Cakewalk By Roland Sonar V-Studio 700: Instant Studio, Just Add Computer

PROS

CONS

INFO

NEED TO KNOW

What is it? A music production system with four components: Sonar 8 Producer software, VS-700C control surface, VS-700R audio interface, and Fantom VS hardware synth.
What does it run on? Windows XP or Vista, 32- and 64-bit.
Can I expand it? Yes, you can add another VS-700R. Via digital audio ins, you could also add A/D converters, mic preamps, a digital mixer — anything with a digital output.
Is the Fantom VS expandable? It comes with over 1,400 patches, but there’s also a slot for one Roland ARX sound expansion card.
How do the built-in mic pres sound? Transparent and very clean.
Is Sonar 8 a big step forward from Sonar 7? The biggest change is a more efficient audio engine, with lower latency. There are also several new plug-ins and multiple workflow tweaks.
Is it worth the bucks? Hell, yes. Add up what you’d pay separately for a highres audio interface with eight mic inputs, a motorized control surface, DAW software, and a hardware synth — and none of it would be anywhere near this integrated out of the box.

1.You can’t see the audio engine enhancements in Sonar 8, but you sure can load a lot more instruments and tracks.

2.The Transient Shaper does very cool things with drums, as well as other instruments with a fast attack — like bass.

3.Beatscape is a major goodie for groovemeisters, and supports REX files.

4.TruePianos Amber is a software piano instrument with many advanced features.

5.The Tube Leveler can rough up a sound very nicely; if you want to rough it up even more, Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3 LE is among the slew of included plug-ins.

The faders on the VS-700C controller are motorized, and the block of 12 endless knobs on the left provides plug-in setting and ACT (Sonar's Active Controller Technology) control. The T-Bar (think Death Star firing console) is assignable to a number of functions, including Sonar's "X-Ray" view which lets you see plug-ins semi-transparently over the rest of your onscreen work area.

The audio interface includes software-controlled mic preamps, but a hardware knob to select the sample rate.
A trap door on top reveals a Roland ARX soundcard expansion slot for the built-in Fantom VS hardware synth.

 

 

 VS-700C CONTROLLER

I like to mix, not just click, and I’ve been using motorized fader boxes with Sonar for years, but this custom controller is orders of magnitude better. Its major sections include:

Fader strips. Eight channels feature motorized faders, solo, mute, record arm, and select buttons, an endless knob for panning, and metering. A separate motorized fader is for the master level. Several clever options make it feel like you have more than eight faders: bank switching among fader groups, or flipping the physical faders to control track, bus, or main levels, is fast and easy. You can lock faders to particular channels, even when switching banks, which is an extremely useful feature.

Access panel. This area gives you onebutton access to important views and editing functions in Sonar. This is the kind of thing a general-purpose controller usually can’t do, at least not anywhere near this slickly.

Transport. In addition to the usual buttons for play, record, rewind, and so on, a bank of housekeeping buttons lets you perform what are normally QWERTY keyboard tasks, including undo, save, enter, and cancel, each with one button press.

LCD and LED displays. The LCD shows track names, parameter values, and the like; the LEDs give a nice big time code readout.

Channel strip/ACT knob area. This is one of my most-used sections; it has 12 endless knobs and four buttons that can either control four stages of channel EQ, sends, or my personal favorite, Active Controller Technology (ACT), which maps plugin controls to physical controls, and changes mappings to whatever plug-in is in the foreground onscreen. Having dedicated knobs makes it much easier to exploit ACT. I use the Learn function to assign the controls to whatever parameters I’m working with, and if I shift focus to another plug-in then return, my custom assignments remain.

Here are two missed opportunities: First, the Shift, Control Alt, and Command buttons on the VS-700C panel don’t substitute for the ones on your QWERTY keyboard (e.g., to control-click your mouse, you still have to use your computer keyboard). Second, some buttons call up menus in which you need to “OK” your choice. I hope there’ll be an update where double-clicking on buttons substitutes for hitting OK.

