Roland JX-305

VERY easy to use. As far as an all-in-one dance solution, it dosen't get this good for this amount of money. It's an idea scratchpad and live performance board for me so ease of use was a major factor.

Keyboard action technically stinks, but it's great for programming drum beats and dance patterns because it's fast. Cheap keys are better than weighted for certain types of playing in my book. Make no mistake... it looks very cheap... which I find amusing. Lots of realtime control and modulation. Perfect beginning workstation and controller for the budding dance artist. A great place to start.

The synth isn't VA or anything. Not a ground breaking engine, but highly decent. I can still do experimental sounding things with it. On board effects are not wonderful, but fine for adding a bit to the sounds. Delay can automatically sync to the sequencer tempo. No more math for the delay settings :) The drum sounds are really nice. I originally got it as a drum board for my live shows. Lots of control over the drum sounds. You can build 20 of your own kits. Only drawback as a great and original drum box is the lack od individual outs everyone mentions. Still... not bad for the money at all. Lots of bass. Individual fx levels for each drum in a kit are possible as well as pitch shift and cutoff. Lots of warping possibilities.

Haven't gotten to test it in the long run here. Only had it about two weeks. No hang ups or problems yet with the new software version.

Havent dealt with Roland much. I had to take my original model back to the music store as it had a problem with the main board. Since the board has been discontinued for a year, I had a month wait for a new. I took the refund. Not Roland's fault though. All done through the store. And it is out ofproduction.

Well... I couldn't get the original one repaired and I went right out and got a second one. If something happened to it, I would buy yet another. I love it. Easy to use. Sounds great. Full of about 640 sounds which makes for a lot of composing options. Looks like a toy and sounds like heaven. great value. The important thing to remember is... this board is entirely geared towards pattern sequencing. Great for dance or industrial... techno, house, rave, etc. Unless you want to work by creating patterns and stringing them together, you'll hate it. If your musical composition lends itself to patterns and realtime modulation, I think it's one of the best buys out there for the cash price. Definately a 10 for value. I know of nowhere else to get this much sequencing power with such great sounds (particularly drums) for such little cash. Great for doing things similar to Lords Of Acid, VNV Nation, Thrill Kill Kult, or any form of techno from house to jungle.

My OS version is 1.7 and the presets are really cheap according what you can get with some tweakening. Patch editing is really simple and you have more than 30 parameters that you can realtime change. In fact i have discovered some things you can do with this board that can't be found in the manual (the manual is very good and very big). You have to go through pages and pages for some things but most can be done through knobs.

Polyphony is 64, which i think is more than enough, but simply overpasses Snova2, Q and Nords. It has officially 8 part multitimbrality, but since each patch has the possibility to be layered (up to 4 layers) it can really have 32 part multitimbrality (woaaaahhhh!!!). Keyboard action (with velocity and real aftertouch, though someone below said that it has no aftertouch - maybe you don't know what's aftertouch) is the best i've had taken my hands on, but the keys are very cheap (same quality as Casio VL-Tone). Midi is awful and the sequencer is great (many modes of recording: Step1, step2, rehearsal, grid, real time...)

Velocity and aftertouch sensitive, there is no waiting to hear the sound when you play (instant play, instant sound). Highly impressive sounds when edited. I have got a patch called Jp6 that really you could say that is from Jp6. The noise effect and the fat patches from analog synths are really easy to get. I have a lot of them that are much better than any Snova2 sound i've heard. If you have a little idea of programming, this is a beast synth for such a price!!!

Be sure to give it a backup each time you get something interesting. The only lack i found on it is that sometimes it resets without any apparent reason, so you know what to do...

Roland's customer service is great for actual products, but this not one of them. Very hard to find someone helping you about this board from Roland.

I've been using it for a year now, and believe me if i find another for that price i will inmediately buy it. The only thing that i could buy instead of this another one board (cause this one should be in my home studio) is a Waldorf Q or a Clavia Nord Modular. Making music with this one is so simple and with such a great sounds... The only thing i wish is it had is the ribbon controller (if it had that i would say it is teh best keyboard from the nineties).

System upgraded to 1.6
Presets are cool for this type of board. Sounds cheap next to the JP8000 though. I love the editing. Patch editing is nice and the microscope editing is really, really nice. Storage is OK if you have the simm card. The best thing about this board is it's control for live performance. A synth and a sequencer that are easy to use and leave you plenty of room to improvise.

