Roland have dropped a bit of a bombshell, the Roland JD-XA hybrid analog synth we reviewed last year, has had a free update to the on board sounds that adds Analog Drum sounds to the sample memory. Just released on the Axial website (Roland's sound resource for current synths) the pack is called Real Analog Drums and contains four Kits, a set of sounds described in the tags for their post as Analog, Electro, TR. We don't have the JD-XA here to check them out but you will need the JD-XA Librarian application for Windows/ Mac OS X.
I guess this means that the on board PCM samples, while we thought they were fixed, are in fact upgradeable something that might signal yet more substantial upgrades to come? We certainly hope so.
We were mistaken here, it looks like these sounds are in fact programmed using the synthesis engines, NOT by adding extra samples. Which presumably means, that each Kit would require a sound per, part - with a maximum of 8 per patch. Apologies for any misleading information.
Thanks to Jens for the tip.
Montage M's 1998 forebear had sampling, FM & VA!
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