Roland XP-30

The XP-30 is easier to use than the XP-50 or XP-60, but still requires the use of Soundiver software to get the most out of editing sounds. The Patch Category is a neat feature. The mod wheel "lever" thing is my least favorite feature.

The manual is not too bad, by Roland standards.

Same specs as the other XPs, but no sequencer. Has a very nice arpeggiator though. Session, Orchestral and Techno expansions are hard wired and it can take two additional SR-JV80 boards. Tons of sounds on this thing.

Four sliders for real time control. Keys are semi-weighted and have a nice feel. Has only a single insert effect, but good quality.

Very lightweight and portable synth with great features and sounds. o

It has all the sounds of the classic JV1080 and JV2080 modules, most of which are still good even today. Add in the built in expansions and there are tons of great sounds. Even the Techno board has some cool synth patches and pads on it.

The only thing really lacking are B3 and Rhodes sounds, and this can be remedied with the "Keyboards of the 60s & 70s" board. I have the 60s\70s and Vintage Synth expansions in my XP-30 and have pretty much any sound I could ever want or need.

If it had a sampler it would be a 10.

Seems pretty sturdy, I treat my gear with care.

I have owned an XP-50 (horrible keys) and XP-60 (too noisy), and soundwise the XP-30 kicks their butts. It has better DACs and does not have the noise issues that the XP-60 had. I do miss the built in sequencer, but sound quality is much more important to me. The XP's sequencer was kind of frustrating to use anyway. I have an EMU MP-7 that is an awesome sequencer. The XP-30 has all of the great JV sounds and when fully expanded, is a monster of a synth. Plus it's so light and portable! A great deal.

Pretty easy to use for standard stuff, the two-line LCS makes more complex sound tweaking a bit complex. But it does the job as a pretty versatile and lightweight gear pretty well.

It is an average piece of gear, and for the price and amount of sounds you get an excellent choice if you're after a good bang for the buck! The keyboard is ok, good for Organs, Synths, a bit less though for Electric Pianos and obviously for a Grand. But overall features are OK, polyphony etc. everything on board. What I am missing a bit is just a simple sequencer to record ideas etc.

The sounds are really great. I bought the Keyboards of the 60s&70s expansion card and the capability of adding two more expansion cards helps a lot to make this beast really a sound monster. The sounds are warm and you can get pretty much everything you want.

Never hat any proble,. Given there are no nobs etc. which could break or so, it is probably one of the most robust keyboards I've ever used. Only the Pitch/MOD STick is a bit of lower quality.

Never had problems.

As a beginners synth but onbly for more advanced players who just want to have every sound imaginable at their fingertipps in a very portable device I definitively recommend the XP-30. It's a pity Roland hasn't yet come up with a decent replacement so the XP-30 still has its stand today.
The Juno-G is soundwise much less flexible and I only consider the Triton LE a similar device, but at twice the price! and it's a Korg - I personally like the ROland sounds!
BTW, just found this nice site on the XP-30: www.johannes-emmerling.de/xp-30 with lots of useful info and downloads (got the manual from there)

I also own the Yamaha S 30 which is in my opinion comparable to the XP 30 in the price range and possibilities.
In the beginning, the Yamaha S 30 is not so easy to use (editing patches) but later on it gets really easy.
With the XP 30 it??s the other way round: Very easy to use at first sight (sliders for attack/decay/release/cutoff/modulations
but editing patches is somewhat a little difficult.
Roland and yamaha have obviously different philosophies
and the man who evented the roland "bender" still lives....

