Roland XV-3080

[F5D]

Yesterday I finally got the SRX-07 Ultimate Keys expansion card. I must say that it is very good! Better than I expected. It has over 450 patches + drumkits.

I had to update my 3080's operating system to support more than 128 patches when using new srx cards. It took about 45 minutes to play 32 midi os update files from logic. Anyway, everything was ok after the update and I could see all the pacthes.

I read somewhere that the srx-07 piano is maybe from the session board and imo it's good for some styles. The card has many electric pianos and organ sounds. I usually don't use that kind of sounds but it's fun to play them and I noticed that many of them could be used in my productions too. The organs and EP's are very good. Then there are tons of acoustic and electric basses and some very good flute/horn-sounds. I have to continue testing but some of them were very usable. Then the pads and strings... The waves taken from both keyboards of the 60's and 70's and vintage synth cards there are some really beautiful and fat synth strings / pads and the card gives you tons of new good waveforms to create your own patches.

I don't know about the other roland xv- or jv-modules but the 3080 must have a good sound engine and converters because all sounds sound very smooth and beautiful, not thin and lifeless. I really start liking even more about the 3080. I will not sell it. It's my no. 1 pads/strings-machine and if I need any real instrument sounds, it's really fast to search one and they seem to sit in the mix very well.

I've been reading about the other expansion cards and next I will try to find a second hand orchestral 1 jv-card.

[DougP]

i've got a second hand XV-5050 that i never use. i should really dig into it and see what it's capable of. This thread is sparking my interest in these JV/XV boxes again.

i'd be interested in how the orchestral card works out. i am trying to find some violin/viola sounds that would be decent as solo instruments instead of string sections.

[soundsubs]

This is interesting. What is the difference between the 3080 and a newer one like the fantom xv? just the SRX/JV cards that go in it?

One question: if you need a drum kit, can you select DRUM as the sound and then scroll through presets and it jumps automatically to the next drum kit?

[F5D]

XV3080 and older jv-modules use 32kHz sampling rate whereas the newer modules use 44.1kHz. However, that doesn't mean that 32kHz is worse. Most of the JV-card samples have been edited for use with 32kHz converters I guess and some people have reported that some of these expansion cards sound too crisp or even weird with the new modules. Anyway, I have not tested this so I cannot really say. Anyway, I don't hear anything missing in the sounds, it's smooth and beautiful.

Anyway, I have read many comments about the 3080 and that the converters which roland use in it are very good and all roland jv and xv-modules sound different. I bet that the new fantom modules are good too. They have sampling built in too but I don't need that. The 3080 can be expanded by 2 srx cards + 4 jv-cards. The new modules can be expanded by using only srx cards but there are more slots for them. Anyway, you can get most of the JV sounds too if you purchase the srx cards which are made of the jv samples as the ultimate keys is.