Digital Mixing To Go--Roland’s VM-7200 V-Mixing System

Digital Mixing To Go
Roland’s VM-7200 V-Mixing System
By Randy Alberts

Summary: Flexible, modular, automated digital mixing system with up to 94 channels and a range of add-ons
Target Users: Audio engineers and producers, musicians
Platform: Proprietary

The concept of modular audio hardware gets more appealing to an expanding audio studio every year. Short of auctioning off outdated gear every six months on eBay, an open-door approach like the one offered by Roland’s VM-7200 V-Mixing System can be just the ticket for avoiding the used-gear merry-go-round when it comes to digital mixing.

The 48-channel VM-7200 and its smaller cousins, the VM-7100 and VM-3100, are the first separate-component digital-mixer family ever introduced. Up to 94 channels and eight stereo and 16 mono onboard multi-effects are possible, and an extremely flexible routing system and built-in speaker and microphone modeling capabilities combine with a myriad of optional equipment in the VM-series to handle just about any audio one can throw at it. Word clock, AES/EBU digital I/O, and high-quality XLR and 1/4-inch balanced and unbalanced analog connectors abound in a system that sports a surprisingly small footprint.

Sound Specifications
The base 7200 begins with the VM-C7200 94-Channel V-Mixing console, the VM-7200 48-channel V-Mixing processor, and a good-looking blue 15-foot XLR-type connector cable to marry the two. (The console and processor together are $6,490.) The V-Mixing console weighs just 27 pounds and measures a tidy 26.5 inches across, 17 inches deep and 2.5 inches thick, yet it comfortably houses a 240 x 320 backlit LCD display, 120 brightly-lit function buttons, a time/value wheel, a row of rotary output level knobs, and 25 automated, long-throw channel and master faders—all without crowding a single one. The VM-7200 V-Mixing processor is a three-space rack-mount unit bristling with 20 analog XLR inputs, 40 channel insert and instrument 1/4-inch inputs, and 20 1/4-inch and six XLR bus outputs on its front panel alone, plus a nifty “mute all outputs” button that temporarily silences everything when plugging and unplugging connectors—a great idea for any mixer or I/O box.

Roland’s open-door approach can be just the ticket for avoiding the used-gear merry-go-round when it comes to digital mixing.

The included AES/EBU-type connector is a ‘VM-Link’ cable that allows an engineer to sit at the V-mixing console 15 feet away from the processor. A green light on the V-mixing processor pulsates when data is flowing between the two units but no audio information is passed between the two, a great start to building a totally noise-free digital studio. For all its analog and digital I/O and up to 94-channel capacity, the modular and independent pieces of the VM-7200 feel very compact and easily applied. The V-mixing processor has plenty of inputs and outputs to interconnect with any word clock-, AES/EBU- and MIDI-savvy equipment, and the optional packages for the V-Mixing processor (described below) allow integration with various TASCAM DA-series, Alesis ADAT machines and other digital equipment while providing a great view and interface for controlling it all.

Options Galore
A number of royal blue rack-mount hardware options available for the VM-7000 family of V-mixers were also included in Roland’s shipment for review. Up to three VS8F-2 24-bit effects expansion boards ($395 each) can be added to the dual onboard stereo effects processors already built into the VM-7200 to provide up to nine onboard stereo effects processors fully loaded. The VM-24C Cascade Kit ($395) allows one VM-7200 mixing processor to slave to another in offering up combined 94-input channel capabilities, and each ADA-7000 8-Channel AD/DA Converter package ($1,245) adds eight 24-bit analog-to-digital input channels at a time to the V-Mixing processor over an R-BUS connector. The ADA-7000 offers 32, 44.1, 48 and 96 KHz sampling rates and places eight rotary gain knobs on its front panel.

The AE-7000 AES/EBU interface ($645) does just that, converting up to eight channels of AES/EBU I/O to the R-BUS format and back again. The VM-24E I/O expansion board and DIF-AT interface box ($395) internally mount in the VM-7200 mixing processor to provide three jacks for interfacing with 8-in/8-out RMDB II and ADAT/TASCAM digital audio recorders, respectively. The MB-24 ($895), a level meter bridge that mounts to the VM-C7200 mixing console, is another optional add-on that goes far to enhance this well-designed package.

Roland also shipped a pair of self-powered DS-90A 24-bit digital speakers ($595 each), which it bills as the world’s first 24-bit digital reference monitors, for this review. The speakers weigh a hefty 33 pounds each, and the DS-90A/VM-7200 combo produces exceptionally good audio. Analog and digital inputs allow the DS-90As to work conventionally with analog consoles and to receive 24-bit digital audio both coaxially and optically, and these bi-amplified monitors work in tandem with Roland’s speaker-modeling functionality. (Speaker modeling is built into many of the VM-series modular mixers and VS-series personal digital audio workstations to emulate outputs ranging from a powered subwoofer to a pocket-sized radio speaker.) Designed with the DS-90A speakers specifically in mind, Roland’s COSM (Composite Object Sound Modeling) technology really sparkles in the VM-series digital mixers. Turning one pair of digital monitors into something not unlike a room full of Auratones, NS-10Ms, Genelecs, and so forth, with a bevy of extra midrange bumps, extended low frequencies and even a tissue-paper-covered “White Cone” tweeter, is not as far-fetched as it sounds with this mixer/monitor combo. The sound quality for playback and live instrument and vocal audio is excellent, no matter what type of content is played back through the V-mixer and DS-90As.

Impressions
The VM-C7200 console’s interface is professionally light to the touch, though a manual paging session or two is still required in order to begin grasping its wide array of function buttons. The brilliantly lit buttons light up in correspondence to the on-screen page currently open, including separate “status” and “channel edit” indicators for each channel that make it easy to see where one’s at geographically. The console’s flexible FlexBus routing scheme is a visual pleasure to work with.

Dialing up effects and amp models is a snap, as is adjusting EQ, dynamics and other parameters using the six good-feeling rotary soft knobs that are angled upward just below the LCD screen and correspond to on-screen parameters. The well-written illustrated manuals are, frankly, a welcome change compared to previous translation-challenged efforts from Roland. They combine with a built-in EZ Routing Patchbay system like those in the VS-series recorders to make the VM-7200 system far easier to learn than many previous ones.

A range of dynamic and condenser microphones routed through the VM-7200 Mixing Processor’s pre-amps and A-to-D converters sounded fantastic, as did electric guitars, basses, synthesizers and any CD, DAT, or MD device input using both the analog and digital I/O. For its sheer elegance, compact design, and effects and automated mix power alone, the VM-7200 V-Mixing System deserves high kudos. Combined with the DS-90A digital speakers, 24-bit audio never sounded so good.

Randy Alberts is a writer, musician, and engineer in Pacifica, California.

Roland; Phone: 323-890-3700; Fax: 323-890-3701; Web site: www.rolandus.com

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