Polyphony 64.
Keyboard action: good, I like it, more than the Yamaha S 30
It??s a good feeling playing piano patches
Expansions are very useful !!!
No onboard sequenzer
Sliders for fast editing are good, but changes are NOT saved !!!
You have to go into the menues :-(

Well, the sounds:

Pianos: Not 1 A but very usefull, especially for live playing.
For records I tend to use the GEM Real Piano.
E- Pianos: Unconvincing, forget about them !
yamahas are much better (S 30, Motif). Or use a Clavia Electro.
Organs: Typical Roland Organ sounds, better than Yamahas (in my opinion), but not perfect. Again: I prefer Clavia Electro or Voce V5
Orchestral Sounds: really good with the built in expansion
Pads/synth sounds: A highlight. Wonderful pads !
I bought this board for the orchstral and vintage synth sounds.
With the synth expansion, you have EVERYTHING ! MOOGS, ROLANDS (of course); MELLOTRONS; OBERHEIMS..... EVERYTHING ! WONDERFUL !!!
Basses: O.K
Guitars: Acustic G. very good.
Brasses: Hmmm.... medium except Trumpet and some others
The sax is somewhat outdated...
Drums: old fashioned
Techno Sounds: a waste to me.
World sounds (expansion): WONDERFUL !!!!!!!!!!!!!
Some sounds sound good only in a certain range.

Seems very dependable.

Did not need yet.

Paid ??? 450 used.
It was a good price. Also got the world and synth expansions on Ebay.
It is a very good allround synth.
What is missing: E-Pianos. Perhaps the 60ies, 70ies card could help but for this purpose I have Nord electro and Yamaha S 30.
It is a very musical instrument with lots of sounds.
Especially the orchestral, vintage synthb and world sounds are very good.

I'm giving an update to my review that I posted back in '04.

I still love my XP-30 to death. I love it even more so now than ever before. There was a period where I didn't care for it anymore and I bought a bunch of software to replace it, including Garritan's Personal Orchestra, Edirol's Hyper Canvas, Albino 3, various soundfonts, Edirol's Virtual Sound Canvas, and other things. With the exception of Albino 3, none of it can really compare except for maybe Edirol's Hyper Canvas. Now that I've been around the block, so to speak, and understand a lot more, I have a newfound appreciation for my Roland.

First, let me just say that there isn't a big difference between the Edirol SD/Hyper Canvas sound and the Roland JV/XP sound. They both draw from the same set of samples, except the Edirol SD/Hyper Canvas sounds have been cleaned up a bit. That isn't to say they're better, though. In fact, the new Sound Canvas synths have a very bright, cartoony sound to them while the Roland JV/XP synths have a darker, bigger and more sophisticated sound to them that I like more.

Garritan's Personal Orchestra is something I want to touch on as well. I bought GPO thinking it was going to be a lot better than my Roland. I was wrong. Very wrong. GPO has a lot more samples per instrument (thus you won't run into vibrato going too fast or too slow), but the samples are not sampled as well as the Roland samples. The Roland samples are clearer and more usable, plus there're more of them. The Roland samples are also looped much more smoothly. As far as solo strings go, GPO has a nice set of violin and viola samples with better vibrato, but I still prefer the ones on my Roland. The harpsichord on GPO is also almost as good as the one found on the XP-30. As far as everything else goes, GPO can't compete with Roland in terms of usability or sound quality. I say this after having used both of them pretty extensively.

Roland can't compete with Albino in terms of synthetic sounds. Period. You can still get great synth sounds out of the XP-30, but I prefer Albino for synth leads.

I do a lot of orchestral work on this board. Orchestra is pretty much all I do now, period. The XP-30 fits me like a glove. Once you find a good hall reverb setting and you begin programming your own sounds, you can achieve some wonderful results from just having one or two tones; and by wonderful results, I mean truly breath-taking stuff if you know what you're doing. The only problem I have is that you can very easily run into vibrato issues with some of the sounds. Tricky sequencing and simply using a different sound can help to overcome that problem, though.

I love my XP-30... still. It's a magnificent piece of equipment once you get to know it and learn how to *really* use it. It's definitely my favorite synth, and I'll be using it for a very long time.

As My First synthesizer, I Bought it for the price and the fact that it was recommended by a specialist for a beginner. Well It is fairly easy to use, a but it really a pain to edit patches.

75% of the presets suck, with the exception of pianos, strings, and some ethnic sounds. Other than that, most of the sounds are bad guitars, boring drums, and terrible techno loops, which nobody would use except for maybe the musically-nontalented director of a porno film. The manual is OK.

