it's not there Roland JV-1080

Roland JV-1080





The 90's studio synth workhorse. The Roland Super JV-1080 offers a bit of everything from great acoustic instrument impressions to analog synth sounding fare. 64 note poly & 16 part multi-timbrel, the JV-1080 filled the racks of everyone from dance producers to film score writers. A veritable classic.

I added in the JV-1080 as they are like workhorse multitimbrel synth modules of legendary status almost. The JV2080 is more of the same with more wave ram, up to 8 boards....but whilst a great synth... it's overkill a bit.... whereas the older 1080, has the same polyphony... and can be had cheapish if you need a big digital synth.

 

So the JV-1080. Basically they are good all rounder work synths giving 64-voice polyphony and 16-part multitimbral capability,   already famed for their filters Roland's 32 bit processing in the JV's gives smooth as you want digital sweeps... not too steppy.... so you can controller-it away and it'll be smooth.... you've got about 448 waveforms to play with onboard.

 

This is an excellent synth for those who want to do some all round music, yet get plenty of sounds for all eventualities because with a few expansion boards you can get dance drums & techno & vintage stuff etc...

 

The top comes off, and you can plug in up to four SR-JV80 Series wave expansion boards that the JV's share with the XP80/50 to augment the 8 meg already onboard..... giving a wacking amount of rom samples from dance drums & sounds, thru world music & classical, to vintage synths and whatever you like. They released one in the summer called techno for what it's worth.... but naturally the synthesis is powerful enuff (and even more so with any added board or card waves.)... to create anything from simple to deep sounds... and all the piano's, organs & strings etc you like.... it is all cursors and menu's of course.... so not a great... "Rush-it-and-mess-with-it" unit....but it'll take controllers once your sounds are set up.

 

Now.... it is a JV... and it all does have a sound... an overall gloss that is Roland JV that comes with all units... they do have a sound... not withstanding that, it's a good digital choice if you see a bargain one around.... if you have maybe a sampler & some very specific dance synth/s... and want to add a digital unit for layers, weirdness and a massive potential pallette.... try the JV.... it has to be said tho, the boards are about 2 and a 1/2 each .... (new), so getting some secondhand added will obviously push up the price.

 

Anyhow... lots of onboard multi effects... some of them are insertable... 8 reverb types, 1 chorus, 40 EFX.... its got a preset memory of 4 x 128 patches & 8 rhythm sets, with 64 performance setups...... you've got 128 user memories, which sags a bit compared to the K2000 say, with it's 999.

 

No disk drive... groan... i feel a 'data-card' selling exercise coming on... yup... M-512 datacards only unless you wanna dump the stuff over..... hey... it'll also take a pcm wave card with another 2 mb of waveforms... i think these cards are interchangable with other Roland synths.

 

You got midi in, out,thru, ..... 6 outs....mix-out-L+R.....Out-1-L+R.... out-2 -L+R....... plus phones.

 

there ya go..... a workhorse..... and really, even in todays madness of 256 note poly units, it is a good synth if you've got a bit of cash, and want a powerful digital module with flexibility and classy sounds.... however..if you dont want to synthesis with the JV, and want more instant 'dance' sounds. then to expand it up to become more of a 'dance sounds' unit, would mean adding a few boards, the techno & vintage maybe....... and then the price goes up... anyone selling it s/h with added boards will want more... then i can compare it to an old secondhand k2000 as a choice, cos with a board or two in the JV, it comes up secondhand to about the same price as an old versioned k2000 which can load samples to get drums from the akai range or formatted disks.

 

So comparing the two as a good digital synth , i'd lean toward the K for dance... it's got much less polyphony, at 24 notes..... but not so much an issue depending on the music you do... loads samples tho as raw akai files... no keymaps... but you can build custom drum kit & load other samples.... it can do ruff sounds.

 

Thought that might be worth a note if you're looking at mid 1000 quid digital synths to do drums and sounds to build round.... the K has a disk drive too... !... but loaded with a few cards, the JV offers huge waveform choices.... & more polyphony.... much more of a full production tool.....and no loading disks and stuff... the cards & sounds are in there when you boot.... sure you can upgrade the K with a dance waves board & sample facilities etc... but we're talking comparisons at a street price similar of around 600-800 for the expanded JV (with say 2 cards)... comparing to a unexpanded K2000 with maybe 4mb of ram.

