ROLAND MV8000: SOLD
Includes the very rare MV8-OP1 analogue & digital I/O board
The Roland MV8000 was probably designed to be an Akai MPC4000 killer, and if Roland hadn't crippled the basic model with a lack of outputs and then in a classic Roland manner, completely forgotten that it existed then it could have been a serious contender for the Akai MPC crown. For a while in the early 2000's it was the go to sampling hardware sequencer and dedicated beat production tool for any number of acclaimed hiphop and dance music producers. Then Roland released the excellent OS v3 update that effectively turned it into a new machine, started selling the MV8000 as the MV8800 which was exactly the same only with a colour screen and the VGA monitor expansion board option already installed..... and then promptly proceeded to suffer some kind of amnesia attack and immediately forgot the entire range was ever produced.
What didn't help was that in a classic Roland shooting themselves in the foot manner the original unexpanded unit only has a stereo pair of outputs, and their MV8-OP1 expansion board that offered 6 analogue outs, a Roland R-Bus digital I/O and optical/spdif digital inputs appeared to have only been manufactured for about 20 minutes before being discontinued. As a result they are very rare and sought after. For a long time a MV8-OP1 board cost as much as the MV8000 itself!
This particular unit was bought about a decade ago for a live project that never happened, and ever since then its been sitting around unused just gathering dust. It had one previous owner when we bought it, but i think we only used it about 5 times mainly due to the fact that the only paper manual we had was a massive tome that was for the previous completely different operating system, and also in German!
The machine has 512MB sample RAM installed, along with the all important MV8-OP1 expansion board. It doesn't have the VGA/mouse board, but these can be picked up fairly cheaply from the net if you really wanted one. We never bothered as it seemed like it was defeating the object of using a piece of hardware!
Theres currently about 10GB of samples etc on the 40GB hard drive, including a couple of Akai 70's breakbeat sample libraries, Roland artist drums folders, various instruments for the onboard synth and every single sound from around 200 drum machines! Its been upgraded to the latest V3.54 operating system.
As you can see, the unit is in excellent condition with just a few wear marks on the front corners of the plastic edges. Other than that its virtually new, and even still has the factory sticker to show various updated functions still stuck on the front.
These machines have a seriously professional build quality thats far better than anything Roland else made at the time. You could certainly kill someone a lot easier with this thing than with anything Roland make today!
We have replaced the main data value encoder as a precautionary measure, as it was just starting to feel a little jumpy with age.
We can include a manual for an earlier operating system which you can use to get started, but you'll have to download a copy of the latest operating system manual from the Roland site HERE or nothing will make any sense!
You can find a Sound On Sound review of the MV8800 HERE. The MV8000 has an identical operating system and features, other than the colour screen and VGA output expansion as standard.
You can find the Roland MV8000 page with all the specs HERE where you can also find other tutorials and downloads.
If you want to buy this machine get in contact HERE.