It has 64 poliphony, which is needed for those loops and big orchestral sections. It has a few effects, like Resolution and cutoff, but they seem to screw up the sound and hurt the ears. and worse, it gets stuck! It can take 2 expansion boards, and memory card.

The reason I give this an 8 is because of the keyboard itself: Great action, and velocity. I would have sold this already had it not made a great controller.

I wish this had a sequencer, as the one I have on Cubase LE sucks. All it's got is this terrible arpeggiator, which is very stiff.

Although there is thousands of sounds on this thing, and they are all fairly realistic, they are all very boring and uninspired.

This works well for a fifteen year old interested in making music, for any style of music can be made on this. Just don't expect anyone coming up to you and telling you, "Wow! Ive Never Heard Anything like That before!"

Because It Is made by Roland, all the synth sounds are based on the Jupiter 8, The Junos, Which have some allright string sounds. However, Don't expect any nice Moog or PPG basses. All the synth basses on this thing are variations on that annoying TB-303.

As I Mentioned before, i am scared to touch the effects, as they just screw up the sound, and require shutting the thing right off.

The Velocity is very good.

This thing i beat the hell out of. It's a well built machine, and it is good enough for a midi controller.

I would definatley gig this without a backup.

Havent dealt with them personally, but I know people who have said that Roland are very helpful.

If this thing were stolen, I could'nt care less. I would go out and buy something else, regardless of the price.

I wish this had a decent sequencer, sampling, and some descent, easy to edit sounds, but then I might as well get a Fantom, a Triton or a Motif.

If you are a guitarist and need some string or organ sounds, this is good. But on its own, Don't expect an article in Keyboard Magazine anytime soon.

I found the XP30 a great keyboard
it was very easy to edit patches
and very user friendly

Great features lots of cool sounds

the sounds were warm and rich and very real

i never had any probs with it

Over all it was worth buying this keyboard
it was my first synth and i have never looked back
It was always reliable and very portable

I've owned an XP-30 now for a little over a year. I bought the XP-30 because my JD-800 finally started to show its age. My JD-800 has been very reliable, but it developed noise in its output that could be heard during quiet passages. I had the choice of having Roland fix my JD-800 (for an unknown amount) or buying a new (but discontinued) XP-30 for $700 CND. $700 CND seemed like a good deal and because the XP-30 has most of the waveforms from the JD-800, I bought the XP-30.

I've written two other reviews on the XP-30 (dispersed between the many other reviews below). My previous reviews were written before I owned an XP-30. BW (another reviewer) disagreed with some of my comments and I must confess that some of what I wrote previously was incorrect. Excepting reasonably sturdy plastic side panels, the XP-30 does have an all metal case. I wrote that the XP-30's case was plastic and this is wrong. Likewise, I will also emphasize that I believe the XP-30 is an amazing value for the money. This didn't really come across in my previous reviews.

I find the XP-30 extremely easy to use. Everything you need to play and program this keyboard is on the front panel. One of the most useful design choices is that the Solo, Portamento, Transpose, Octave Increment, Octave Decrement, Effects, and Arpeggio buttons have all been taken out of buried menus, grouped together, and placed on dedicated buttons. I'd have preferred if these buttons were placed beside the pitch bend lever, but they are still quite accessible on the left side of the front panel. There are a few other odd buttons locations, but you get used to these pretty quickly.

Playing the XP-30 is easy - just take it our of the box, plug it in, and choose a patch. There are so many patch variations for every sound that it is unlikely you'll need to do much programming to get playing. After playing your first time, I recommend that you press the Effects button and turn off the XP-30's three effects processors. This makes the XP-30 sound 100% better. Like all Roland keyboards that have included effects, the XP-30's patches are smothered in reverb, chorus, and other pitch modulation effects. This makes the XP-30 initially sound muddy and distant. Thankfully, once you've pressed the convenient Effects button and disabled all effects, the effects stay off permanently (regardless of how they have been programmed in a patch). Almost every patch sounds immediately bigger, warmer, and more natural with the effects turned off.