One feature that Cakewalk doesn’t seem to be pushing too hard is that the VS-700C can emulate a Mackie Control. I tried this with Propellerhead Reason, Ableton Live, Sony Vegas, and a few other programs. It worked fine, although the integration is nowhere near as deep as it is with Sonar.

In any event, when using a control surface for the first time, force yourself to touch the mouse as little as possible. Getting your fingers to fly around a console is like learning a musical instrument: You’ll get maximum return from your investment only if you build up proficiency.

FANTOM VS

The idea of including a hardware synth may smack of “because we can,” but it offers some surprising advantages. Basically, it’s a Fantom-G’s sound-generating section popped inside the audio interface. There’s even a slot for a single Roland ARX expansion board. These are the same cards you’d put in a Fantom-G (reviewed Sept. ’08), and feature “SuperNatural” technology, in which sophisticated multisamples change based on your playing and the edits you make in a plug-in-like window. You could change the size of a drum visually, for example, and hear the results. The Fantom VS inserts just like a soft synth, and even shows up in the same Sonar menu as your other VST instruments.

As to limitations, you get one instance of the Fantom VS because it’s one hardware synth. It is 16-part multitimbral, so you can load it with sounds and drive it with 16 MIDI tracks. However, if you have multiple projects open, only one can have the Fantom VS in it. Polyphony is 128 voices, and just like on hardware keyboards, a complex patch with lots of layers will eat up voices and yield less actual notes. In actual use, I run six or more instruments of average complexity without any audible note-stealing.

The Fantom VS has a master stereo out only, so you can’t patch different sounds into different Sonar tracks. Fortunately, the Fantom VS has its own mixer and a significant complement of effects that you can allocate to different multitimbral parts. To put these limitations in perspective, stuffing a hardware synth inside what’s primarily a recording system would be a bonus even if that synth were a lot less capable than the Fantom VS.

I’ve made the Fantom VS a part of my “new project” template, so I have a ready-togo synth with drums, percussion, bass, keys, and other staple sounds. I have a couple of different templates for writing different kinds of music, and that’s a real time-saver. What’s more, the Fantom VS sounds really good: Although it works well as a scratchpad for getting ideas down fast, if a track turns out to be a keeper, you probably won’t need to change to a “better” sound.

Another advantage is that there’s no CPU load. Let’s say I’m recording guitar through an amp simulation that is running on my CPU. This means I need to set Sonar’s latency really low for the best feel as I play. With the Fantom VS providing the background tracks, I don’t have to increase that latency to accommodate the power that’d be drawn by soft synths.

An editor app provides very deep control over the synth, and a real bonus is that all Fantom VS parameters are saved with a Sonar project, regardless of whether you save them separately in the editor. Auditioning the over 1,400 presets can get timeconsuming, because you have to click on a drop-down menu and select a category, then maybe a sub-category, then the patch. I wish you could step between patches with arrow keys when you’re in a sub-category.

VS-700R AUDIO INTERFACE

This was perhaps the biggest surprise, because I assumed it would be an afterthought: “Okay, we gotta get signals in and out.” But it’s a quality piece of gear. The eight mic pres sound really good, or more correctly, don’t have a sound. I have “color” preamps I can patch in; what I want in my audio interface is transparency — what engineers call a “straight wire with gain.” The one high-end feature that’s missing is an impedance switch, but I’ll cope.

One high-end feature I didn’t expect was remote control of the mic inputs from a software applet (see image at left). This includes not just the gain, but the compressor, low cut, pad, phantom power, and phase switch you get on each input. You can even save these settings as a preset. Say you’re miking drums. You could call up a preset bank of “starter” gains for your go-to mics (make sure they’re plugged into the right jacks), then fine-tune without getting up from the console. Very cool!

If you’re into high-res sample rates, you’re covered up to 192kHz. Predictably, higher rates reduce the simultaneous ins and outs. You can record 19 channels and play back 24 channels at 44.1 or 48kHz; 15 and 20 channels, respectively, at 88.2 or 96kHz, and five and 10 channels at 192kHz (176.4kHz is not available). This places no limits on the number of tracks Sonar can handle — we’re just talking about how much I/O the hardware box can pump at once. You can add a second VS-700R to double it, which happens to throw another Fantom VS synth into the mix. The various digital audio ins allow further expansion  and the eight-channel lightpipe supports the S/MUX protocol, so you can get four channels through it at 88.2 or 96kHz.

