Boss DS-330

Pre-sets are OK. I like the Organ GM#16 and the SlowStrings. With a filter cutoff control and the Reverb-Delay set to maximum, you can get beautiful ambient 'New Age' sounds from the Warm Pad and analog sweeps from the SawTooth.
I'm using the old MIDIsoft program for sequencing. Manual is available from www.rolandus.com/mojo.

The effects are good and easy to master. No expansion capabilities. No sequencer. Standard new type mini stereo headphone jack. Standard MIDI capabilities. The tones are organized by instrument type, so you can't just enter a GM number for a voice.
I like the small size. It's portable. With a small mini keyboard, a Lead-Acid battery, and a boom box, you can play anywhere. Jam with the guitarists in the park. Blow minds at McDonalds in the evening.

Good basic sounds. Good effects.

Very rugged and reliable.

Never dealt with company, but they get a star for having their manuals for all their synths on their website for downloading.

They appear occasionally on eBay. The power connector has a fat pin that doesn't fit any adapters except the expensive Roland one. But it can be replaced with a common 2.1mm jack that is found on all the guitar stompboxes

My second Boss purchase and it appears that Boss equipment is not for professionals. They need to get more in tune with pro musicians. I'm paid to perform/play not jack around endlessly with buttons and controls. Same pain in the but as with the DR-3 rythm. Push buttons crank controlls, push more buttons and crank more controlls for tempo etc. etc. I need to press a button or two or punch in a number perhaps for a particular beat set a tempo and play.

The presets sound like toys. You can further adjust and set tone etc. with a lot more fiddling around but even with that it still sounds like its built for musical experimenters and kids.

I ran this thing from a MIDI keyboard through a wide frequency 20hz-20khz)amp and it still sounds like a toy, and a very poor one at that. I've heard better sounding instruments on MIDI keyboards at Radio Shack and Sams Club right through the self contained speakers.
I bought a DR-3 rythm, and a DS-330 synth module and the synth module has lots of gimicky sounds and of course drums. I was thinking about a Boss CD recorder and apparently that has drums too. These guys are stuck on drums. I need a synth module with superb piano, strings and brass.

Pretty easy, as previous reviewers have mentioned. Reasonably useful in live set-ups, provided you don't want to quickly step through different instruments within the same bank.

A couple of things that haven't been noted by other reviewers ? the brass and string patches are good, especially if used in conjunction with a weighted midi keyboard and sustain pedal where you can really give some expression to the patches. Especially good are Brass 1 and the ensemble string patches. This is why I bought this unit. Also surprisingly good, again when used with a weighted keyboard, are Electric Piano 1 and the Soundtrack patch. I've found the sax and guitar patches are its biggest weakness.

See above. String and brass patches are good when used with a weighted midi keyboard and sustain pedal. Some of the sounds are uttely dire and unusable. The Organ 1 patch can be improved to sound more like a Hammond by adding the key click sound from the SFX bank. It's rubbish when played on a weighted keyboard though; you need a regular synth board to do it justice.

Fairly dependable. I had some problems with midi drop out while gigging it, but it's much improved by using a mains surge protector. I have managed to have two sounds played by two midi keyboards linked to this unit, so if you're prepared to dig deep into the owner's manual, you can achieve quite a lot.

Never had any dealings with Roland about this unit, but in the past have had helpful advice from Roland UK about other products.

It's somewhat long in the tooth now, but if you can find a DS330 in good condition for #50 or less, you're on to a bargain. It has limitations, but as a basic sound source, especially for strings, brass and some piano sounds, it's surprisingly good, especially when used with a weighted midi keyboard and sustain pedal.

You can use this module in GM/GS mode giving you all 16 midi channels to use or for giggin as a sound expander you can use it in perform mode which allows you to edit sounds and save them to perform live'' with and it stores your settings forever you can also layer in this mode which means for example piano/strings etc etc.
when used with cakewalk or cubase you can build some pretty impressive midi files to use either on stage or to record audios with.

I beleive this unit is 32 note polyphony and has various reverb types and chorus types which can be selected via sysex or manually at the unit using the pads.
you can use the touch sensitive pads to play the onboard sounds

good sounds are brass, piano, strings, alto sax is great!infact all the sounds are good the most realistic banjo I've used up to present day!! and the fiddle is above average, guitars are not as good as the sc880 or sc88 gs variations

100% reliable so simple not much to go wrong!!!

cannot comment on this area as I've had my unit 10 years and still going strong(what else can i say)
if you get offered one cheep buy it!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

This unit though now dated was the most underestimated canvas of the nineties it is a powerful unit and today you could spend #600 only to buy something as good or with more sounds if you see one under #150 you must buy it it will be worth every penny to you.

