Roland JX-305

Im using the first sortware version and I have the board for almost 2 years. It is an absolute breeze to use. Anybody could have this machine playing your own original music within mins of getting it out of the box.

64 note poly aint bad considering most of your an modeling synthts dont gennerally go past 24. The key action I found was nice and sharp with good after touch and velocity control. The effects are really good but you have to really mess with them to get the best out of them. I found that using the multi controls on the effects was a very clever idea, allowing you to change the strength and character of the effect in real time. being able to save your data to card is another nice touch. No wating for disks to load. All right there when you need it. however I did find on occassion that the temporary memory wasnt allways sufficient for my needs. Allthough that too was a clever idea. Having your ideas in a temporary memory before saving them and being able to play other patterns and not worry about losing whats in the temp mem. Midi use is just damn good. what else can i say about that. The looping sequencer is just to damn good, IF, you are into making dance music. i wouldnt rate to highly for other uses but it could be done, after all, all forms of music are reapeated over and over again anyway. The push button muteing function is awsome especially if you are playing live, wether you be a performer or DJ. Its so easy to use its just unreal. The knobs are good not only for real time movements but you can record the movements in the sequencer. Nice 1.

most of the sounds are really good and the potential for creating new sounds is really good as well. The pianos are punchy, really great for dance them pianos. And the basses wether it be synth of guitar are good too. Some of the pads are great, but some are naff. The strings "film octaves" (pI88) has to be heard. Bloody brilliant! Its fun to play and as mentioned before the velocity and after touch is very responsive.

I would use this keyboard on a gig without back up and it is on the hole quite reliable but it does have have some shocking faults. You get some noise from thelights when they flash on the board when choosing certain options. its most noticable through headphones. And there are a few bugs in the operating system. It has on occasion gone dead quite when ive selected sounds and has continued to scroll through patches all by its self when playing patterns. and it has frozen on me alltogether twice. But all in all the faults dont appear to often. I have some freinds that share the same problems.

Ive purchased a few extras from them and asked a few questions and found them really polite and helpfull. Ive not needed to get it repaired so i cant comment on that.

Im considering buying another one. they are that damn good! Ive read the other reports and Im astonished that there are so many complaints about it. If you ask me you stupid americans just dont know how to use it properly.

For the most part, the presets are weak. I didn't find most of them remotely enjoyable or usable.

Editing patches is fairly straightforward, but there are a lot of buried menus to wade through. If you're the type who wants lots of knobs, this is not your synth.

The instruction manual is fairly basic. It's not great, and it's not horrible. It covers the basics without going into in-depth explanation.

This is a 64 voice, 8 part keyboard. I don't play piano, so I can't really comment on the keyboard action.

Built-in effects include reverb, delay, and multi-effects (phaser, chorus, etc.). Delay and reverb level can be adjusted for each part (although the drum section is counted as one part, so drum effects are global), but multi-effects are global, i.e. you can't have flanger and chorus going at the same time. The only effect I was really happy with was delay. You can do some wild Aphex Twin-ish ambient with it.

The on-board sequencer is pretty weak, and it has timing problems in song mode. If you want to change, say, a snare drum part, but leave the rest of the pattern alone, you have to create an entirely new pattern. If you don't mind loop-based sequencing, then you probably won't have a problem with the sequencer.

Forget using this machine for realistic sounds. If you want to write classical music, buy a sampler.

As far as 'analog' sounds, I didn't find it that impressive. The sampled waveforms cover all of the bases, but they can get downright tinny sounding when you go too high or too low in the octaves. The filter is pretty weak, too. There's a very audible digital stair-stepping when you adjust the cutoff on resonant patches. You can't get clean filter-sweeps out of this machine unless you're not using any resonance in your patches.

N/A

N/A

I wouldn't buy this synth again. In fact, I'm planning on selling it and getting an Access Virus. I don't hold a grudge against Roland or their Groove line. I'd buy a Groove product in a second if it did what I wanted it to do. I just want something with a little more 'oomph', and a lot better ease-of-use.

the 305 is very easy to use. it is perfect for somebody who wants to get into electronic music and doesnt know were to start.the presets were pretty much made for that "electronica" sound, however some are annoying. but, editing the patches is easy, so why would you want to use presets anyway. my only complaint is with the piano sounds which are pretty damn bad. there so out of tune you probably wouldn't want to record a song using them. the manual is very good and explains everything. which is why i say its easy to use.

the effects are good especially the delay .the only problem is you can only use one effect at a time. sequencer is good and easy to use.

if it were stolen i probably wouldnt repace it. only because thers so much other shit coming out. i recommend the 305 to anybody looking for there first piece of hardware.

