Product: Roland JV-1080
Price Paid: US $1500/w expansion card
Submitted
04/22/1996
at
07:59pm
by
Michele Hobbs
Ease of Use
:
8
Pianos--Tinny, leave a bit to be desired. Can be made usable with a bit of tweaking. "DX7-ish" sounding electric pianos (nice, if you like that type of thing). Nice rock organs. Guitars/Basses--Nice acoustic guitars, just need a little beefing up. Great electric basses. Distorted guitar samples are OK (I distorted guitar samples, so get another opinion here). Horns/Saxes--Nice ensemble horns, solo horns could use a little work Strings--Great strings--it's a Roland! Lush! Lush! Pads--Yahoo! Synthy Stuff--Ow!
Great sounding machine!!
Editing patches can be a pain because it requires paging thru lots of menus, but at least the capability is their to edit LOTS of parameters.
Manual--It sucks!--It's a Roland!
Features
:
9
64-voice polyphony, chorus and reverb can be applied, along with a third effect (phaser, flange, etc). Will accept four expansion cards.
Expressiveness/Sounds
:
9
I use the JV to do funk, R&B and hip-hop styles, and it works pretty well for those, especially with the expansion boards.
Reliability
:
9
I would say that it is very dependable; it is definitely built like a tank! The only problem I've had is that every once in a while it will lock up, but shutting it off and back on solves the problem.
Overall Rating
:
No Opinion
I would definitely buy it again--in fact, if I could afford to, I would buy a second one and load it up with expansion cards.
The better I become at playing keyboards, the more I like this box. Their aren't really any total loser sounds in it, they just need somej tweaking. The expansion boards that I've tried are fantastic. I have the Keyboards of the '60's and '70's board, which offers some of the nastiest B3's, wurli's and clavs ever heard. The Dance board offers great synth basses and nice hip-hop drums, also hip-hop, trance and techno loops for those who are into that type of thing.
