Just bought a Roland JV1080 :O

Just bought a Roland JV 1080. Just start playing a few of the presets and this thing sounds very nice. Lots of editing ability so this will make a welcome addition to my set up! Any users out there?

no

Yeah I have one that I bought recently. It has a couple extra cards installed. Good for bread and butter "realistic" sounds occasionally. I haven't dug too deep into it, but I've messed with some effects and things. It has the potential to be deep if you're willing to menu dive.

Yeah just figuring out how to really use the 16 midi channels. I thought that would be straight forward but seems a bit of a pain. As you say though loads of potential. Has tonnes of really nice pads. Definitely very good for pads. I just need to figure out how to get it running with multi channels and start to use the fx etc.

Had another play on it last night and the sounds are bloody incredible! I have a Korg 05r/w and it totally kicks it in touch in terms of sounds. There are tonnes of supa lush pads, strange atmospheres and decent leads. Gives me a tonne more power for a mere £95!! A lot more power than I could hope to get from running 16 channels straight out of the pc!

When I just got into making music in highschool, I heard about these, and in my mind it was the holy grail of equipment. Mind you all of my sounds were just coming from the general midi soundcard on a shit pc. i played with one of these in a store, and was blown away.

then i discovered synthesizers, and my focus shifted.

i dont think if have a use for one now, but it brings back lovely memories of visiting music shops and lusting over the (at the time) very expensive gear.

I think it's got some stock Roland-type drum sounds too - 808, 909 etc. - which is convenient when I want to run them through external effects or a preamp or whatever.

Not that I've actually done that yet.

I'd say the drums are its weak point to be honest. Most of them sound like they have a hi pass filter on them and lack punch. There are some nice drums sounds though well mainly odd fx. The editing is quite complex and not as intuitive as I would have expected. E.g the filter seems to effect one part of a patch (made up on a number of tones) and that I find a little odd. I do need to read more of the manual but yeah other than that the sounds are certainly very useable.

Anyways I've started making a dubstep tune with it so maybe I'll post that soon for you guys. ;-)

It's a nice rompler, but it's still a rompler.

  On 5/13/2011 at 11:55 PM, MrSparkle666 said:

It's a nice rompler, but it's still a rompler.

which has no impact on whether it is possible to write good music with one.

  On 5/14/2011 at 1:17 AM, jeyemusik said:

  On 5/13/2011 at 11:55 PM, MrSparkle666 said:

It's a nice rompler, but it's still a rompler.

 

which has no impact on whether it is possible to write good music with one.

I'm not saying that it's not possible to write good music with one. Some of us like sleeping with fat girls or transvestites from time to time, but we don't go around bragging to our friends about it. You keep that shit to yourself.

the 1080 fucking rocked hard when it came out. Great sounding beast.

I prefer the sound of the JV-1080 to any software synth I've ever tried.

  On 5/15/2011 at 10:01 PM, scones to die for said:

I prefer the sound of the JV-1080 to any software synth I've ever tried.

You should, since it's a box of sampled instruments. That's the whole point: cram a bunch of preset samples of real analog hardware in a box, with control over basic parameters and editing mashed over the top of it. It sounds good, but it's a glorified preset machine. Same concept as Nexus or Omnisphere or Hypersonic. It's a rompler, not a real synthesizer. Yeah, I realize it has synthesis capabilities, but if you want a programmable synthesizer, you would be better off with something else. It's a bitch to program, and not really suited for that.

If you like romplers, that's fine with me. Like I said, everyone likes to sleep with fat girls now and then. Some of them are really good in bed, but they still got jelly rolls.

is omnisphere a rompler? all the press ive read about it makes it sound like a deep synthesizer?

  On 5/15/2011 at 11:37 PM, Kcinsu said:

is omnisphere a rompler? all the press ive read about it makes it sound like a deep synthesizer?

Definitely a rompler. They marketed Atmosphere the same way.

you're coming across pretty fucking snobby sparkler dude.

Oh come on, I'm just kidding around. I thought it was pretty obvious with all of the fat girl jokes. Romplers are fine if that's your thing. Nothing wrong with the jv1080. Still a rompler, though.

ok ,good.

I looked at 1080s a little while back and, whilst incredibly cheap now for what was once a primo, expensive bit of kit, I was struggling to justify spending anything on something now so surpassed by better technology. it's a bit like the hardware sampler issue (which promo has also posted about) - unless you're after a specific tone produced by a specific sampler, there's no real point having one.

The JV-1080 isn't central to the music I do. It's more for the times I want a certain realistic sound - strings, pianos, mellotrons, Rhodes etc. [in fact, it gives me a good reason to sell my real Rhodes that I don't use so much.] I know this can be done with samples in software, but I like running the 1080 through external effects, EQs and preamps and whatnot before going into the computer.

  On 5/16/2011 at 12:43 PM, BCM said:

I looked at 1080s a little while back and, whilst incredibly cheap now for what was once a primo, expensive bit of kit, I was struggling to justify spending anything on something now so surpassed by better technology. it's a bit like the hardware sampler issue (which promo has also posted about) - unless you're after a specific tone produced by a specific sampler, there's no real point having one.

This is the kind of thing that bemuses me. That somehow a synth can be "surpassed by better technology". If someone was to come on here making this sort of claim about TAL's freeware emulation of an SH-101 in comparison with a real SH-101 then the collective WATMM would be weighing in to tell the poster to behave themselves. That's maybe an extreme example, but the idea that a computer based rompler creates the exact same sound as a hardware rompler is a bit daft too. The nature of the waveforms, the algorithims that underly the filter emulations, onboard effects, the DACs, what you record it back in via etc etc all add up to a sound that is different. Now, maybe that's not your cup of tea soundwise but that doesn't necessarily detract from it and it suddenly doesn't mean that the synth becomes pointless. And that's before you start talking about how the different interface changes how you interact with the machine and therefore affects the music. Again, I'm not saying that it's everyone's cuppa but it gives an alternative.

I'd even argue that to take something like a JV-1080 and used it in the context of a track that is more contemporary and it can give the track something which will differentiate from other similar tracks. A great example of what I'm talking about is one of the tracks of EP7 by Autechre. Can't recall which one, but it has a bass that, taken out of context, sounds to me surprisingly like a double bass from a rompler. In context it sounds cracking... obviously, I've no way of proving that. But it wouldn't suprise me if that's the cheeky kind of extreme muso geek in-joke that they enjoy.

I would agree with MrSparkle666 that as I'm discovering it is a bitch to program and a lot harder than I imagined. I have another Rompler, the Korg 05r/w which I use for GM type sounds ... keys, fret bass, slap bass etc but that's far easier to program. Anyways the JV only cost me £95 so I got it for about £30-40 cheaper than usual. The presets are very nice and where it stands out is pad and atmosphere type sounds. For me using it also leaves me with more cpu head rather than making most of my music with vsts etc. Of course its just nice to be working with a new piece of kit.

I still haven't figured out really how to get the effects to work in 16 part mode. For instance I've got reverb selected but it seems slight. If anyone's a pro at the JV1080 and lives in London and doesn't mind coming over for say a jam session and showing me how to program it better I'd be more than welcome! :D

Yeah, that's the one. There is a similar thing on the track they did for the Daniel Hansson tribute. One of the lead sounds was like a cheesy slap bass from a rompler but pitched right up.

Just wanna say again if anyone here is JV 1080 pro and lives in London then I'd love you to show me how to real use it and who knows maybe we could jam a tune or two together! Cheers.