Polyphony is OK. The key board actions is excellent. The effects are decent but patch tweaking seems like a better route than using the effects. They are some what limited. The filters are really nice on this board but with simm synth technology how good can they be compaired to analog modeling?
MIDI ON THIS BOARD SUCKS!!!
Many problems. Standard cake walk files play symbols instead of many drum parts. Select a patch, save it, load a midi file in, save, repeate with another part, previouse parts patch changes. Sometimes the entire board changes patches. It does matter if patch remain is on or off, if bank select is on or off or how you are set up to recieve the patches always get lost. Not every time though. Some sort of bug the QA department missed and there is no update for yet.
The sequencer on this thing is killer. You only get a tracks but for playing live or even writting songs this things way easy to use. The sequencer is the savior for this board. Without it the board is not worth a dime.

For simm synth technology and the price ($600.00) the sounds are great. I dont know of any other boards with all of the features this thing has and the sound for the same money. Velocity and aftertouch are really, really nice.

Most reliable peice of gear I own. I cant afford back up equipment but if I could I would never go out without back up no matter what gear I had.

The upgrade was really easy. No problems at all. Getting in touch with a Roland tech support person alone is difficult. Try finding one that knows the 305 is a feat no mortal man can accomplish.

I would buy another one if it was stolen. No other board for the price with the same features.
I've been playing keyboard for 6 years. Guitar for 14. I have the Korg Electribes (rythem and synth), JP8000, A couple of Samplers and some rack gear. Computer running Cake Walk, Gold Wave, Wave Surgeon and many others.
Nothing to compair it too. There is nothing on the market with all the features for the same price. The next thing close is up in the $1800.
I wish I had the alesis Anrdomida (spell check please). Too many others to list.
Over all rating is really great because the price to feature ration can not be beat. Although it must be dropped down a few notches for the assinine MIDI problems this board with no upgrade help as of yet.

Needs programming...duh! Good starting points here for e-music.The manual is OK, most fun ctions are intuitive for me anyway.

Great FX, card slot allows a lot of patchs and sequences to be stored. Get back up cards from a camera supply store, specify 5 volt and save a lot of $. Find a good place to store the little things! These cards are real small and easy to misplace!
The board is a bit flimsy, but kept the price down.

Realistic ? hmmm, I like ripping synth sounds from a machine I can afford...It has been a great tool for me and I will just hang on to it. The FX are pretty smooth, the real phrase function is great and loops in an amazing way, less need for a computer or tired loops from the net.Face it, many modern players settle for loop CDs, this thing is worth it for the looping ability.

Hmm, a backup of course. This unit is not steel ya know.

Free OS upgrades from Roland. No problems in 2 years.

I own a lot of stuff and this has the typical Roland feel in a mix.I have had a lot of Roland gear. THE jx305 HAS BEEN GREAT FOR PUTTING TOGETHER IDEAS! Using this unit has been rewarding and I believe that since production was limited, someday you will see it has achieved the status as other Roland gear. As soon as these are hard to find and "the next big hit" from a major player reveals he used one in a mix...hehe.
These were sold for as low as about 400.00$ a year ago and now are going for more than that used.
Sure, it's not a 2-3000$ box and has the groove sign on it, but thats just marketing. Fact is this unit has been part of mixes by players like Infinity 303 and others. Hey, I have a few tunes on the web... http://mp3.com.au/alien-mbc

The presets are a mixed bag, but you can tweak them enough to sound great. Everything is easily edited, and simplistic. The manual is typical Roland...but there's lots of Diagrams, so that helps a bit. It's got amazing drum sounds and plenty of effects and the whole sound set from the 505, plus some real instrument sounds that aren't bad. I like Roland's piano sounds a lot.

Polyphony is nice, but some stuff occasionally cuts out. I like the ability to prioritize notes so that the main things stay in and it cuts other stuff out first. SM Slot...I don't have a card though...someone want to sell me one? I really enjoy the sequencer. The effects are downright nice, and I enjoy how they can fill out a sound and make a drum kit sound like it's right there in front of you.

