Product: Roland JV-1010
Price Paid: US $419
Submitted
06/05/1999
at
05:43am
by
Rich Kadash
Email: ricok987 at yahoo<dot>com
Ease of Use
:
8
After playing the JV-2080, and JV-1010 in a music store I was thinking about picking one up. I bought the JV-1010 without hearing it first. There is not much of a audible difference. The sounds do seem a little bit more lush out of the JV-2080. I haven't set up the patch editor yet- the CD Rom that ships with the unit. There is a bank of 128 user patches. The manual has plenty of diagrams and seems strait forward- to be honest I haven't even read it cover to cover. I have been going over the 1000+ presets. One bonus is that I am using a Kawai K5000s as the midi controler and have all the knob and button controls over the JV-1010 such as Arpeggiator, Portamento, Resonance, etc.
Features
:
7
Polyphony is the same as the JV-1080. The effects are dedicated to the patches but you can re-route them. I have not really explored the effects editing. The unit has 1 expansion card-I wish it was 2 because I am in a bind on what to expand it with. If there was 1 thing that I would have to pick as being the worst aspect of this unit it would be that there is only 1 expansion slot. There is a Midi in, out, and thru-too bad there isn't a second midi in. The module responds well to midi messages.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
8
The presets have that distincitive Roland Sound and will work well for most styles of music. In the past I owned a Sound Canvas and this unit blows that away with reguards to the presets. In order to make the most of this unit you must connect it to a computer-wich I havn't done yet. I will update my review in the future.
Reliability
:
5
Since I bought this unit for my home studio I can only speculate that this unit problably would not be a giger's main instrument but certainly is on that you could take along. Its small size-1/2 rack can fit in a briefcase. I have owned Roland Equipment in the past and never had a problem-(SC-55, and XP-10). I am expecting the same kind of performance from the JV-1010, but who knows?
Customer Support
:
5
I have dealt with Roland in the past, and they seem to go out of there way to make it difficult for the end user to obtain person to person support with them. Although I should point out that over the years I only needed to contact them once or twice.
Overall Rating
:
8
If this unit were lost or stolen I would buy it again. I would buy 2 of these units only to have an additional expansion slot available. I've been playing for 15 years and also have an Alesis QS-6 with vintage Keyboard, and Vintage Synthesiser Q-Cards, a Kawai K5000s which I use as the controller for the JV-1010, and a Korg 05 R/W. To wrap up: I like the overall sounds, and ease of use of this unit, I dislike the only one expansion card slot- I wish for more. This unit will give me a lot of tonal flexability in my original compositions. I will update my review when I connect the computer software.
