As it was explained to me, the Roland V-Mixer is also offered in packages including their digital
snake, so verify whether what you are seeing is just the
console with the local I/O or if it includes any snakes.
What I saw of the V-Mixer did make it seem pretty easy to use and after a brief
introduction, the interface made sense. But I saw and heard two things I did not like. The first is that there is no labeling. The faders work in banks with 4 banks, I believe they are Inputs 1-24, Inputs 25-48, AUX/DCA and a User bank. The User bank is nice in that it lest you create a bank that is a combination of specific inputs, auxes and DCAs. The problem is that there is no labeling. You have a
fader that could be Input 1 or Input 25 or Aux 1 or who knows what and the only identification is which bank you are on. That may even work for
fader #1, but quick... grab the kick drum or the lead vocal on your User bank. It's there somewhere. Some labeling would be nice.
The second issue related to presets and scenes. From what they told me, you are fairly limited in what you can safe when saving or recalling a
preset. I was told that you can exempt patching, preamp
gain, a
channel,
etc. but not specific settings within that
channel. If this is true, it could be rather limiting for some applications.
While not relevant for many, I also don't believe teh V-Mixer supports
LCR, which could be a consideration for some theatrical applications.