disappearing input metering while recording, the most annoying metering issues are the lack of master output metering to avoid clipping, and the lack of gain-reduction metering in the MFX dynamics algorithms. I also think it's a serious omission on a machine of this type that it won't import any of the tempo-sync'ing sample formats, such as REX2, Acidised WAV or Apple Loops. It would be great to be able to import the slices of a REX2 loop into a sampler Patch, as with the results of Auto Chop.

If it were just before Christmas, I might also send a letter to Santa wishing for more dynamics for mixdown (as on a VS recorder), more creative processing within the sampler architecture, better real-time pitch-shifting and time-stretching (as on the V-Synth), or an integrated XV sound module, but for this UK price you get a decent balance of features as it is, so I can't really complain. Besides, I'm pretty sure St Nick would take a long hard look at his ledger and decide that I'd not been good enough anyway...

In short, the MV‑8800 is an excellent machine, combining MPC-style features and reliability with bags more creative potential. I suspect, however, that it may be rather deep for the technically challenged user to get to grips with, and that Roland may not therefore erode that area of Akai's market share a great deal.