Roland Forums

Hi

I've just bought a used VS-840EX and it appears to be an excellent recorder. Even though I plan to buy more 250meg Zip discs for it, I'd like to be able to back it up using its optical interface as I own a Sharp CD recorder which has optical in and out ports. I gather this will be possible but...

My question is this: is the optical port on the VS mono-directional i.e is it an output only or can the VS load song data through it too? It would be useful to have a system whereby I could complete a mix, transfer it digitally to my CD recorder but also load up song data from it at a later date should I fancy doing a remix. If I can't do this, I'll need to commit everything to Zip discs for posterity which could be an ongoing expense (Zip discs becoming slightly rare and blank music CD-Rs being quite cheap!).

Thanks for any help.

is the optical port on the VS mono-directional i.e is it an output only or can the VS load song data through it too?

it is mono directional so it cannot load song data into the VS

If I can't do this, I'll need to commit everything to Zip discs for posterity which could be an ongoing expense (Zip discs becoming slightly rare and blank music CD-Rs being quite cheap!).

I see what you mean, but you could live with a max of 10 zip discs. Once they are on the zips, you could back those up to your PC hard drive. Warning, I have never tried this so you should experiment with it first to see if it works!!!! In the past I have sucessfully backed up zip disks from other Roland products and restore the data at a later date, You must remember though to format the zip in the instrument before restoring data to it from your pc. (I.e. do not format it in your PC as the VS won't recognise it) If this works with VS840, you only need a few disks so you can transfer the data around as required.

Thanks very much. I must admit that I was concerned that, not having an internal hard drive, the 840EX would need to call on lots of Zip disks to be sure of having mix capacity, as it were. I am currently scouring the web to see where 250 meg Zips can be had cheapest. One more question: are 750 meg ZIPs usable with the 840EX? I know the original 840 could only use 100 meg Zips. Having three times the capacity on a 750 meg Zip would be very handy.

Ps I'll only ever attempt to format them on the 840EX.

I started with a VS-840 (sill licking around somewhere), and bought a VS-840GX (very similar to the EX) via ebay.
You'll need 250Mb disks I'm afraid.
John's suggestion about using a PC to import the files, then burn store them on the drive, or burn to CD sounds interesting.
I would try it, but I haven't a 250Mb ZIP drive for my PC, only a 100Mb one.

Here's another interesting idea, if you are brave enough:
http://vs840.vjam.net/vs840cf_install.pdf

Thanks. Am I right in thinking that Zip disks formatted in the 840EX can't be read/written to by an external Zip drive connected to a PC? I'm currently checking out price options with regard to 250mb Zips at the moment. If John could let me know whether the 840EX's drive is ok with 750mb disks as well as the standard 250s, I'd be much obliged.

Hi Again,

To my knowledge the vs isn't compatible with 750mb zips. The zips you create though should be readable by the PC, but zips created in the PC (formatted by them) won't be readable by the VS840.

The VS uses a different file system, (like FAT, FAT32, NTFS etc) which the PC can read. However the VS does not read the file format used by the PC.

For this reason, I believe you will be able to back up the contents of a zip disk (created on the VS) to your PC. When you need to return this data to the VS, you should use a VS formatted zip disk and copy the information back in exactly the same format as it was originally. Therefore it is important you do not 'muck about' with the files once they are on your computer. Use the 'select all' option (Ctrl-A) when copying the data off and putting it back on.

This method worked for me with the EM2000/G1000 and VA7/VA76 keyboards.

Hi again

Can the VS's drive handle 100 meg Zips as well as 250 meg ones? If 750 meg discs are not compatible with it, that's ok as it looks like 750s are quite hard to come by.

Thanks for your help.
Al

Ignore that! I've just been reading the manual and it says that 100 meg discs can be read but not recorded to so that's that answered! I will try to source only 250 meg discs from now on.

Thanks very much for your assistance.