 

Anyways... the JV...... has to be listed....







  • Currently 4.5 Stars.
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5

1: No good!

2: Average!

3: Great stuff!

4: Excellent!

5: Awesome!

Rate this product!

Currently: 89%
Total Stars: 58
Total Votes: 13


Top

Added: 18 December 1998
New price: discontinued
S/H price: £400 ish
Company:  ROLAND UK

Resources

Sorry - no user manual
16 Behringer links
Behringer TD-3 audio examples
Post on forum about this product

More choices





Your browsing history (edit)


Comments

wojtek jakobczyk

15-Jun-99

i don't own this synth but i've had a contact with jv2080.
i think it's the best sample player synth available now. sound are not too
original, but hey, it's a 'univeral' synth for all possible kinds of music.
really good for commercials or multimedia productions.
good effects with flexible routing. wide range of expansion cards available.
of course not too good for experimenting with sounds.


roller8

02-Aug-99

I've owned the XP50 for a couple of years and I have to say that it produce sparkling sounds of commercial quality, great pads and sound programming possibilities are endless. Although I would highly recommend the Vintage Synth expansion card for creating good dance/techno sounds.


Bazz

29-Nov-99

Weblink: link

I have this module with the Vintage and Techno-expansions, and it's a great synth which covers all styles of (electronic)music, from house to drum 'n bass... Buy this one and a master keyboard and you're ready to go>64 voices and 16 part multitimbral...sounds with 2 parts are already big enough to use! I'll never reach the 64 voice limit..because i also have a JP8000 and Nord lead..It's a great setup for me....


hal

22-May-00

I had this unit for about a week or two, i traded a sequential tom for it, stupidly i sold it before i even recieved it so i could get a tb303 stupid stupid stupid choice...i love just about every sound in this box, it gave me a whole new view on things...eh it also helped me out :), my analog binge went too far...analog is over...it's a waste of time, it WAS phat because it was mad cheap, now it's mad expensive for what...1 or 2 voices of polyphony? with va having like 16voices on a super high end machine? fuck that, when i had this i was using it with an mpc2k, linn drum, microcon+cyclodian, electribe er, electribe ea, and a moog mg1...and it was the phatest shit, all i really liked using when i had it for the few days was the mpc2k and the 1080 and great results would come out, although the editing window really pissed me off, and i'm used to annoying windows, roland shit's wack for userfriendly interfaces, but i sure love the sounds...:o), just wish i kept it...the tb303 compares little to it...fuck analog...it's all about digital:o)


Rafael Rodriguez

22-Nov-01

Weblink: link

i want to now if JV-1080 is god to perform drum & bass beat , if sow tel me how or a wep page whare i can get midi file.


Joergen traun

16-May-02

The JV-1080 is one of Rolans best Synthesizers ever made, it has a lot of personality.

This synth engine can do sound that most people never imagined and it also do analog sounds better than most Analoge physical modeling synths.

I Compared it to the other synths in the JV, XP, XV, fammilly and foundt that the JV-1080 is still the one with the best sound. It has warmer and a better defined sound than the rest. The new models (XV's) has more and better effekts, but not the warm analogish sound of the JV-1080.

PS. this machine needs to be tweaked a lot.


Brian C

16-Jan-03

Weblink: link

Has anyone been able to import the sysex ( patch names ) from the Vintage ( or any ) Expansion boards into Cubase SX ?


ikoferre

27-Aug-06

i want buy instrument for studio, tell me some idee





Last added comment


Dj Ave Mcree

23-May-09

Weblink: link

been producing for years and I heard this joint was the truth so I bought it and its exceeds everything that Ive heard sound wise...the techno ex card is my favorite because it has some sounds from the JUNO in there... only thing I didnt like is the fact that the sounds arent (wide) enough for me but I just add some stereo imaging and bammmmm Im in there.. I can tell the Neptunes used this sound module alot because of the quality of the instruments.... this is a multi- platinum module thats still relavent to modern day music.... you can get one of these on ebay like I did


Add a review or comment

7168
Thank you! Your submission has been received!
Oops! Something went wrong while submitting the form.