We’ve got some additional details on the Edirol V-8 mixer. Pricing will be set at US$1995 list. For comparison, the V-4 lists for US$1029, but has a street price pretty close to that — perhaps due to the unit’s popularity rather than any minimum advertised pricing restrictions.

The V-8 is shipping within a month. I’ll make sure CDMotion is high on the list as far as evaluation units. While I hear the criticisms — and some of you have moved beyond hardware mixing or now rely on high definition signal — there’s very little that can outclass the V-8 for what it is in the same price range. If it delivers, it could easily remove the justification for buying a V-4, even at half the price. Watch for our hands-on report.

Edirol V-8 Mixer [Worldwide product page]

Edirol V-8 Preview on CDMotion (with a little pro-HD trolling, to boot!)

The Edirol V-4 has been the standard mixer for years, leaving people desperately wanting a sequel. Korg tried with the KrossFour, but what they came up with was mainly a V-4 wannabe — a welcome DJ-style crossfader couldn’t make up for the lack of differentiating features, and the V-4’s elegant layout. And Edirol’s own HD-resolution V-440HD wasn’t priced for mortals.

The Edirol V-8 promises to change all of that.

First, Edirol has wisely copied the satisfying control layout of the V-4. Hate on the V-4 if you like, but I think we take for granted how cleanly-designed and intuitive that layout is. The V-4 isn’t a perfect mixer by any means, but by encouraging mixing flow, and creating an affordable mixer that worked well for a broad audience, they did create a major hit.

What’s great is that the V-8 adds what the V-4 lacked:

• Computer inputs: two “RGB” inputs with standard D-Sub 15-pin inputs (what most people call VGA jacks, even if that’s not strictly correct); a switcher for selection
• More inputs all around: 7 composite ins, 4 S-Video jacks, for a total of 8 simultaneous input channels (i.e., you can use up to 4x composite and 4x S-Video simultaneously)  … oh, yeah, and BNC jacks
• More outputs: 3 output channels, and monitors for inputs 1-7, channel B (monitoring either S-Video or RGB computer in), and the main preview output jack
• Independent, DJ-style vertical faders instead of those inconvenient V-4 knobs, plus better preset buttons — and an output fader, not a knob (finally!)
• Internal scan converter and time base correction