Some instruments are good, some are okay, and some of the sounds just plain out suck...but for the most part they're good. It's expressive and nice, and it's amazing for the synth-rock stuff I do. It would work with almost any music I can think of. It's got nice string sounds, but the attack level is a little off for me...but that's personal preference, and you can change it with the knob.

It works nicely, and I'd gig without backup if I had to...

No opinion...never had trouble.

If I lost it, I'd probably buy something newer, as it's a little older and some things now have nice features, but if you can find one cheaper than what they listed for ($1200 US...yuck!) then get it! The list price was insane, but I think that for the value, It's worth at least 3/4 of that. I use it with a D-50, RM1x, and MG-1, and i love the way it integrates into that rig. Computers are bad!

I'm using 1.5 I think, the latest version is 1.6 but I've been having trouble getting it installed.
The presets range from amazing to terrible. Basic patch editting is easy (just turn the knobs) but getting into some of the more advanced options requires lots of scrolling and alpha-wheel nonsense. A patch editor (I use Sound Diver) helps out visually by letting you see what everything does, but removes the hands-on immediacy (not to mention being laggy as f*ck with an SB Live).
The manual is daunting at first, although the QuickStart is a really nice touch. Once you've gotten your hands dirty and mucked around a bit, the manual will become a valuable reference as you dig deeper into this seemingly endless machine.

64 voice polyphony, 8-16 part multitimbrality depending on how you look at it. Keyboard action is fine, as long as you're not expecting a weighted action piano wannabe. There are a slew of effects; a dedicated reverb, delay, and one insert processor that covers 30 some phat FX from distortion to slicer, compression to eq. They're generally quite easy to use, although you are somewhat limited by having only one MFX per pattern. The biggest thing lacking here is assignable outputs, cause with only one pair of stereo outs and one multi-effect at a time, a lot of sonic mangling is out of reach.
MIDI is well done, although certain details leave me with the impression that this box wasn't designed with the serious MIDI composer in mind. MIDI channel settings are hardwired, and splits use up more sequencer tracks, meaning that if you want to use it with something like, say, a JV-1080, you'll never benefit from its 16 part multitimbrality. Also, there's no way (that I've discovered) to program different Bank/Program change commands for switching to different patches in your other modules, which is really too bad because the sequencer is intuitive and powerful in a live setting, and with a couple more improvements to the midi engine this could have been the definitive master sequencer for live work.

This thing is built for electronic music. Techno, trance and hip-hop are what it does best. You can do some decent drum & bass with it, but the drum sounds aren't quite up to par. In fact, ignore the preset DnB & Jungle kits, House 2 has better snares and kicks, and you can mould the other sounds to suit what you need. The effects are for the most part studio quality, although a few of them are absolutely useless. Radio tuning? Vinyl simulator? Please! Save em for a freeware audio plugin, and give me a multi-band compressor or another MFX processor.
Velocity response is quite good, and when you play with velocity curves and various other patch parameters you'll find a world of cool shit you can create. Aftertouch is pretty jumpy, although I haven't played another keyboard with aftertouch so maybe they all like to jump from 0 to 100 with the weight of a speck of dust falling on the keys. For the *cough* who said there was no aftertouch, maybe you should try hitting edit while selecting a preset to lean on; aftertouch is an option that is not enabled on most of the presets.

Hoo boy, I wish I could afford a backup to have lying around. Pretty reliable, although the internal memory is prone to complete obliteration due to power bumps. Buy a SmartMedia card and religiously archive anything important to you. Believe me, it is not fun to be on stage starting a set only to have some idiot raver kick a power cable and toast your entire setlist. The cards are a bit pricey (if you can even find a 4meg card nowadays) but are WORTH EVERY PENNY! Other than that, I've had a speaker fall out of its housing due to the massive bass I was pumping, and crush 3 keys, and my cutoff knob dettached from the circuit board from 2 years of intense, daily use. Both were fixed by my local repair shop for under $80 total (although the replacement keys took a freakin month to ship in), which seemed pretty fair to me.

Well, Roland discontinued this bad boy almost immediately after releasing it, which makes me a little bitter. The MC-505 (virtually identical to the 305) has a more recent OS and they still publish tips & tricks for it. I've never really dealt with Roland directly though so it's hard to say, other than that they should manufacture replacement keys on this continent so they can get here faster. They published an OS upgrade on their website, but their silly MIDI file player doesn't seem to like WinME, so I haven't installed it yet.