Sequencing with the XP-30 is more of a chore. If you've used any of Roland's JV/XP keyboards, this is nothing new. To enable multitimbral mode, you must create a Performance. A Performance is a program with 16 layers. Each layer is assigned its own patch, key ranges, and MIDI channel. There are also inter-layer parameters (such as Pitch Detune) that you can use to create incredibly thick sounds. The XP-30 has a few less dedicated buttons for layer management than some JV/XP synthesizers so it is a bit harder to set up. My first time out of the gate, I had to use the manual to figure out which buttons to shift/press to set up a multitimbral program for sequencing. (This is the way it is folks. If you don't read the manual, you'll likely encounter frustration. Read the manual and you'll be set up with minimal effort.) Once you've set up your first multitimbral program, the process becomes easy. Routing the effects is a similar process - you'll need to read the manual the first time.

I disagree with some other reviewers in that I find the XP-30's manual very detailed and usable. True enough, the manual does condescend a bit, but everything you need to configure and program the XP-30 is included. The documentation even includes exact MIDI byte sequences us programmer types can send to the XP-30 (over MIDI or the serial interface) to control the XP-30 programmatically. You really can't get much more detailed documentation than this. I'

I've covered many of the XP-30's features already and others have covered the ones I didn't in their own reviews. Thus, instead of detailing all features, I'll describe the features I think are key.

Firstly (and most importantly), the XP-30 is well-built, but small and light. I cannot emphasize how important this is. You can pick the XP-30 up with one hand and slip it under your arm. Not having to move a heavy keyboard is such a bonus that it has instantly made the XP-30 my favourite keyboard. The XP-30 is the most portable of any professional, 61 note keyboard I've played. This keyboard is perfect for gigging musicians (of which I am one).

I love the variety of sounds in the XP-30. My only concern here is that I wish many sounds were of higher quality. (More on this in the " Expressiveness/Sounds" section.) The XP-30 includes five expansion board slots (three of which are hard-wired with the included Orchestral, Session, and Techno expansion boards). The inclusion of the Orchestral and Session expansion boards is a fabulous bonus. These expansions make the XP-30 sound much better than JV/XP synthesizers without these boards. It's a shame Roland wasted the third hard-wired slot with the Techno board. The Techno board contains mostly drum loops and very distorted analog synthesizer sounds. The XP-30 (and Techno music producers) would have been much better served had Roland included one of its more generic libraries (such as the Vintage Synthesizer board.) There are two expansion slots you can put your own boards into. My XP-30 currently has the Keyboards of the 60's and 70's board (basically Hammond organ and Fender Rhodes samples) and Super Sound Set (baroque and traditional music sounds plus some good brass samples). Without these extra expansions, I would not be very happy with the sound of the XP-30. Excepting the included expansion boards, the stock waveforms in the XP-30 are quite poor. To gain an appreciation of the sonic capabilities of the XP-30 you really must use patches based on the included expansion boards or patches based on your own expansion boards.

The XP-30 is aimed at budget-minded keyboardists. Despite this, Roland has not reduced the architecture and feature set as it does on many of its inexpensive synthesizers. Excepting a sequencer, the XP-30 is a full-blown JV/XP synthesizer with all features and waveforms left in tact. What this means is that you're getting a professional keyboard at less than half the price most JV/XP users paid. There is truly something to be said for not being an early adopter. With the release of the XP-30 there no reason to buy any other JV/XP synthesizer unless you need the 8 user assignable expansion slots of the JV-2080 or a built in sequencer. Chances are that most people who buy other JV/XP keyboards will buy and install the Orchestral and Session boards that are already included in the XP-30. At current prices, two XP-30's are still cheaper than a single JV-2080 and you get two Orchestral and two Session expansion boards thrown in for free! When you look at it this way, the XP-30 is an unbelievable bargain. My only gripe is that I wish Roland had included a few more user installable expansion slots. As it is, there are a few expansion boards I'd like to have in my XP-30 that I can't because I'm out of slots. With just a few more slots this would not be a problem.

