2 • Roland Verselab MV-1

THE MV-1 PRIORITISES VOCALS, BUT IT STILL COVERS YOU FOR SAMPLES AND INSTRUMENTS.

Unusually for a hardware sequencer, the Roland Verselab MV-1 is all about vocals. It’s a sequencer, sampler, and software instrument host that uses all that as a support network for your voice. Whether processing your vocals in real-time, or recording them, or importing from another source: the Verselab is good for it all.

The MV-1 features a small LCD display, and various well-labelled knobs and buttons, all of which have some chance of being readable on stage, being either black-on-white or white-on-black. There are 16 sequencer step buttons arrayed along the lower edge, and there are 16 square pads in the centre of the unit for playing beats and other functions.

At the back, there’s a mains power input and on/ off switch, a USB-B port, full-size MIDI in/out, SD card slot, Kensington lock slot, quarter-inch left and right line inputs, an XLR mic input, and finally, quarter-inch left and right line outputs. The front panel features both quarter-inch and eighth-inch headphone jacks, and a small grille covers a built-in mic.

The Verselab can be powered from the included mains adaptor, or kept portable with a USB-style power bank. Roland provides project templates if you need backing in a hurry, otherwise, it’s not such a leap to create your own. Press the drum track/kick button, then navigate to your chosen kit or sound – you can play it on the 16 large pads. Then enter record or step record mode, and add your chosen kick to the required steps in the bar using the lower pads.

The Verselab MV-1 is fairly unique in terms of the way it incorporates the human voice into the world of sequencing and grooveboxes. On one level, it’s not really so different from Roland’s own MC-707, but that machine is also squarely aimed at exploiting the ZEN-Core sounds, with a bit of sampling, sequencing, and enough controls for live interaction. The MV-1 keeps those elements, but bumps them to one side, to accommodate the vocal capture, import, and processing.

There are plenty of hardware tools that deal with vocal processing – Roland itself has the VT-1 and VT-3 Voice Transformers, and Boss (a division of Roland) offers the VE-500 Vocal Performer, a pedal aimed at performers who also need real-time vocal effects. TC Helicon is a big name in this field, with the VoiceLive range of pedals and tabletop devices.

There’s a suite of vocal-oriented effects available, which can be applied during or after recording – these are fairly restrained, and Roland have probably done the right thing by avoiding excessively heavy or cheesy sound processing. There are very obvious controls for vocal processor on/off, tone, and mic on/off, gain – keeping menu diving to a minimum. Use a large pad to select a take slot and record your part, then set the start and endpoints, and place in the sequencer timeline by using the lower row of buttons.

Not everybody wants to master a DAW before they feel qualified. The MV-1 is a 21st-century take on the cassette multi trackers that were once used to create home demos. The marketing is dead-on – targeted at somebody who perhaps has a small amount of outboard, and likes the convenience of social media for sharing resources and mixes, but who gets a kick out of working against the limitations of hardware.

VERDICT

The Verselab is a workable solution for computeraverse producers while integrating with the computer when you need it to.

PROS

SBeautifully organised user interface.

Built-in mic for spontaneous vocals.

Covers production from beat to mastering tasks.

CONS

The plastic body casing feels cheap, and transmits handling noise through to the mic.

A larger display would be helpful.

CONTACT

Roland

Ph: (02) 9982 8266 Web: roland.com/au