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The short review: I am so glad I bought this DVD. I learned something new & useful in the first few minutes of watching. This is the DVD Roland should have made. If you own a VS2000 & want to learn how to do things like edits & auto-mix or really rock on effects buy this. Spend more time playing with your VS2000 rather than reading, hours of trial error & re-reading.
Now for the long review:
Let me start off with a little background info. I got my VS2000 about 1½ years ago. I use the VGA, 2 VS8f3 cards (got number 2 last month worried they will be gone soon). I have the following plug-ins T-Racks, Sound Blender, Autotune, the 1176 & LA2A. After being on the board over a year I consider myself to be an intermediate user of the VS2000. I know the basics. However, I knew my machine is capable of tons more. I read & re-read the manual but lost interest in Roland’s presentation so I put becoming a VS master on the back burner. I even contemplated getting the VS2400 DVD from Roland. But after speaking with a Roland tech they said the DVD did not really cover the VGA & I most likely would not get my $$ worth. I noticed the VS Tutorial from PlancTon a few months ago. I was hesitant as it looked like they covered the 2400 & 2480. 2 weeks ago I emailed them asking “as VS2000 user will I get use out of the DVD”? They got back to me the next day explaining the VGA is about 98% the same in all 3 units & if operations are different on a machine a pop up shows on screen. I decided to buy the DVD.
I ordered on line about 6PM EST on Tuesday 2-26. The DVD was in my mailbox 1 week later on 3-4. 1 week from Germany to The Midwest USA A++.
My DVD player is a $24.99 special. It is about as cheap as you can get. Both DVDs play with NO PROBLEMS at all.
The DVD is broken into a very logical fashion: Projects, Recording, Mixing, Using Effects, Editing, Mastering, using Plug-ins, Burning a CD. It covers how to use the VS machine rather than a home recording how to. At the start of each section the DVD writer is there speaking in German & 3 seconds later the English voice over starts. Since that part is very short & non technical there is no detraction. Right away we go to the VGA screen & start. 95% of the DVD is on the VGA screen. I learned a ton of short cuts that will save me time. For me those alone are worth the price of the DVD. Some of the things I liked about the production when they talk about a concept the cursor moves on screen pointing to what they are talking about.
The highlights for me were the editing sections. I now know how to do all sorts of edits down to the wave form, moving & copying parts etc. I also understand how to use auto-mix now. I will have to watch a few more times but I have a much better idea of how I will use it. Sure this stuff is in the Roland manual but after reading it I still was unclear. I grew tired from re-reading trial/error & gave up. Seeing it action with the VS Tutorial I want to jump in right away.
I learned some cool tricks with the EQ & dynamics section.
Some other things that I liked were the Plug-in demos. They use a VS2000 for these demos. After seeing the demos on the Roland VS8f3 plug-ins I am really excited. I did not know the effects on that card were so awesome. I didn’t know what some of the controls really did. I’m sure if I spent hours & hours playing around with them I would know but the demo showed me in 15 minutes just what I need to know to jump in. Honestly if you get a VS8f3 card the effects are so good the other plug-ins are just icing. Then again what cake is complete without icing? I learned a lot about the other plug-ins I have or may someday get. This also saved me hours of time as I now have a better understanding of what they can do & what I will do the next time I sit down to record. They have musical example of each and go over many of the parameters.
From the mastering section of the DVD it looks like the VS2000 is the better machine as you can edit the master tracks directly on the 2000.
If you get the book there are many sections of the DVD that give you page number references from the book so if you want more information you have a direct path. Sorry I did not get the book.
So what’s my opinion of the DVD? It is VERY WELL worth buying. I wish I had picked it up sooner. I found myself saying out loud wow! or cool! many times while watching. I even ran downstairs to my VS to check some of the things first hand. The VS Tutorial showed me things I knew my VS2000 could do but I never had the time to re-read the manual and spend hours of trial & error. The DVD has increased the value of my VS2000 & all the extra stuff I have with it. Rather than spending hours learning my machine I can now spend those hours having fun with it. Would I buy it again you bet!
Just in case you are wondering I’m not affiliated with PlancTon. You can probably search my previous posts asking if people had info on the DVD. I’m just a VS2000 user who knew they were not using their expensive machine as fully & efficiently as I could. I always knew it could do more than I was doing with it. I had also been sitting on the fence about getting the DVD & finally jumped in. I believe I found a tool that other VS2000 users could benefit from so I wanted to let them know what I thought of the product. These guys are also sponsors of VS Planet so if you want to order just click on the banner when it says view all our sponsors.
If you have any questions feel free to email me.
Edited by philcan (03/07/08 09:57 AM)
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