There is a misguided belief that the XP-30 uses cheaper components than previous JV/XP synthesizers. In fact, the opposite is true. The XP-30, because it was released at a later date, contains higher resolution DACs (digital to analog converters). Based on my own tests, the XP-30 exhibits none of the noise and truncated decay problems found in some previous JV/XP models. Thus, if anything, I'd say the XP-30 is the best sounding JV/XP model.

I mentioned this above, but I'll repeat it again here. Before rating the XP-30's sound quality you MUST turn off its three effects processors. It isn't that the effect processors in the XP-30 are inherently bad, it's that Roland drenches all the preset patches with ridiculous amounts of reverb and pitch modulation effects. I have yet to hear any stock JV/XP patch that can't be significantly improved simply by disabling the effects so turn the effects off.

Buying the XP-30 has been a huge lesson for me. Before the XP-30, the only sampling synthesisers I had ever owned and/or used were the Fairlight CMI, Emulator II, and Emulator III. By today's standards, these are poor samplers. ROM waveform synthesizers (like the XP-30) are really just extensions of samplers - they are sample players with built-in sample libraries. In this kind of machine, the bells and whistles (filters, LFOs, envelopes, matrix modulation, etc.) that are essential to a subtractive synthesizer (read "analog synthesizer") are less important. In fact, as I'm finding out, the best samplers are those that have a very simple, high quality signal path with the highest quality samples. Samplers like GigaStudio (a software sampler you can run on your computer) allow for multi-samples that are many megabytes long with no loops. The key to quality sound is to sample many different dynamic levels for their full duration in as many pitches as possible. Thus, ideally, if you're going to make a good Rhodes sample, you sample every note on the keyboard for its full duration at multiple dynamic levels. The approach that Roland and others take is the complete opposite of this. Roland takes as few samples as possible so as to squeeze in more types of instruments. Roland patch programmers then try to get back what they didn't sample by applying traditional synthesizer techniques (such as filtering and modulation). The resulting sound is severely compromised. Understanding this, is key to my approach in rating the XP-30's sound quality.

For the most part, even through there are thousands of patches in the XP-30, most of them are very poor. The reason for this is that the samples behind the patches are poor. You really cannot mask bad samples with synthesizer techniques - Roland (and other manufacturers) try to do this but my ear is rarely fooled. The problems include audible looping, pitch shifts up/down during loops, too few samples spread across the keyboard causing muddy bottom end or tiny/raspy high end, too few samples of dynamic levels causing a lifeless sound, truncated attack segments, truncated decay segments, and timing problems due to samples being overly slowed down or overly sped up. Many of the samples in the XP-30 exhibit one (and often more than one) of these defects.

You'd think after reading this that I don't like the sound of the XP-30. This is not the case. What I find is that out of the thousands of patches provided, I only use a few. The few I use (surprise, surprise...) are the ones that feature the better quality samples. If you play one patch, the XP-30 sounds like garbage. Switch to a different patch (perhaps on one of the expansion boards) and the XP-30 sounds marvellous. What I've come to realize is that the basic electronics of the XP-30 are superb. Feeding a good sample through these electronics produces lots of bottom end, mid warmth, and crystal clear highs. However, most of the built-in samples (those not on the included expansion boards) provide less than stellar results.

While it's a bit tedious, go through the built-in program banks and then proceed to the built-in expansion boards. The first thing you'll notice is that the expansion boards blow the built-in banks away. The expansions provide much better samples than the built-in program banks. Truly, if all I'd ever heard were the default JV-1080 and JV-2080 built-in program banks, I'd never have bought an XP-30. In comparison to my JD-800, the JD

Corporate stability and equipment reliability are big reasons I use Roland gear. I've never had a Roland synthesizer break down. I've owned many keyboards from other manufactures and I can certify from experience that Roland produces some of the most reliable gear in the music business. Excepting Yamaha, Roland is the only manufacturer of keyboard equipment I own that is still in business. The fact that Roland will probably be in business when if I ever do have problems is a great safety net. While I love some of the virtual analog gear on the market presently, like all my true analog keyboards, I really do have to wonder if any of these companies will be in business ten years from now.

