Hi all,

Uh-oh: Musician's friend website lists the XV-5080 as expected in stock in mid-September (!). Not a good sign, as everyone was expecting the 5080 in stock "sometime in June", last I heard.

(It appears Roland has learned something from musicians about being fashionably late, starting the show later than announced, just to let excitement build.....)

Maybe all you other prospective buyers can use this spot as a point to compile when/where they start to hit the streets.

Thanks,

Christopher

I remember when the JV-1010 came out Roland US got very few units the first several months after the release date. I remember it took me several weeks to find a distributor that had 1 in stock. This is what you probably can expect with the 5080.

Hello and Hummmmmmmmmmm

I just wish I could say "Your so wrong about september".. Just everyone hopes for end of june and thats the kind of info I always got from the roland persons at the frankfurter musik messe but also on the phone with Roland BNL.. Well its true that first deliveries are going to be rather ... hard to come by. Some Roland distribution points (like the one here in belgium) will get the first shipment by plain instead of regular boat shipment because the XV5080 is overdue for a month already. If it would come by boat, it would even be a month extra wait

Also I try to redeem myself (and I hope i'm right on this one) that about the september release I have something to say:. Maybe the JV1010 took so slow because it's a spin-off from the 1080/2080, a nice addition for computer musicians who also long for JV power.

Roland praises the XV5080 to the star, so I dont really think they can permit a delayed delay on a release date no?

Well , knowing that I can't be 100% sure of what I say here, I join the hoping club,

CD
http://www.5080land.cjb.net

Hello all,

According to Cosmic Dreamer's site, the 5080 is starting to roll off the production line. I've been told to expect ETA of end of July.

Best price I've heard is $1,700 (including shipping); I'll tell where, if anyone asks.

Remember: post here when you see 'em hit the streets.

Chris

Hi,

I was at my dealer yesterday and saw the XV-5080 in the metal (as opposed to flesh). He does not have any stock but the Roland rep was in the store demo-ing it to store employees. I was told by the rep that the XV-5080 should be in my dealer's store next week sometime. For the first few months, it will ship in limited quantities. Expect them to be readily available in September.

While it contains many of the sounds from the JV-2080, it certainly sounds quite a bit better. I did not do an exhaustive listening test though as the rep was in there for only a half an hour or so while I was there.

I will probably be looking at selling my JV-2080 in September to pick up one of these babies. I have an extensive Roland sample library and this can take the place of 2 modules for me (a sampler and a synth). The beauty of this thing is that you can buy a 128 MB smart media card for it and load a 128 MB bank without connecting it to a CD Rom or hard drive.

I was a little disappointed in the piano 64 MB card. The rep had both the piano and the drum card installed in it. Let me qualify my disappointment though. The piano card really sounds fantastic if you're doing classical or mellow music. It lacks the bite and brightness IMHO for onstage rock or pop styles. It's really too bad. I would have preferred two 32 MB pianos on the card - a classical, mellow piano and a brighter (a-la Yamaha) piano sound. I may buy the card anyway and brighten it up a touch with some internal fx for onstage.

After all of the talk about the drum card, it also did not blow me away as I thought it would. Maybe it was the listening environment. While they were expressive and weren't bad, they didn't have that punch, in-your-face type of sound I look for in drums. I'll be listening again though when they are in stock.

So, the recap: Don't expect lots of these units to be around and available at stores for a month or two but you should see some by the end of the month for sure.

Fernando

Hi,

Roland bnl told me that in a first phase they are going to "supply" europe with a demo device, We are lucky to be Roland's main supplier for our province in belgium and we get the fruits from that

1 xv5080 (or maybe 2) for us in august.... snif.... At least i'm able to go and test the sampleplayer section and graphical editing (if any)... at the roland branch next week )

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Hi,

You may be disappointed. There is no graphical waveform editing in the 5080. The Roland rep I spoke with said that they may make it available in the future but for now it is not capable of doing this. I believe that there is very little sample editing features there. If I recall correctly, I think that he said the 5080 software would allow you to change loop points and sample start but that's about it.

HTH,
Fernando

Hi all,

Let's just hope the delay isn't due to the kinds of problems the VP-9000 apparently has been plagued with (as mentioned in another thread): if it means delaying the release to work out bugs vs. rushing release, I say Roland should work them out.

I'm hoping this is an unlikely reason, since the XV is largely an extension of an existing product line (JV or XV-3080), and not a completely new product (like the VP).