Software Version 1.00

The manual leaves little to be desired, but once you get the basics down you can pretty much dive right in.

Dailing up presets (and realtime editting of them with filters and ADSR), and using the internal sequencer are fairly simple tasks.

Editing presets gets more complex, but probably not much harder than any other keyboard.

The features are the main reason I like the board.

It has 64 voice polyphony, and the keyboard action is okay.

The internal effects are usable, but the bonus here is that it has reverb and delay and you can also add a 3rd multi effect (like distortion or flanger).

The internal sequencer is loop based, and only 8 part. But, you can mute and un-mute those parts in realtime which is a cool feature.

The keyboard is pressure sensitive and responds to after touch, and you have a pitch/mod bender.

The arppegiator is very good. You can set it to use Up, Down, UP Down, ect. and also set the style. The style will let you chose between 1/4, 1/8, 1/16, 1/32 Notes, and 30 or so different patters like slap bass, chord, and more.

I would probably give it an 8.5

In this area I feel the keyboard is lacking.

The sounds are not of the highest quality. They also lack the full, punchy feeling I would have liked.

You are dealing with mostly synth bass sounds, electro leads, strings, pads, and some brass and keys.

The pads are actually very good. The bass sounds lack the punch. Leads are... Okay at best.

The drum sounds are actually pretty good too.

You can produce some good Techno/Dance, or Industrial music with these sounds, and some editting of the sounds but; I think something like a Nord Lead or Access Virus would be much better.

I would actually give the sounds a 7.5

I don't know about that. The keyboard is pretty noisy. I get a lot of hiss out of it when the volume is all the way up. When I do some edit functions and lights are blinking on the keyboard I hear a pulsing buzz out of the right side. A friend of mine has the same problem, must be a design flaw.

Does that mean it isn't reliable? I guess not, but it isn't a good thing either.

I spoke to them once about the problem mentioned in the reliablity section. They directed me to a service center in my area.

If it was lost or stolen I wouldn't replace it. I would get something like a Korg MS2000, Nord Lead, or Acces Virus.

I like the features, and the sounds where better than average.

The noise that mine produces makes it nearly impossible to record with.

I would give it an over all rating of 7.5

I have had my JX-305 for about a year now, my first real synth. Overall I am happy with this machine but I do find a few things quite limiting. For me the patch edit is quite easy and makes for the creation of some killer sounds, but the operative word here is some. You do not have complete manipulation of sounds just by using this synth on it's own. Granted there are all kinds of knobs and such and quite tweakable, but not completely changeable. I like the fact that this synth is geared for very electronic music. Some preset sounds are quite good but a lot of them really get on my nerves. I always try to create my own and will be adding some new mudular sound devices to do what I completely want to do.

The manual sucks in my opinion. I admit that I do not have much of a background when it comes to the editing(chapter 9) portion of operations. I still do not even know what a checksum is. I am just now gearing myself up to connect the JX-305 to outside machines. One thing I really want is a KORG Kaos Pad or other Rolands sound modules.

I think the drum sounds are exellent. I mean, one can create a really mean sounding dance record just with the JX-305 by itself, so there is a lot to like about this synth, if you can get past the manual. I have been reading other people's quotes about the manual and can't figure out why the thing was so easy for them. I think the manual is quite vague. It doesn't give you enough refreshers on previous things that it mentioned. I still do not know how to record via M-Scope and have not been used that much looping technology. I need to really sit down and go through the manual again. Everytime I try to, I get so frustrated and just try to figure things out on my own. I feel like I am trying to decipher hyroglyphics. The manual sucks!!! I also am not great when it comes to math. I really need to meet someone that knows more about the technical end of it.

I just added the 4 megabyte card because when you use effects and such, it takes up a lot of the JX-305's availabe user memory. I had up to 7 songs and my memory was all ocuppied. I like to use a lot of effects and that is why I will be getting more mudular machines in the near future.