I've rated Roland customer support before so I'll summarize as follows: I've had great and not so great support from Roland. At their best, Roland techs have burned ROMs for me and gone out of their way to look up schematics and documentation on out of date models for me. At their worst, Roland has quickly blown me off when they didn't have an immediate answer to my question. In general, I've found Roland to offer pretty good support, but you have to dig underneath the initial person answering the customer service phone. If you make the effort, Roland does have many fine people committed to helping you.

The XP-30 has become my most-used synthesizer because it is reliable, light weight, flexible, and contains great sounding, quiet electronics. With the exception of piano (for which I use a standalone Yamaha P200), I can get all the Hammond organ, Rhodes, brass, strings, woodwind, and analog synthesizer sounds I need from the XP-30. If the XP-30 had a high quality piano sample available (which it doesn't - the internal piano samples and all the samples on the expansion boards are awful), it would be the only keyboard I use. I always use piano so the XP-30 is my "auxiliary" keyboard. Despite the lack of a good piano sound, the XP-30 fills all my other requirements and as such, I find it an amazing keyboard (especially when you consider the price). I highly recommend the XP-30 to those looking for an auxiliary keyboard to augment their piano or to those that don't need a piano sound.

If my XP-30 were lost or stolen, I'd buy it again if I could, otherwise I'd look for a replacement. The XP-30 is definitely worth what I paid for it and then some. Other than the lack of a usable piano sample, this is the most versatile keyboard I've ever owned.

The structure has some strengths and weaknesses. There are so many presets (moreso if you add expansion cards). In order to make that easier, the XP-30 uses "catagories" that allow you to filter patch types. For basic use, it makes sense and has some helpful features to make gigging painless. Editing is basic and they did make some good choices for layout of buttons, and labels. The effects are logically implemented.

I'd say most features are not self-explanatory, but have a certain logic. The manual is very important for understanding how to get around.

For the money, it has a nice feature set. The FX have a decent selection. There are some very nice arpeggiator functions. The ability to add 2 expansion cards is a plus.
I added keyboards of the 60's & 70's and the Orch II. I'm very pleased.

There are 4 assignable sliders that were very well thought-out.

I am used to Ensoniq and Kurzweil gear where the interfaces & editing is WAY more flexible and powerful. But for the dough it's a decent compromise. For basic sounds & performance it's really good.

There are some more specific things that are difficult or impossible: doing more elaborate mapping of keyranges, and multi-channel rigs is more tricky. Enabling and disabling layers with a switch controller is not possible.

The sounds are comprehensive. There is a nice selection of very usable sounds. In some catagories the sounds are weak. The expansion cards I've tried are good (not great).
In my opinion, the memory resources that were devoted to adding lots of techno loops was wasted. Those loops all seem dated to me. It would have been better if that space had been used for single hits & waveforms.

The effects are good, but not great. The reverbs are pretty grainy and not pretty, but usable for basic live gigs. Some of the effects are suprisingly bold. You can make some really messed up stuff!!

The keyboard feel is basically good, but takes some getting used to.

I don't like the Roland-pressure mod wheel thing, but I was able to assign mod wheel
to one of the sliders and that works great.

The power cord is attached, which creates a strain & flex issue that is a concern, but otherwise it's fairly solid.

Anyone who has dealt with the Roland empire knows that customer service is bad. I give a bad rating here in the faint hope that one day Roland may decide to invest in better customer service.

I do appreciate that the Roland website provides fairly comprehensive demos & comparisons of their synths & cards.

If lost, I may get another, but I'd also look at used Kurz or newer Roland stuff.
If you are thinking of buying one, and you know it's in good shape, it's worth a look.

No comeco e bem complicado, pois pra quem vem de um teclado yamaha da linha PSR, parece um bicho de 7 cabecas. Mas aos poucos o cara vai se achando. :)

Polifonia de 64 vozes. Precisa dizer mais?
Efeitos de tudo quanto e tipo, teclas macias e boas de usar, com touch response regulavel.
Ja vem com 3 placas de extens?o on-board e eu tenho mais uma ainda, a expression. Pena que n?o e compativel com GS , so com GM. (Porque isso?)