This Little Synth is brill and very easy to program its soft texture buttons on the control panel are very comfortable to use.

The midi response eg: after touch and velocity are spot on.
the loading of music files with midi system exclusive data dumps, driven into the unit by the sequencer is a breeze.
so i would say that this unit can do almost anything you want it to do.

The sounds are standard midi instruments, but with added punch from the additional effects which are optional for each sound on each channel.
The Timpani is good, Piano is good, its all good

I would take this synth with me anywhere its like my left arm or right arm.
Iwould use it on a gig without hesitation

never used them

This synth was my second general midi synth so i would never part with it my first was the yamaha mu5 which i would buy again but this synth is better

This was my first ever "proper" synth (I controlled it with a Casio home keyboard) and, to be honest, I don't think I referred to the manual once. In fact, if you're a seasoned synth collector and are thinking about adding this to your collection, you don't really need the manual at all.

The presets are fine - the Honky Tonk piano just screams "early-1990s house music" and, with some chorus + reverb and a little "cutting" of the attack, the strings can sound MASSIVE.

Also, with a bit of editing of one of the bass sounds, I was able to use the system as a TB303 clone!

There aren't many but, then again, I don't really think it is meant to be the main synth in your collection, more a sound-source really. You're basically stuck with the same sounds, although these can be dumped to your computer if you wish.

The drums are fairly useless - I was disappointed with the TR808 kit as it just doesn't sit in the mix at all.

As I said, with a little editing, the sounds can sound amazingly good, and can give more expensive synths a run for their money. However, in multi (multitimbral) mode, the editing is restricted. To get the best sounds, you really need to use the unit in single mode, hence it would need to be part of a larger setup.

If you use it to play General MIDI sound files, depending on the quality of the editing file (e.g. those from "professional" MIDI file suppliers), the song can sound almost exactly the same as the original!

I got it for Christmas in 1992 and have never had any problems since. I don't use it as much now - it's not part of my MIDI loop, although I occasionally sample some of the sounds, particularly the basses as they can sound really thick.

Never used them, so I can't comment

This would actually make a great learning tool if you were buying you're first ever synth module and didn't want to part with more than #50 ($90). If you've got a larger setup, this would be a very useful extra sound source, especially for strings and pianos. I probably wouldn't sell it for much, but I've no intentions of getting rid of it. If it were stolen, I'd be gutted, but more because it was my first synth rather than its usefulness.

Price expected to pay: #30 ($50) : Bargain, snap it up! #50 - #70 ($90 - 130): Look around for other options, but come back to this if nothing takes your fancy. Anything over #70 ($130) is a bit much.

The DS330 is very straight foward and very basic. It's designed like a drum machine, with pads on the top which you can use to skim through sound banks. FX and editing features are all under one menu, but still its no great trouble to operate.

I think its 28 note polyphoinc, but depletes rapidly once you add the onboard reverb and chours fx. It does have some simple editing features for sounds but its no modelling synth. Just stuff like attack, decay, release, resonance etc.

The DS330 is basically a cut down Roland Sound Canvas (SC-55). Its got the same GM/GS sounds (156 in total /8 drum kits), plus the same hiss problem that plauged the early sound canvas chip. Its not really bad but it is noticeable when you use duller sounds like pianos in isolation. Nevertheless, its ok in the mix and I still rate patch number 1, a piano sound, well against my Proteus 2000 pianos. The drums are pretty good too for such a budget unit. Most stuff is in that category of being recognisable as an accoustic intrument but still being obviously triggered from a keyboard. Probably the worst thing about it is not being able to save any edits in a user bank (there isn't one) So if you change a sound it means you loose the preset. Plus it won't let you use edited sounds in multimode- the machine reverts to all the original sounds here. Why? I guess Boss thought 'those musos can't possibly want to use anything but our rich, beautiful preset samples' They were wrong. This fatal error means the DS330 is an incredibly boring one dimensional machine.

It does 'loop' notes endlessly from time to time. Mines about 7 years old and still works though. You could gig it without worrying but only becasue if it breaks down you couldn't care less.

If it breaks, chuck it.

It certainly isn't worth 300 quid any more! I brought it as my first synth about 6 or 7 years ago. Its barely a synth mind, in the sense of sound manupulation capabilites. I think it was designed purely to play GM files, which is frankly not what the kids want to do these days. Its probably worth about #50-60 second hand, but steer clear unless you really can't afford anything else. Might I suppose be a nice addition to your dads dining room clavinova but has no place in the modern recording studio.