For Immediate Release

Rebecca Eaddy
Marketing Communications Manager
Roland Corporation U.S.
(323) 890-3718
Rebecca.Eaddy@RolandUS.com

VS8F-3 V-STUDIO EXPANSION CARD DEBUTS

New VS8F-3 Card Adds Plug-In Power to Multiple V-Studios

Anaheim, January 15, 2004—Roland today announced that it would, for the first time, open up its successful V-Studio platform to outside plug-in developers via the VS8F-3 Plug-In Effect Expansion Board. This historic announcement marks a bold initiative at Roland, whereby the company will give V-Studio users access to both high-quality Roland plug-ins and optional 3rd party plug-ins. Developer response has been favorable with heavyweights like Antares, IK Multimedia, Massenburg and Universal Audio making their most popular plug-ins available for the V-Studio platform.

To add plug-in processing to a V-Studio, users must purchase an optional VS8F-3 Plug-In Effect Expansion Board and update their V-Studio’s software. This great range of plug-ins will be immediately available for the popular, top-of-the-line VS-2480-Series, VS-2400CD and the new VS-2000CD. Support for the VS-1680, VS-1880 and VS-1824 is planned for April 2004.

The VS8F-3 itself is a high-quality expansion board boasting 56-bit processing and sampling rates up to 96kHz, depending on the V-Studio hosting the board. Each VS8F-3 can run two plug-ins. Roland includes five high-quality plug-ins with each board: a Mastering Tool Kit, Stereo Reverb, Pre-Amp Modeler, Vocal Channel Strip and Tempo Mapping Effect. Of course, users are free to purchase optional plug-ins from 3rd party developers as well.

So far, there are eight plug-in developers with products available for the VS8F-3. Antares will offer their best-selling Auto-Tune plug-in while Cakewalk® will offer SoundStage™ to allow users to design the perfect acoustic environment in addition to the critically acclaimed fx: reverb™. IK Multimedia will be porting over their popular T-Racks mastering plug-in and Massenburg will release their Hi Resolution Parametric EQ. McDSP will also jump onboard with their own unique Chrome Tone Amp plug-in. Sound Toys® will bring SoundBlender, their professional studio-quality pitch shifting effects to the Roland VS platform and TC Electronics will offer their TCR3000™ which delivers 16 of TC’s best, award-winning reverbs. Universal Audio will bring their acclaimed LA2A Limiting Amplifier and 1176LN Compressor to the V-Studio platform. More 3rd party plug-ins will be announced in the coming months.

Roland is a world leader in the design, manufacture and distribution of electronic musical instruments, professional audio equipment, multimedia products and music accessories. For more information, contact Roland Corporation U.S., 5100 S. Eastern Ave., P.O. Box 910921, Los Angeles, CA 90091-0921, (323) 890-3700 (x3718 for media use only), www.RolandUS.com. All trademarks are property of their respective owners.