Oh, I paid $700 for this. Hey, for less than a thousand dollars, it is really quite good. There are some limitations though, like the stupid manual!! I need some patience please. I mean, this thing is geared for trance and Techno and so far I have written mor New Age, some Hip Hop, and Synthpop, but no a lot of loopy stuff, because the manual explains it so poorly. OK, enough

For the price, You still can't go wrong. Although, it may be harder to find it as Roland didn't really push it that much. No sales pitch here, just some honest observation.

It has 64 note polyphony, which is good. Keyboard action is good, aftertouch and all that, keys respond to amount of pressure, also a wide range of effects: Flanger, E-Q, Distortion, Slicer, Gate-Reverb, Enhancer, Limiter, Phono(with lp and ep modes, also built in background noise, kind of corny though), Phaser, and others. The effects have submanipulation capabilities to them as well. For the most part they all sound very good. However, when writing with them they take up a wide range of the memory.

Expansion capabilities are very much there. You can interface with other keyboards, the computer and many other sound modules. You can use another board to control the JX-305. Oh yes, all the midi-capability is there. Someone said that this board was not expandable, I do not know where they are coming from. There is an onboard sequencer and it is pretty good, if you ever are able to figure it out!!!!! It is somewhat complicated. I see that some people say they figured out how to use the JX-305 within hours. I have had the thing a year now and there are still operations I do not know how to do! Someone contact me please

Oh, it reacts. The preset intruments run a range from the very eletronic to orchestral and acoustic sounding instruments. Some instrument sound very realistic, like some of the ethnic ones. Sitar sounds like the real thing. What I like about this synth is that most sounds are not original and also tweakable. I have filled up my entire user memory portion with rewritten patches and such. Now I am creating more of a file on the smart-media card. This helps a lot with the memory. I really do not use too much in the way of the preset sounds, but I do use some from time to time. The patch edit lets you manipulate and create, recreate, but not 100%. I think the groove box gets in the way of the synth part a bit. The Groove box(rhythm portion, drums etc. are awesome!!! I said this before.

Onboard effects are great but do use up a lot of the user memory.

This keyboard works well for all types of electronic genres. I am convinced that a lot of the rap and hip hop being produced out there comes from this synth or other Roland related synths, groove boxes etc. The groovebox is awesome and also allows for the patch edit to manipulate the drum sounds and such. RPS is great but the manual is hard to understand in this section. Appregiator is wonderfull. Somewhat hit it right on when they said Phat!!!

The reactions to aftertouch and velocity are good but sometimes they annoy me. Well, atleast you can go back and specify how much of an amount of these effects you want

Yes, overall I think it is quite dependable and I would use it in a gig all by itself. It is that comprehensive. I would rather have a backup because I think it is just smart to use one, but by itself It should fare quite well.

Never dealt with them before, but plan on doing so now as I intend to unlock all the capabilities

If it were lost or stolen, I would probably buy another Roland synth, one somewhat like this one. I have been playing music all my life and have had some other starter synths but this one is my first actuall professional synth. I chose this one because it was rather economical. I wanted to be able to do a wide range of things with one keyboard and the JX-305 certainly lets you do that. Sometimes it helps me make music and other times it gets in the way. Overall I am quite happy with it and it will be used in the studio. Now I feel compelled to buy some other gear as well

I have had my JX-305 for about a year now, my first real synth. Overall I am happy with this machine but I do find a few things quite limiting. For me the patch edit is quite easy and makes for the creation of some killer sounds, but the operative word here is some. You do not have complete manipulation of sounds just by using this synth on it's own. Granted there are all kinds of knobs and such and quite tweakable, but not completely changeable. I like the fact that this synth is geared for very electronic music. Some preset sounds are quite good but a lot of them really get on my nerves. I always try to create my own and will be adding some new mudular sound devices to do what I completely want to do.

The manual sucks in my opinion. I admit that I do not have much of a background when it comes to the editing(chapter 9) portion of operations. I still do not even know what a checksum is. I am just now gearing myself up to connect the JX-305 to outside machines. One thing I really want is a KORG Kaos Pad or other Rolands sound modules.