Here's a detail of the rear panel of the VS-700R interface box. Left to right, top row: port for VS-700C console, MIDI Out and In, USB2, ADAT Out and In, AES and S/PDIF digital audio I/O, 1/4" balanced TRS outs, monitor output section with XLR outs for powered speakers. Left to right, bottom row: Power cord input, eight 1/4" balanced TRS line ins and XLR mic ins.

SONAR 8 PRODUCER EDITION

The glue that holds all this hardware together is Sonar 8. Arguably its most important new feature doesn’t show up onscreen: a rewritten audio engine that’s measurably more efficient than previous versions. New plug-ins include Beatscape (an MPC-style groove machine), TruePianos Amber virtual piano, Native Instruments Guitar Rig 3 LE, Channel Tools (it decodes mid-side stereo recordings and more), a full version of Cakewalk’s Dimension Pro soft synth with a lot of new content, TS-64 Transient Shaper, and TL-64 Tube Leveler (designed by the guys behind the Studio Devil guitar amp modeling plug-in).

As to the core program, the Loop Explorer now handles MIDI as well as audio “Groove Clip” loops. You get more options when soloing tracks (e.g., enabling “solo override” on a track so it’s audible whether or not other tracks are soloed), and you can now record-arm tracks while playback or recording is running. The new “Simple Instrument” track type combines a MIDI input with an audio output, but be aware that such a track can have audio effects but not MIDI effects.

Two of my favorite new features may seem boring, but I use them all the time.

The first is clip grouping — Sonar was long overdue for this one. The second is “Aim Assist,” which puts a white line on the track view that follows your cursor and displays the precise timing of your cursor location. This is invaluable for moving clips around visually, or for editing one track at a point referenced by an event in another track. Use Aim Assist to line up with this event, click, and you’ll see where the “Now” time falls on your other clip.

Lots of small tweaks add up to a big workflow improvement. For example, in the Synth Rack view, controls no longer just show arbitrary numbers, but meaningful units such as Hz.

CONCLUSIONS

We need to address two potential V-Studio users: Sonar veterans, and folks shopping for a DAW platform who might not already use Sonar. If (like me) you’re in the first group, you already have audio interfaces and synths, and might think you’re paying for gear you don’t need. That’s what I thought — but only at first. After working with the system for awhile, I get it: The integration is so tight that given how often I use Sonar, the V-Studio will save me enough billable time to pay for itself in a year or less. While it’s earning its keep, I’ll enjoy the superior workflow. For hardcore Sonar users, the V-Studio is what you’ve been waiting for.

If you’re in the second group, your preference in DAW software matters, but that’s a bigger (and more subjective) issue than we can address here. Here’s what we can say: The interface has excellent audio quality, packs truly pro features such as softwarecontrolled mic preamps, and is expandable. A hardware synth on par with the latest Roland workstations is inside. The controller puts more of Sonar under your fingers than any general-purpose surface can, and the most loaded version of Sonar is included. Buying similar components separately would cost the same or likely more, and they wouldn’t form this well-oiled a machine right out of the box. I’d go so far as to say the V-Studio 700 is way better than it should be for the price — a clear Key Buy winner.

BREAKING NEWS: SONAR 8.3

Cakewalk released Sonar 8.3 just as we went to press. In addition to firmware updates for the V-Studio hardware, there are major additions to Sonar 8 Producer Edition itself. Fresh content includes vintage synth sounds for Dimension Pro LE, and six analog drum kits for Session Drummer 2. There’s 64-bit Windows Vista support for TruePianos Amber and NI Guitar Rig LE (which also adds a bass amp model and new compressor), an improved external hardware insert, better multi-processor support, more split options, and of course, bug fixes. It’s free, but the download is 435MB — don’t try this on dial-up!