I'd be really choked if somebody stole this thing. It's been by far the most fun for making music out of all the instruments I have owned or do own today. Realistically, I might buy an MC-505 and a controller keyboard, mostly for the assignable outputs which would make recording & mastering sooooo much easier. Other than though, this thing is worth every penny I paid for it. I've been playing piano for 17 years now, bass for 10, and producing electronic music for about 4 years; I own a Juno-6, MKS-20, SP-202, SP-303, various stomp boxes & rack effects, a mixer, and two comptuers. It gets way more of a workout than all the other pieces combined.

My software version is 1.01. The presets are some good enough, the most very poor (specially the imitations of real instruments), and a little are brilliant. The fact is that they are four-shaped patches and that you can edit them realtime as you play. The manual is very good for first users of a synth, i think is good for professional users too. It's very clear.

The polyphony is much greater than most of its competitors. Only Yamaha has the same polyphony with similar quality of synth.It has a interesting Multi-fx option, but you can only use one effect per song (why?). Midi in, out, thru, but no expansion posibilities. It has a real good sequencer, very editable (you can edit the strength of pulsation and velocity note per note) and it's velocity-sensitive with aftertouch too.LFOS, filters of many kinds, ADSR envelopes, 53 kinds of arpeggios, legato, dual, split, portamento, tremolo, overdrive, 16 rps patterns at the same time playing with the other 8 parts.

The thing i cannot understand about a synth is those people looking for a synth sounding like a real drum or like a real piano or like a real violin. Why don't you buy a violin? or a complete set of drums? This synth doesn't sound like a real instrument (nor those patches supposed imitating real instruments). Most patches in the category of "real instruments" are really bad. But go to the bass section or the rythm section. I don't know how good sound a Jupiter 8, but if it sounds better than my edited patches, YEAHHH! IT'S REALLY GOOD! You know about the typical Roland sound? Yes, that's there. You choose a patch you think must go to hell and try to edit it. Since it has four shapes, you can mute three shapes and sound only one and oh! what a great sound in that shape! It happens in most patches.The worst is the preset patch, the greater sound you can reach when edited. Copy the good shape to the other three shapes and edit all of them at the same time (you can do it separately too). Th patch will sound as fat as you can. Trick: Pass the patch ten thousend times to the Overdrive Mfx section. The patch will be Ulllltrrrrafffffatttttt!

I wouldn't use it without a backup. The memory card slot is for anything. Nothing has happened to me by now, but who knows?

When I was going to buy it, I asked them by e-mail for more information than that poor web. I'm still waiting their answer (i think i will never be answered by Roland). No need by now of the technical service.

I'd buy the jp-8080 instead of this, but my budget is limited. I only own this gear, but i have proved many other synths from Yamaha, Korg, Waldorf... and Roland's sound is simply the best. I wish it had a vocoder and an osc sync option. Why not ribbon controller and controls for sound modulation? I wish Roland will release something more analog than what's now in markets, because the steps to follow is not to emulate real instruments or old synths. What makers must do is to develop new analog or digital types of synthesis that may be modulated by all those precious knobs that lights the real music.

Super Easy to use. It comes with a quick start manual, that basically
walks you thru everything you need to know. It's layout is fairly simple
yet also limiting(more on that later). You can't do much editing to the
patches, but the keyboard comes with pretty useable sounds off the bat.
If this is your first sequencer or real keyboard, it's your best option,
because you won't get bogged down with programming, you can just work on
the music. Mixing is simple, too. All screens are fairly straightforward.

The keys unfortunately feel very cheap, not weighted at all, but they
respond to velocity well. The effects are alright, but you can only use
one effect per sequence(limiting!), the lo-fi emulator[bitcrusher] is
great, especially if you dig hiphop. Roland kind of left the owners of
this unit in the dark, it's discontinued, there are no expansion sounds at
all, but there is a flash rom slot, to back your patches and sequences up.
The sequencer is very user friendly, mixing is a breeze, although if you
use EQ it takes away room for using any effects.

The only sounds in this unit that sound good out the box are the drum
sets(808,909, Hiphop, House, etc- all well done)and the organs. Everything
else recquires a little modification, and some sounds are still left
completely unusuable. The Bass sounds are seriously hurting on this
keyboard. This keyboard, being a groovesynth is aimed at the dance crowd
and I can't see it being used for anything else.