Os timbres s?o do caralho, Metais perfeitos, pianos muito bons e extras como timbres para musica eletronica profissionais.
Da pra fazer qualquer tipo de som com um brinquedo desses. Do punk ao techno, passando pelo pop e classico.

Da pra confiar no bichinho na boa.
Eu sempre toco com dois teclados, mas dependo basicamente desse Roland. Pena ele ser somente 110 volts.

Sei la, nunca deu problema.
Espero que continue assim.
:)

O teclado e bom pra caralho, so meio complicado no inicio e pesado. Se pudesse ter outro igual, comprava. Melhor aquisicao que eu ja fiz em instrumentos. Junto com o PSR, da pra fazer miseria no palco. Sozinho, da pra gravar um cd so com sons dele.

I'm pretty new to synths, and while some of the presets on this synth sound terrible, most of them sound really good to my ears, especially those on the orchestral "expansion" board.

I don't own the manual and I didn't bother spending the thirty dollars for it because Roland is notorious for having horrible user manuals. In fact, I don't even need the manual; this synth is laid out very well for a piece of equipment that has a screen that's no wider than the width of the average index finger. I often find myself sifting through a lot of menus to get to where I need to be, but the journey is virtually painless. The best part is, all of the features that are most used, such as global effects and the arpeggiator, are instantly accessible with just the push of a button. Selecting a patch is extremely simple, too.

Going deeper into the synth is a totally different story, though. Editing patches is horrific and I haven't even discovered how to make my own patches yet. The synth can easily get confusing with so many different menus, but thankfully they're all pretty easy to get to. It'll take time and experimentation to master this thing, and if you feel you've messed up, the "panic" button gets you out of the menus and resets what you just edited.

All in all, this is probably as good as it's going to get for a synth less than a thousand dollars. Roland generously included the SoundDriver software for this synth, which I've heard makes editing things a breeze, but my synth didn't come with it so it'll take me a while to learn it.

This synth has 64 voices of polyphony, and despite this not being "true" polyphony, as many patches take up about four voices, I've never run out. It does the job quite well.

It baffles me why Roland likes to ruin their sounds by overdoing it on the effects. Once you adjust the reverb and chorus, the XP-30 sounds great!

The modulation wheel is a little stiff, which sometimes causes a problem, but it's nothing serious. I like how it's positioned horizontally.

My favorite part - the octave buttons! You can access the pitch ranges of all the orchestral instruments with this. Great!

I challenge anyone to find better sounds for the price. The sounds of the Yamaha S30, Triton LE and Alesis QS6.2 are by far inferior to the XP-30's. The orchestral instruments are nothing short of outstanding. The great thing is, there's no difference between the sounds on the SR-JV boards and the sounds of the SRX boards; the SRX boards just contain more sounds taken from other SR-JV expansions. In a nutshell, this means the orchestral instruments on the XP-30 are pretty much the same as many professionals use. The synth sounds are really cool and fun to use, especially the synthstrings and pads! I love the sounds on this board when they aren't overdone with effects. It can sound real wet or real clean, depending on what you want. I compose mostly video game music and do a little bit of hip-hop on the side, and this synth suits me just fine. The sounds are versatile and are of superb quality - most of them anyway.

It responds well to velocity and aftertouch, which is really cool.

Well, after owning it for three months and buying it used, it still works perfect. Roland, like so many other synth companies, has a great reputation for having gear that lasts.

I've heard good things and bad things about Roland's customer support, but I can't comment on this because I haven't dealt with them personally.

I got this Roland for 500 dollars and although I've had a love-hate relationship with it (because the often make it sound ew), I really couldn't have asked for anything more. The value of this synth is incredible. I'm more than pleased with my XP-30 now that I've learned how to adjust the effects. Great job Roland, and even at $1,000, the original price of the XP-30, this is a steal.