I think the drum sounds are exellent. I mean, one can create a really mean sounding dance record just with the JX-305 by itself, so there is a lot to like about this synth, if you can get past the manual. I have been reading other people's quotes about the manual and can't figure out why the thing was so easy for them. I think the manual is quite vague. It doesn't give you enough refreshers on previous things that it mentioned. I still do not know how to record via M-Scope and have not been used that much looping technology. I need to really sit down and go through the manual again. Everytime I try to, I get so frustrated and just try to figure things out on my own. I feel like I am trying to decipher hyroglyphics. The manual sucks!!! I also am not great when it comes to math. I really need to meet someone that knows more about the technical end of it.

I just added the 4 megabyte card because when you use effects and such, it takes up a lot of the JX-305's availabe user memory. I had up to 7 songs and my memory was all ocuppied. I like to use a lot of effects and that is why I will be getting more mudular machines in the near future.

Oh, I paid $700 for this. Hey, for less than a thousand dollars, it is really quite good. There are some limitations though, like the stupid manual!! I need some patience please. I mean, this thing is geared for trance and Techno and so far I have written mor New Age, some Hip Hop, and Synthpop, but no a lot of loopy stuff, because the manual explains it so poorly. OK, enough

For the price, You still can't go wrong. Although, it may be harder to find it as Roland didn't really push it that much. No sales pitch here, just some honest observation.

It has 64 note polyphony, which is good. Keyboard action is good, aftertouch and all that, keys respond to amount of pressure, also a wide range of effects: Flanger, E-Q, Distortion, Slicer, Gate-Reverb, Enhancer, Limiter, Phono(with lp and ep modes, also built in background noise, kind of corny though), Phaser, and others. The effects have submanipulation capabilities to them as well. For the most part they all sound very good. However, when writing with them they take up a wide range of the memory.

Expansion capabilities are very much there. You can interface with other keyboards, the computer and many other sound modules. You can use another board to control the JX-305. Oh yes, all the midi-capability is there. Someone said that this board was not expandable, I do not know where they are coming from. There is an onboard sequencer and it is pretty good, if you ever are able to figure it out!!!!! It is somewhat complicated. I see that some people say they figured out how to use the JX-305 within hours. I have had the thing a year now and there are still operations I do not know how to do! Someone contact me please

Oh, it reacts. The preset intruments run a range from the very eletronic to orchestral and acoustic sounding instruments. Some instrument sound very realistic, like some of the ethnic ones. Sitar sounds like the real thing. What I like about this synth is that most sounds are not original and also tweakable. I have filled up my entire user memory portion with rewritten patches and such. Now I am creating more of a file on the smart-media card. This helps a lot with the memory. I really do not use too much in the way of the preset sounds, but I do use some from time to time. The patch edit lets you manipulate and create, recreate, but not 100%. I think the groove box gets in the way of the synth part a bit. The Groove box(rhythm portion, drums etc. are awesome!!! I said this before.

Onboard effects are great but do use up a lot of the user memory.

This keyboard works well for all types of electronic genres. I am convinced that a lot of the rap and hip hop being produced out there comes from this synth or other Roland related synths, groove boxes etc. The groovebox is awesome and also allows for the patch edit to manipulate the drum sounds and such. RPS is great but the manual is hard to understand in this section. Appregiator is wonderfull. Somewhat hit it right on when they said Phat!!!

The reactions to aftertouch and velocity are good but sometimes they annoy me. Well, atleast you can go back and specify how much of an amount of these effects you want

Yes, overall I think it is quite dependable and I would use it in a gig all by itself. It is that comprehensive. I would rather have a backup because I think it is just smart to use one, but by itself It should fare quite well.

Never dealt with them before, but plan on doing so now as I intend to unlock all the capabilities

If it were lost or stolen, I would probably buy another Roland synth, one somewhat like this one. I have been playing music all my life and have had some other starter synths but this one is my first actuall professional synth. I chose this one because it was rather economical. I wanted to be able to do a wide range of things with one keyboard and the JX-305 certainly lets you do that. Sometimes it helps me make music and other times it gets in the way. Overall I am quite happy with it and it will be used in the studio. Now I feel compelled to buy some other gear as well

This is a fairly easy keyboard once you get going. I only had the
keyboard for about two hours and I was already able to record songs on
it. I've never owned a keyboard before, so this is all new to me.
Editing patches is harder for me so far, I haven't tryed doing this a
whole lot, but when I have tryed editing patches it's seemed pretty easy.
The Realtime controls are GREAT for editing patches! The presets sound
superb anyways. The manual isn't as bad as people say.

