Boss JS-5 Jamstation

I think its easy to use most of the time.
Recording is a bit difficult and forget about entering your own chords.
Manual is pretty good and the video is helpful also.

Don't use the effects. The looping and style changes are easy!

As some others have said, the guitar sounds are not so hot. It is easy to drop the guitar out. My main reason for getting the jam station is to practice and learn. Without doubt, it has made me a better guitar player and given me 100's of hours of playing pleasure!
I recommend it to any player who is learning like me.

No problems. (knock on wood)

Never used.

I would buy it again, although I think it might be overpriced for what I do with it. I've probablly only scratched the surface of what the unit can really do. Its alittle too hard to record with and you definitely need the smart card for that. Overall, by mixing and matching styles with the presets, you can come up with some intersting patterns to jam with. I like some of the rock sounds, pop, jazz, blues,r&b, even some of the dance and reggae. Again for my needs this unit is excellent for jamming, not so great for recording.

Much easiler to program than the Yamaha rhythm programer I had but unable to use different rhythms or stlyes within the same song--a drawback. Manual read like it was poorly translated from some oriental language into english, very inadequate.

32 voice poly is good enough for my need and havent used the smart card yet. The efects are useless to me.

Ballads and slow stuff sound very good. The rock options are terrible, not even a decent oldie 50-60's sound whatsoever. Very limited on time signatures as well. (can't play a certain stylye in a different time sig.)

Have had it about a year and am constantly scared to death that I'm going to break it but not so far.

Good, friendly enough and the guy tried to help but the machine still woulnt do what I wanted it to do.

Probaly would buy it again simply because there is not much out there like it. Would probably check out the new Yamaha QY-100? first to see if they learned anything since their first attempt.

I was very excited to break this baby out and start jamming.
well, if your looking to use just the presets, I guess it's great,
but,getting even a little creative can get a little frustraiting.
the guitar sounds in the rock and blues catigories are HORRIBLE!!!!
the acoustic guitar sounds are rather good, and the other sounds
aren't to bad, either.
The manual is typical Boss-Roland, somewhat confusing, and very incomplete. you have know idea as to what the progressions are until
listening, and after 200, can you truely remember them?
at least an idea of what the song is patterned after on the manual
would be nice.

the built in effects are usless, and should be on the input, so that
you could just plug in and play. MAJOR error on that on ,seeing as
where this is marketed for the guitar player. The media card is must,
but wouldn't it have been nice to make it computer compatable, or
on a zip instead. Iwould LOVE to be able to exchange songs with other
users over the net.

as quoted in some of the other reviews, some of the sounds are great,
but most of the guitar sounds in the rock sections are TERRIBLE!!!!
I really like the ballad, jazz, and SOME of the reggee and blues
sounds. I can't imagine some of the styles getting much use, particularly from guitarists, which I assume this is geared towards.

tough to say, but based on other Boss items Ihave owned, and the few
times it has left my house, it seems pretty durable.

Even though it is very limited, it serves my needs. I am no longer
available time wise or patience wise to play in a band, and this
TOY helps me keep playing and stay within a key and style needed
to consider myself a musician(sort of)
I wouldn't recommend it for much more than that.

The presets are very good. Editing is not so easy.Takes alot of time to do a song. The Manual can be confusing.

The card expansion can be useful. This unit needed to be able to sequence from a Midi keyboard.

Overall this unit does sound good.

Very well built and dependable.

I play keyboards and this unit would be great for me if I could play from a keyboard and the JS-5 would record it.

I found this product to be both easy and difficult to use. If one sticks to the presets, it's fairly intuitive in a limited way. However, when attempting more complex programming/arrangements/edits, I found myself spending hours attempting to get a satisfactory result, which was rarely reached. The manual does a fair job of confusing things on what is otherwise a good, simple to understand, user interface sitting on top of a box that just cannot do advanced custom arrangements.

This is really where improvements have been made, but also NEED to be made. Editing is somewhat easy to do, but you quickly reach the limit of what can be done. I continually found myself asking the unit to do what I thought were simple things that it just wasn't capable of doing. For exampe: As handy as the loop playback feature is live, there is no "duration" parameter to automate when recording. You can't self record a portion of an ending form in a way that sets a value for when the loop ends. You also cannot cut, copy, or paste these same protions into other selected portions of a song. The only way around this is to record a "live" track to another recording device, while manually changing settings on the fly, or recording sound bites and then editing them outside the Jamstation. I guess the thing works on a limited level, but really lacks the power to produce professional results as a stand alone unit.

Sounds are generally a little above what you might expect from the competion, but still a long way from perfect. Some of the presets are very good, while others still sound quite MIDI'ish.