I've never had a problem with it and I've had it for over a year. Moved
with it 3 times, one time cross-country and not a single glitch.

I've never needed to use customer support, but I am slightly annoyed that
Roland abandoned this unit, with no upgrades or expansion capability.

Once again if you're looking for an affordable place to start with dance
oriented music, this is it. If you already have a seperate sequencer(ie Cubase
or Logic, etc), A weighted keyboard, sampler or VA unit, you will only
be disappointed with the general quality. If it got stolen, I would save
some money and get an Access Virus or a Novation Supernova2.

Easy to use. I like a lot of the presets. Patch editing is easy (especially if you use a KNOBBY by ENCORE ELECTRONICS). The manuals are in-depth, long and tedious. I bought a VIDEO OWNERS MANUAL for my MC-505, and it is very usuable with the JX-305.

The effects are actually pretty good (although I don't use them much).
It's easy to play (not weighted at all). It does have a sequencer, but alas, mine goes unused.

I don't use it for "real" instruments (it has a GM set), but they're in-line with the GM set on the XP-30. I use this board to play Dinosaur Progressive (ELP, PINK FLOYD et al), not groove. It doesn't have aftertouch, but reacts well as-far-as velocity is concerned.

Very dependable.

Roland support is good (once you finally get through, that is).

USED, sort of... I bought it at a GUITAR CENTER blowout... it had been opened to be photographed for a MUSICIANS FRIEND catalog, but never on the floor. I use it along with ROLAND MC-505, XP-30, JD-990, JP-8080, XP-10 and a YAMAHA TG-33 (and 2 Roland A-33 76 note controllers. I would definitely replace it if it was stolen.

The manual is pretty much straight forward. I was making patterns in no time although it does take some getting used to at first. The preset patterns are not all that great in the Rap/Hip hop section i'm not so sure about the other catagories since rap is all i know, but i guess it would get the job done for techno/trance since i guess that's what is mostly designed for. editing pathes is simple yet effective. creating a song template is a peice of cake.

It has 64-voice polyphony and the keyboard action is fine. The effects are magnificant and you can apply three effects at the same time (reverb, delay, chorus, ect.). It doesn't have any expansion boards but does accept 2mb or 4mb smart media cards for addition memory for storing user patterns, songs, and patches. It has full MIDI capabilities. ONly one MIDI channel for the rythem sections but is dosn't matter since you can create your drum kits. The onboard sequencer is great in my opinion. It has 4 modes or recording: realtime, step 1, step 2 (grid), and M-Scope. you can record different things in realtime such as pitch bend, aftertouch, cutoff, resonance, LFO, ect. sequencer is set up in loop recording which I enjoy. I find this keyboard alot better than the MC-505 and alot cheaper. it has all the same patches and patterns of the 505 but is has an additional 120 or so patches. the only thing its missing, is the D-Beam, but it's overrated and useless. The jx-305 has a keyboard and pitch bend/mod wheel to replace that. Plus it's much cheaper in price for some reason.

the sounds are dance orientated and not very realistic but who the hell wants realistic sounds, this thing isn't for classical music. has nice synth sounds but then need tweaking. after a few months, you really start designing your own sounds which sound amazing and it's like you descovered a whole new board. The drums are the best. 1000 times better than the drums kits on the yamaha Rm1x or any yamaha product i've heard for that matter. if you looking from drum sounds, look no further. LIke I said, the effects are great. It contains most of the sounds that Cash Money's Manny Fresh uses. I think Manny Fresh uses this Keyboard and possible Dr. Dre has sampled a few sounds from it here and there. The keyboard reacts nicely and is velocity and aftertouch sensitive.

Very reliable. I've had it for a year and nothings ever happend to. i've takin my keyboard to the studio with me several times and everything has gone smooth as a babies ass.

Never have dealt with them

if It were stolen i'd pick up a used one probably because i think this model is discontinued. It is definatly better than the Rm1x, the 505, 303, and anything eles in its price range. if you've got about 1000 or less to spend on a board and you wanna make some rap/hip hop, trance, techno, house music, then get this board and you will be very satisfied. if you've got a lot more money then go for a Korg triton ($2100). otherwise i suggest the JX-305.