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[Aaron McQueen]

Even better!

[Steve Hurt]

There's an article on it in the newest Mix magazine.  

Cost to be from just under 10k up to approx 14k.  

Sounds like it's still evolving.  Can't wait to see it!

[Phil LaDue]

Freaking sweet, It's definitely a contender for the medium format digital market.
The scroll wheel is actually less angled and more ergonomic in person than in the early promo photos.
I will definitely encourage a road test of this system.

[Bennett Prescott]

I had Tom Stephenson walk me through it at the RSS booth. The claim seems to be that it's going to be an M7CL feature set at half the price. I think that's more than a little overzealous, but it is a nice little desk. The UI is well thought through, I found it comfortable in my fiddlings around. Notable absent is the ability to make the high and low EQ sections anything other than shelving, so it's not really 4 band fully parametric EQ. There is a separate high pass filter that can also be set as a low pass, notch, or bandpass.

Otherwise a very nice little package with a robust feature set, extremely flexible routing of channels and things like pre/post points and compressors, etc. It has a "rack" with FX and EQs that can be assigned at will. The unit itself has a quite reasonable number of local inputs and outputs, and up to another 80 inputs or outputs (but not both, so you could do an 80x0 or a 0x80 or a 40x40 or most anything in between) can be attached by hooking up digital snake frames, which are available in 16x8 or modular 40 channel frames. The modular frames have been reviewed on Road Test before by myself, they're even more updated now with AES and other I/O capabilities. The snake itself sounded pretty good, even under moderate abuse, when I played with it last. It remains to be seen whether the console and snake combo will also be sonically good.

This should be an interesting product in the sub-$15K digital mixer market. I think it's going to compete much more with desks like the LS9 and TT24, but that remains to be seen.

[Mac Kerr]

Bennett Prescott wrote on Mon, 08 October 2007 18:15

Notable absent is the ability to make the high and low EQ sections anything other than shelving,

Also notable by its absence is the ability to change the variable gain auxes into unity gain groups. The UI on the top layer of editing capability is pretty straight forward, but to do more advanced settings it is a little non-intuitive. I agree it will compete more with the TT24, particularly as a console/snake combination.

Mac

[Phil LaDue]

And the fans are dead silent...
 

[Bob Leonard]

This is the type of desk that could change my mind concerning digital mixers. Nice features and, maybe the right pricing as well. Another feature is the Roland quality and support. I honestly don't think any of my Roland gear has ever failed on me. That includes anything from a simple MIDI interface to my performance sound modules. Maybe I can build this or another equally good desk into my retirement plan.

[Kevin Maxwell AKA TheMAXX]

I saw it briefly at AES and yesterday I attended a demo of it in Mass. I was impressed with it at the price point.

I punched up a channel on headphones and cranked the gain till it distorted and it sounded like analog distortion not digital distortion. Not a scientific test and I didn’t have as much time as I would have liked to. We were in the early demo and we had to get heading home and make room for the next bunch.

It is lacking some features that I am looking for but it sounds like they may be included in the production units as software changes. Like a matrix section and direct outs not just the split that it is now capable of. They seemed to also listen to attendees’ comments regarding improvements or changes.

I am rather skeptical of a graph that they showed trying to say that a hard-wired snake has a significant roll off of the high frequencies. There wasn’t any mention of how long of a snake they were measuring. I spoke up and said that something is wrong with the hardwired snake you are testing to get that result.

[Tom Boisseau]

I saw the Roland M-400 V-Mixing System (as they are calling their new digital console) at the WFX conferance in Atlanta a couple weeks ago.

I was very impressed with the features verses the price.  That being said, it is NOT as flexible as I would need it to be.

To begin with, there are only 8 inputs and 8 outputs on the console itself.  All other ins and outs must be accomplished by using their digital snake.  Additionally, it is a TOTALLY closed system.  There are no card or expansion slots of any type, so you are pretty limited as far "add ons" are concerned. Something else they fail to mention in the liturature is that the second bank of 24 channels has NO processing such as limiters or compressors and because their are no expansion capabilities, it is doubtfull you will ever be able to add them

Roland's digital snake looks WONDERFUL!  I hope they come out with a MY card for the Yamaha digital consoles.  The new "stage box" design with the ability to put up to three 16x8 boxes at various locations on the stage is VERY desirable.  The pricing seems fair as well.  They do however need to come up with a way to prevent the power cable from becoming detached.  Presently it is nothing more than just an IEC power cable with no way to lock it to prevent accidental unplugging.  I suppose you could just "tie it off" to the stage box.

My impression was that this is a "rock and roll" board and well suited for it!  I however do some rock and roll, lots of corporate, lots of broadcast.  Sometimes I need to do three way splits on the stage and sometimes at FOH.  Sometimes I'm setting the console in places where snakes are already run, and sometimes I need lots of inputs right at FOH for multiple VTR's, CD, Cassette, Minidisk, DVD, etc.  So while I think the Roland is a terrific achievement (for the money) with lots of great features, it should work great for MANY, but it is not for me.

Tom

[Phil LaDue]

Tom Boisseau wrote on Sun, 11 November 2007 23:49

They do however need to come up with a way to prevent the power cable from becoming detached.  Presently it is nothing more than just an IEC power cable with no way to lock it to prevent accidental unplugging.

Easily fixed.
http://www.interpower.com/scripts/cgiip.exe/WService=ic/papl ist2.p?w_group=cl&w_title=Connector%20Locks