I haven't had it long enough to make a general comment. However, some the user songs that I programmed got corrupted on serveral occasions. While the product seems likely to be reliable in physical terms, I have my doubts about its reliability in the virtual world. To spend so much time on a song project, only to have it corrupted, is a serious concern in my view. At the very least, one should be able to have confidence that data won't be lost when purchasing this type of tool.

Cannot comment, as I have not contacted the manufacturer.

I think my first mistake was in expecting too much from the Jamstation. As I expect other people have done, I purchased this unit in the hopes that this would finally be the product that hit the nail on the head, with repect to these types of "band in a box" products. I was looking for a powerful, low cost, great sounding, easy to use and flexible pactice and composition tool. What I feel I got was something less! Like some of the other reviewers, I too tried very hard to like this box. Ultimately, I came to the realization in the end what I was looking for was just not built into this machine. All things considered, I like it just as much as I hate it. As with all the other products of this type, it has its good points and its bad points. For the moment it probably is about a good as it gets for this amount of money. I'm still considering whether or not I'm going to keep it.

I guess it's pretty easy to use. I lost the manual but we figured out how to program it even so.

Good features but would rather be able to program it from a PC.

Great sound with the right amps and levels.

Always worked

I'd buy it again unless there was a newer model that could be programmed from a PC

diffucult to work wiyh..the manual is not much help

rock sounds are so bad they are worth a listen just for a laugh jazz sounds are okay ballad sounds are quite good

I found that the preset sounds are for the most part great the strongest being ballads,pop,blues,jazz,and some of the country and R&B styles. Wasn't to impressed with the rock sounds.
The ez compose feature is simple to use but only for a simple arrangement or a different key change.
I found that I used it for creating songs from scores or chord tab. Just choose "Creating songs from a score" in the manual and followed the instructions and there it was. I chose step recording to edit chords added measures etc. Very pleased with the results.
The manual needed to be read carefully while you used the hands on approach, but once you got the hang of it it was accurate, but I did need patience to see where Boss was coming from.

Overall the individual drum, bass, keyboard,and some guitar sounds are very realistic, some are not.
Tere are many effects that can be applied to your sound choices but I havn't experimented with this feature.
The "smartcard" feature is great and a must if you are doing any recording.

As I said earlier the sound is very realistic on some instruments and arrangements and styles.I find it is great for a backing machine for the score that I have programmed into it. There is a cool loop function as well so that you can concentrate on a specific part of a song.Individual instrument parts can be edited ex. volume,effect,pan,etc.

I would gig without a backup and have.

Overall I feel Boss have produced a very usable backing machine that is great for Jaming,solo or group accompaniment. Sound quality is very good on a majority of the instruments. It is very portable just plug it into your amp or PA and Instant band sound. Much better than my computer and sound card.

It depends on what you are doing with it. The preset stuff is a breeze and the key and style can be altered very easily. I found programing new stuff to be very cumbersome, which is why I brought it back. It appears that the Boss people tried really hard to make this user friendly and feature rich. I read the manual for hours and found it to be a headache to write new stuff though the EZ compose feature is a joke. I've had another outdated machine of another brand that was much easier to program.

Lots of features and sounds that no other drum machines have. For most this is probably better than drum machines for most musicians. I found it not flexible enough or easy to program (or maybe I just didn't get it).
The small unlit LCD screen was a big disappointment. The card memory is a great feature.

The sounds were either great or sorry. The drums, bass and keyboard sounds are great. The guitar sounds are not. Some of the ballads could fool anyone into thinking it is live musicians. Super quiet with
great vibe and effects. This is the JS5s strongest point. You can easily remove any instrument you want.

I would assume very reliable.

Like another reviewer wrote, I really tried hard to like this machine. I had to face reality that I don't have time to sit there with the manual in hand wrestling with the thing. I almost kept it for jamming and recording along with the presets. If someone is perhaps very studious or doesn't mind accepting the many presets I think they would be happy with it.I brought it back where I got it.
Maybe I'll try a newer version of something later

preset sounds are fine (just have a little imagination).
manual is fantastic ( its perfect).
video manuel is available also from roland

reverb&delay on all instruments are excellent.26 added effects for one insrument is also very satifactory.
smart media card excellent idea.

question: are some of the insruments realistic?
I would not know
all the sounds are great and can be used with a little imaginations.
on board effects are perfect.
i have already completely finished 74 minute cd.
took about three hours to edit all the songs.
30tracks i titled the cd "lay back"

if you have an 8 track recorder watch out!

roland spells reliability
i would use the js-5 anywhere and never worry about something malfunctioning.

Customer support is fantastic

if it was lost yes i would buy another 0ne.
does it help create songs? yes
best product on market for price.
I cannot wait until the ztar gets to my house then i will really create songs