You'd forgotten all about this one right? Released in 1995 as part of Roland's new Sound Expansion Series for about £499 GBP. All 5 modules in the series were loaded with ROM samples taken from Roland's JV-80 sound expansion cards.
The M-VS1 Vintage Synth (to give it it's full title) features sounds from the Roland SR-JV80-04 card.
The M-VS1 is 28 note polyphonic & eight part multi-timbrel & contains synth-strings, pads, leads, basses & others, with 255 patches covering a wide palette of classics synth sounds. The unit also has 8 drum kits covering Roland classics including the TR-909, TR-808, CR-78 & more. The M-VS1 included a reverb & chorus effect, and FX can be added to the 8 possible parts separately if you are using a sequencer to play the unit in multi-mode.
Editing is via Sysex, but if you can get into it there's 80 parameters per unit that can be tweaked, including Filter, Envelopes, Modulation etc, and these units have cool Roland res' filters.
Other units in the Sound Expansion Series were the Roland M-DC1 dance module, M-BD1 bass & drums, M-OC1 orchestral, M-SE1 string ensemble & M-GS64 GM/GS module.
The M-VS1 is a forgotten bargain gem nowadays which can be had for very little money on Ebay.
Old Dancetech listings text
I first saw these Roland modules at a trade show a few of years back, around the time of the Korg Prophesy release, where they were pumping out loads of 'dance-music' noises.
These units didn't last long, probably because they are simply expander units as the title says..... These are not synths that can be edited from the front panel or anything like that...editing of sounds is via Sysex only..... They are simply boxes loaded up with roms worth of dance sounds... however as a cheap S/h purchase, maybe they are worth checking if you make any kind of dance tunes, and as you'll see, you can also use them as a drum box with a sequencer, where they will function better than most drum machines in providing a full dance-drums pallette of sounds.
The sounds of these units are taken from the JV-1080 cards.....and also I would bet that quite a few also found their way into the MC-303.....I'll talk to Roland & comfirm this soon.....each unit has about 250 patches....You also get a basic reverb & chorus FX to add......The FX can be added to the 8 multi-parts seperately if you are using a sequencer to play the unit in multi-mode.
The M-VS1 Vintage Synth module
On with the show, and this unit also looks like a real crackin box if you find one cheap......again about 250 patches, 8 part multi, 28 note poly.......Loaded with all the classic old Roland synths from the TB-303 to the Jupiter 8......there are also patches from synths such as Moog, Oberhiem, Arp etc........Just loads of old synths !!.....
Hey, but you also get a drum box too !...... Yup, this unit also has 10 drum kits dedicated to all yer 909, 808, CR-78 etc etc sounds + percussion, so again you get all the stuff you need to get a budget studio off the ground, or to supplement what you already have.... In fact, if you get one either of these as a drum sample player, you also get a truck load of other stuff for free... !!
Editing is again via Sysex.....but if you can get into it, there's 80 parameters per unit that can be tweeked.....including Filter, envelope, modulation etc etc.....and these units have cool Roland res' filters y'all !!
So there ya go.......Both 8 part multitimbrel......28 note poly......built in assignable reverb & chorus.....Stereo outputs......and also, each unit includes stereo audio in sockets, so that you can bring another units outputs into these modules' inputs, and output the combined mix of the two from the Roland units' outputs........ Basically, with these two it's like having a couple of JV1080 expansion cards in a box, with editing facilities etc....pretty cool huh ?......If you see either one cheap in the small-ad's, definately check em out !!!!
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