Hey Everyone,

Not quite. I remember hearing rumors a couple of years ago about a possible Guitar & Drums board for those complaining that the drums on the SRJV80-10 (Bass & Drums) board were weak and for the lack of quality guitars in the JV soundset. After years of not paying attention to a particular board, I finally got the chance to sit down with the board that it seems like all of the descriptions from the ramous pointed to - The SRJV80-17 Country board.

I'll admit, I'm not a country enthusiast and never wanted to check out the board. The XV5080 at my local Sam Ash had installed, I came across it while trying to access what I hoped was a SRX board so I could preview some new sounds. I must say, the Country Expansion Board is nothing short of impressive. While there is a little monotony, there are a ton of great sounding guitars and drums on this board. In fact, I'll even go further to say that the drums on the country board are better than those on the Bass & Drums board. I'm really serious. The drums there have more punch, sound more dynamic and realistic.

Perhaps this perception was due to the outstanding quality of the XVs D/A converters. I'm not quite sure, but I think I may return some of the CD-ROMs (maybe) I got for my Roland S760 and get this board. There are plenty of strat, telecaster, acoustic, mandolin, voilin/fiddle and drum sounds (not to mention basses, but they aren't as good as the Roland SRJV80-10) for everything - not just country. R&B, Funk and Pop users can all really benefit from this board.

While this is obviously no substitute for the SRX01 Dynamic Drum board, I think this board is just as essential as some of the other "big-wigs" in the Roland SRX and SRJV line up.

Later,
The Infamous Epu.

Yes EPU!

I remember also getting very exciting about this new 'guitar and drums' board also and said Id be the 1st to buy one if it was good enough.

When the country board came out I tried it out using a Roland XP30 and was not too impressed- the guitars do not match the quliaty of the factory guitars in the XV synths. I did however like the banjos and mandolins very much and some of the strats were not bad but not anything special. I didn't think much of the drums either. However id be willing to give this board another try out sometime.

On the same day I also tried out the Latin board which contains alot of nylon guitars (whereas the Country board contains more stellstring guitars samples). I was more impressed by these nylon sounds I must admit even though the rest of the board didn't do much for me either!

EPU if you have an XV module, seriously check out the SRX studio board- its got absolutely awesome drum sounds not much worse than those in the the SRX drums board seriously! Plus the new guitar and bass samples are fantastic also!

If this doesn't strike your fancy than you would like the new 'World' SRX expansion that contains all the waveforms from the previous Roland JV world boards including Country and Latin.