My only complaint is that it is not expandable. But, it is 64 voice
polyphony, which I've found has been really good. The keys aren't
weighted either, but if that means more to you than get a different
keyboard. The built in effects have been really good. Easy to use and
edit. It has onboard distortion, it's not really super, but how many
keyboards have onboard distortion. The sequencer is great, I've written
about 10 different genres of music with this keyboard and it excels in
each one.

In my opinion, the sounds aren't completely realistic, with a bit of
tweaking that can be fixed, but they are good enough as is. Piano
sounds are good, but the RD series by Roland are better for that.
Organs kind of suck, but that's alright. I never use brass. Cello is
so SO cool. The keyboard's best patches are by far the pad's and strings.
They are very, very good for every style. Like I said before, it is
great for every kind of music, and I mean everything.

I would use it at a gig with no backup no problem. No problem's so far.

I don't know, I haven't had to deal with them yet.

If I lost it or something I probably wouldn't have the money to buy
another one, but if I did, I would definitely buy it again. It is well
worth what I paid! I have been playing piano since I was five, so 12
years (I'm 17) and this is a dream come true to own one of these things.
I have never written music the way I have since I bought this keyboard.
I highly recommend this instrument. I did not compare it to any other
keyboards, but I didn't have to after I heard what it could do. I don't
own any other keyboard gear, but I do own an Epiphone guitar, a custom
bass guitar, a digitech RP-6 Fx rack, an E-bow, a piece of crap amp,
and my baby (the keyboard). If you have any second thoughts on if you
should buy it or not, feel free to email me. If you really want, I can
send you a demo of music I've written on it and you can make your own
opinion of the machine. No major complaints.

With Cakewalk Pro Audio8 you load and save your files on the disk.
It's very easy to use.It was my first Synth.
Editing patches is so easy: With one turn of a knob you can change your preset sound into master pieces of your own.

The only thing that irritates me on the JX305 that there isn't analoge modeling.The rest is pretty much OK.

The Preset Sounds Sucks for making house and dance.
The effects are very good.

You should watch out for the saving, because it always jumps back to the preset bank number.

No comment

System is great but the sounds are terrible. Therefor I prefere a mixture between a JP8080 and JX305.So my next thing I'm gonna buy is a JP8080.

This is my 2nd review, and I chose to do another one cuss my last
one was really lame!
(cheak out my new tracks at http://www.mp3.com/miek)
Anywayz... Ease of Use. I managed to learn how to use all the
features in short 3 months time.(Yes, everysingle little detail from
patch edit to MIDI Checksum) I look at every single page in the manual
and used all the features mentioned in the manual. Vary vary helpful
infomation!
Sequencing: Whin first got the unit patch editing and the sequencer was a
total nightmare!(It's my first synth, excuse me.), but I ajucted
accordingly. If you already have sequencing background then its all
good, if you dont' the JX wont be your cup of tea. If you are capable
of figuring things out, then the sequencer will become relitivly easy
and fun to use. I figured out a way to manuly copy conplex musical
arangements into the sequencer, and also give it the human touch.


Patches: Presets-not good, User-not bad, Editor-vary ugly!!!
Once youget used to the patch edit facilaties, you must have a mental
set of numbers in your head. Numbers representing what affects what.
You can mutate a piano type sound to a pad sound by properly using
AMP ADSR, and LFO parimaters appropriately. etc...
So how easy is it to use? It's up to you. How much common sence
do you have? How good are you in math? I do admit, it is hard to use
at first whin your sober.

Now you can get this thing for about $650! Let's do some math...
For $650 you get:
8 channel sequencer (96ppq), 8 realtime knobs, 8(+8) chanel Mixer
8(+8rps) part multitimeral, 1 stereo deley unit, 1 reverb unit(6 types),
1 stereo(or mono) MFX unit(26 types), 8 meg ROM based Sampler (+4 megs),
phat arpeggiator, plastic velocity AND aftertoutch 61 note keyboard, midi
controlor, drum machine, advanced sound and patch editing, syncronizer,
64 voices, and (my favrote) a sleek blue coat finish.

