|
tremendous value in this keyboard. essentially a JV-1080 in keyboard form, with 3 SR-JV80 expansion boards (Session, Orchestral, & Techno) included, and an arpeggiator based on the one in the XP-60/80. all for under $1000 (or in my case, for B-stock closeout, much much cheaper).
keyboard itself is commensurate with the price of the synth - good but nothing to dance about. sounds are by and large excellent. nylonish guitar sounds are incredible - including the sound of fingers sliding around the strings depending on how you play it. very convincing.
orchestral and session boards include many excellent sounds. orchestral provides a selection of strings for any situation, plus a healthy crop of standard orchestral instruments. brass could be better, but brass on just about every synth generally sucks. session board is more bread and butter sounds. a better piano on the session board than in the stock ROM, but it is not the best piano ever heard (as an earlier post stated). useable in a mix, though, but not for soloing. synth pads on the session are particulary nice.
techno board is of debatable usefulness. most sounds of the loop variety are unusable. some standout patches are also quite recognizable from the songs of artists who also noted the standout-ness of the patches. covers most generic techno-ish sounds rather well. nothing to distance yourself from the crowd, but most general dance sounds are available.
bajillions of JV/XP sounds on the internet. several really amazing patches programmed by some of the folks out there. i've had several JV-1010s and a JV-1080, so i've gone through most of them.
roland pitch-stick is great for pitch-bend, but useless as a mod source - you must push really hard on the stick to get it to generate modulation - i worry it will break when i do so. fortunately, there are 4 sliders that can be set to the most useful "performance" parameters - filter cutoff, resonance, etc., or to any other programmable controller you can think of. sliders a little smallish, though, but they work well.
dedicated buttons to turn on/off various items (effects, arpeggiator) located in a nice layout for easy access. since the arpeggiator button is the on/off for the arpeggiator, it won't switch to the arpeggiator edit screen unless you hold it down and keep holding it down whilst editing parameters - annoying. easy access to turning the reverb, chorus, and insert effects on and off is a welcome addition missing from other JV/XP synths.
there's a JV/XP synth or module in just about every pro studio there is - the sounds are as thin or as fat as you want them, and with the boost parameter there is an edge you can add to really cut through just about any mix. nothing in the sound set is truly awful (maybe more than a few that are overly familiar, especially in the A-C banks) and some of the sounds in the D bank and the expansion cards are truly wonderous. a worthwhile addition to the budget home studio looking for a keyboard with oodles of useable sounds.
|
