VP-550 Kind of dissapointed

[musicman100]

Well realy mixed emotions. I have had the unit a few weeks now and here are my observations:
The unit is solidly constructed, a HEAVY chassis, I expected something lightweight and am pleased with the units tank like construction. Operation is very user friendly , controls are straightforward and clearly labeled. You want classic vocals choir push one button!! There are some "hidden" menus , such as mike sensitivity to patch expression that require you push buttons not marked with those functions, so you might have to drag out the manual to remember the keystrokes.
I found the mic sensitivity control very hot, I could only move it one or two graduations , anything past that was overload.
Now to the sounds. the sampled strings are killer, you could use them by themselves the rest of the sampled voices are Rompler quality and you may find them usefull or not . The Vocal Designer sounds are where I was alittle dissapointed. Let me say the pitch tracking is spot on and follows your playing faithfully. You can even affect the timbre of the V Voice with the timbre of your voice . The actual voice it self has a metallic robotic edge to it .I tried all the voices, classic, gospel, male/female, and pop and those have that metal sound to them, some like the sparser voices such as pop, are more pronounced in that sound. NOW I tried them dry without the built in reverb, turning up the reverb masks some of the metallic sounds, and sound a little better. I suppose sitting ina mix somewhere they would not be as noticable .
I suppose what kind of dissapointed me was I own A Digitech Studio Vocalist, a TC Helicon Voice One , Quintet, and V -Vocal in Sonar P5 and expected the VP550 to be heads above those products.I am able to massage my VP550 tracks and "bury" them in the mix enough to sound OK. I bought the VP550 "sound unseen" from the music store, only basing my desision on the Video clip I found on the Roland website, and it sure sounded a lot different there ...

X6, V-Combo, JV1010, JV1080, S330, S550, SP202

[RunBeerRun]

Can you post a clip? Thanks!