If you have thousands of dollars, and you'd perfer a 16-96 track
sequencer for $600 and plate reverb units for $2000, distortion
efx pedals/units for $2000, a 48 chanel digital mixer($4000), a couple
TB-303's or whatever x0x boxes you can get your hands on ($100,000),
couple akai samplers ($10,000), 88 hammer master keyboard ($2,000),
and a ADAT, then I encourange you to get that instead, forget about
the JX305. But if you are a poor little peasant boy (like myself) who
works hard for his money and pays bills, I think that your $650
investment will turn into a $100,000 contract with Virgin Records,
(It happens all the time, no?)

The unit has all the features you need to make some industrial,
trance tracks in your bedroom. Your imagination and creativaty are
the only things that will hold you back. You will discover that
the JX limitations will only make you stronger!

Nothing on this synth sounds realistic, that's why I love this
thing! The piano's are nice and usable. You can get it to sound
realistic, if you study the dynamics played by real piano players
and implement it to midi, you will find that there are random
fixedures toward the vilosity and the tone of it.
If you know what Im talking about, you will be able to fool
people into beleiveing that they are hearing live piano part using
only the jx305 sounds. I'm not that good at seuencing yet...
Same goes for dynamics for guitar players. Look at some guitar
tabliture of your favrote songs and manuly copy 4,8 or 16 bars of
your favrote song and transpose the patch at vary low key and play
a TB-303 dist sound with overdrive effect switch on. Sweetness!!!
If you work with the patches hard enough you will be able to make
your patches talk, yes I mean talk, liek in japanise. use 2 lfos.
Assign lfo1 to random and 16th note speed modify the pitch and filter
and lfo 2 on chaos modifing the pitch and amplifir, assign aftertoutch
to lfo2a and lfo2p. play they keyboard accordingly and mess with the
pitch bend leaver and whin you get the hang of things you can teach
your JX how to skeak like a bigman! my JX saz things
liek "stank hoe" after a random note recoding and a litte tweeking,
then I saved it!(bad,miek,bad) It's all up to your mestakes and your
imagination...

Just make sure you have copies of your work, liek on a 4 meg card.
I love to gig with this thing. Really phat.

I think it depends on the mood of the technician you call/contact.
I see roland users get really pissed, and others just feel really
blessed over their customer survice! What the hell is going on here?

I give it an 8 cuss I just feel like giving it an 8. If it
got lost or stolen or broken or if m memory got erased, i'd just
just raise hell and make some more songs on another workstation
out of frusteration. (I didnt evin back up yet!) But, if I had backup
I wouldn't be too woried, just as long as I got my patches/patterns
on a card or on disk.
You muct cheak out my work so far with the JX.
I only had it for about 4 months - http://www.mp3.com/miek -
I' do enjoy making ambient/hard-trance tracks. I know how to
use the JX 305 successivly. I know how to get the sweltchyness
and analogish sounds. Whin you lern how to do these things, your set!

do yourself a favor and get yourself a Akai S1000, JX305,
4 channel mixer, and some efx processig, and you will be able to
make some really, really phat trance tracks! For under $2,000!!!

Once you get the hang of it, it's not all to hard to work with. Of course, the manual didn't help too much... Editing preset patches is still somewhat fuzzy to me, but it probably just takes some time. All other functions are relatively simple.

I'd say it's a pretty normal synth as far as features go. There's the typical aftertouch, pitch bend, modulation, plus it also has some nice effects...reverb, delay, and multi-fx including chorus, flanger, slicer, 4-band EQ, and about 20 more, though you can't sue them all separately. The control knobs are one of the best things about it.
An 8-track sequencer is nice, but not really necessary. The one thing that completely ruined me on this synth is the fact that it only has 8-part multitimbrality! I'd expect it to be much more professional than that. I use a PC Midi setup, and only 2 months after I bought it did I realize that one can only use MIDI channels 1-7 and 10 for a drum kit. Very disappointing.

The preset patches are alright... nothing spectacular... but once you get the hang of editing them, you can make some wicked techno/trance sounds. I found a lot of use in them. The rhythym sets are really comrehensive, and all editable.

I wouldn't know...I used it strictly as a studio synth... seems reliable enough for performance though...

I wouldn't know, I never got through!!! I left a message with my small, simple problem two or three times at Roland and I got no response...

I'd love it if it weren't for the pathetic 8-part multitimbrality. Very unprofessional, in my opinion