Someone mentioned on the other board that Roland should keep coming out with more SRJV cards since slots for them are included on the new XV units.

One Expansion Card that would expand the life of our XPs and JVs would be an 8MB Flash Rom card. Both the Trinity and Alesis boards have this and it doesn't require any special hardware upgrades. Follow mw on this one.

All we would need is an empty SRJV card that would have Flash Rom. Samples could be sent to this Flash ROM via midi from some computer program that could read S700 or .wav files.

If we had an option like this, Roland could benefit becuase they could make us purchase their Sample CD ROMS for their S series samplers. All current JV and XP users would probably go for it.

Are you guys thinking 8MB is wimpy? Not necessarily. The Ensoniq TS10, EPS+, Trinity and Alesis X.1 series all have 8MB of Flash ROM and even Roland's own S Samplers max out at 32MB. Also don't forget that the SRJV10 Bass & Drums board thrives on 8MB of ROM, and we all know how realistic the stuff sounds on there.

So, what do you think about this guys? I think we should submit this idea to Roland. The XP50 has Flash ROM (for the OS), no extra hardware would be required, all we would have to do is buy the board. I repeat though, this is not so we could sample, this is for Sample playback, and could be a great addition to the SRJV line up.

The Infamous EPU.

Epu - That's a great idea. Just imagine - If you hated all of the violins in the JV or on the Orchestral board, you could go out on the net or buy some Sample CD to get that violin sound. I have an Alesis as well and know that SoundBridge is a hot program and if my Alesis doesn't have a certain sound, I can get it anyway.

If the Roland's had this option, they would be the most powerful workstations on the planet. Besides, Sample ROM disguised as an expansion board would require no hardware upgrades, that would mean it would be easy to install.

I second your notion, I think we should all submit this idea (in the way you laid it out) to Roland!

[This message has been edited by Reggie S (edited 06-05-2000).]

Hi Epu and all,

I agree it's a good idea, but I think Roland has this covered in the new XV-5080 with the optional 128M SIMM memory to load and store samples from CD-ROM's, etc. Hard to imagine they'd go back and expand options on a product line that is being replaced (have you noticed the used market price drop on the 1080/2080's lately?).

It would be nice if they offered a RAM card for the JV/XP, but I think you'd just be directed to upgrade to the XV-5080 (and I'll bet any workstations offered in the future will have this option, too).

Remember: all manufacturers make money by selling new products, not by keeping you happy with the old one. A rule of thumb is that product support for a particular line drops exponentially after product release (that's why I personally would be surprised if Roland ever released another TDW-1 card for the V-Drum system).

Regards,
Christopher

But I don't want to buy an XV?!!.... And I believe what you say is true Chris, but then why include 4 SRJV slots?

Come on Roland, help us out.

Yes, I would have to agree with Reggie S. While the XP and JV series will be discontinued sooner or later, all of the new XV units will have SRJV slots.

More so, the XV3080 has only 2 SRX slots and 4 SRJV slots. It's almost as if Roland either made the XV units more or less to offer an "upgrade" of sorts to current Roland JV/XP users, OR if Roland will continue development of SRJV cards for some more time.

The XV is an inprovement over the XP, but not by that much. The sound is good, mainly the drums. All of the other sounds have been present on other Roland modules (post 1998) for some time now - Namely the SC880 and SC8850.

I really hope that the rumors about this SRJV80-20 board are true. Having the ability to load outside samples into our XP/JVs will keep our synths in the useful area for quite a while. I would predict that even if the SRJV80-20 was expensive, people would still gladly purchase it.

The Infamous EPU.

Also, even if Roland confined us to using only Roland S series Sample CDs, that would also be fine. They would already be in RDAC format. And let's not forget that our Expansion Boards are 16MB worth of data that is compressed. That is a fair amount of Sample ROM to work with.

Also, they're are many RDAC conversion programs out there that will convert RDAC to .WAV and vice versa.

The Infamous EPU.

You know, I've been saying this for such a long time. It's nice to know that other people are also interested in seeing this happen.

There are synths that go back to the early 90's that let you import samples - like the Ensoniq TS-10 and the Alesis Quadrasynth. This option should have been included with the XPs for a long time. Let's make this a reality. Great thinking Epu.

Now, How do we get this info submitted to Roland?. . . .

I'm not really sure. I heard that Roland CA has an e-mail as well as a suggestion line. I wonder why Roland US doesn't have this? Tascam has a BBS similar to this where customers can talk one on one with the staff.

Hopefully, we can contact Roland about this. Having 8MB of Flash Rom for samples via MIDI would be a great asset to our aging JVs and XPs.

The Infamous EPU.

Well, I spoke to a Roland rep today, and he did not comment on the SRJV20. A clerk at my local music store said that a Sample ROM board is in the works - Go figure?!

The Infamous EPU.

I think Roland should do this in order to compete with Kurzweil, Alesis, and Yamaha but I don't think they will because it would extend the useful life of old product lines, and decrease sales of the new product lines. A lot of critics have commented for example that the Roland synth engine has not changed much over the years except for the Variphrase technology. Roland is out to sell new equipment, not make old equipment better. One question-is there a patent on the Expansion Card? If not why are there not any 3rd party mfg's? If so, Yamaha, Kurzweil, and Yamaha all rely on non-proprietory media for sampling. This card would have to be a RAM card and since there are no inputs except via midi, any sampling would have to be done through midi dump. In closing I would say if Roland was interested in meeting customer's needs, it will make this available. I for one would use the card to take the samples that I like off of all the other expansion cards and build patches on a custom card that I can organize the way I want.