Regards,
Chris

Hello,
Since 5080 doesn't have too much improvement over 3080(sample playback ONLY, no waveform editing...), why are you guys still expecting 5080 so much??? Please tell me why... cause I'm planing to buy either 3080 or 5080...
THANKX!!!


[This message has been edited by YMH (edited 07-18-2000).]

Hi YMH,

Cosmicdreamer's site has a good comparison of the two units:
http://www.5080land.com

A new site also devoted to the XV series also has a nice section comparing the 5080 to other synths in the class:
http://lakewoodsoftware.com/XV-5080/

The main difference for me is the increased capacity for cards, as well as the COSM amp-modeling effects.

Regards,
Chris

Hi,

It's just a legend slapped together with another legend synth, I've alread bought the World, vintage synth, special FX and orchestral 2 card for my upcoming 5080. See this is what it makes so special. It's that you can have an adition to your keyboard rig (in my case, a triton,. Triton has very convincing soundscapes and synth and effective allround sound, but with the xv5080, i know i have an additional powerhouse that can send 8 digital channels to my vm3100pro (so no loss in sound there).. And, back at the days we were complaining that the JD'990s polyphony just sucked ... so they slapped a new jv2080like architecture on it + ofcourse not to forget the new expressive 24bits sounds in banks E F (and G on the xv5080 wich employs it's extra cosm effects).. First i was dying for the sampling option as well, but when ive heard of the poor akai implementation, i chose to hamster expansion boards first ..

Think of it, the XV-5080 (if you correctly give your musical desires some tyoughts) will get you anywhere, I make new age so i buy nice exp boards for it.. but the internal sounds are already so great but you wont have to be scared of them being dated quickly becasue there are 8 expansionboards slots + the sampling player..

I believe it's Roland's masterpiece rightnow.. ANd I think i'm going to own it untill it dies out on me.

....by the way, feefer I didn't really mean graphical wave form editing in the sampling area, i meant graphical envelope (tva/tvf/pitch) editing JD990 style, that would be cool

Also I still wonder if the XV5080 will be able to convert load these extra JV880/JD990 patches on an exp board like the vintage synth....



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Umm..... i mean fvicente, (but feefer can reed too ofcourse :-P)

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I think can the same graphical editing as the XP 80 that i use to have and i like that.
and i wil get vintage,SFX and sission on my XV 5080 and i hope that i can use my Waldorf Q stepseqencer and arpeggiator with XV 5080.

Hi Cosmic,

I'm assuming you were referring to your question:

Also I still wonder if the XV5080 will be able to convert load these extra JV880/JD990 patches on an exp board like the vintage synth....

If you're talking about an expansion board like the regular expansion boards installed on a JV-2080 or JV-1080, then the answer is yes. All of the JV expansion boards (I think there is somewhere around 16 or 17 or them now) will work with the new XV series synths.

I'm still going to kick it's wheels a little bit but I'm pretty sure I'll upgrade at some point to it. I'm not very happy with the JV-2080's midi timing and am hopeful that they fixed this on the XV-5080. Also, I already have a decent library of Roland CD-Roms and Zips that I will load into it.

I sold my S-760 to buy a E-mu E5000 Ultra so I could load more samples at a time (and more polyphony too). If I had known about the 5080 at that time, I would have held off on that decision. I'm happy with the E-mu though.

Oh well,

Fernando

Hello,

Yes: I know that they will work on the xv5080 but what I was talking about is that if you look into the paper that comes with your card, it sometimes shows that there's a patchlist for both first generation JV's and the second one (or as opposed to that.. the JD990)..

I owned a JD990 once and when I had the vintage synth board installed I had acces to 512 paches from that board because it could convert-load the JV80 ones..

Well: I hope the XV5080 can do this as well.

CD

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Hi

Cosmic Dreamer:
Are you sure the SAMPLES in the 5080 are 24-bit. I mean.... This would use quite a lot of ROM. Not to mention that the effects-processing and D/A-converters would have to be 56-bit or something. (I am not an expert in digital signal processing......) I believe that you can't process 24-bit audio with a 24-bit (or less) effects-processor successfully.

So: Are you absolutely sure that the samples are not 16-bit as before, but that synthesis and effects are 24-bit?

I have never heard of any synth that uses more than 16-bits samples. Even not the Kurzweils. The rest of the synthesis engine and DACs may be (and always is ) of higher resolution.

StigF

Hi all,

No, Roland doesn't say the samples are 24-bit, just the DAC.

This is pasted from the brochure (on-line at the 5080 site):

All three XV-Series synthesizers have powerful DSP effects onboard, incorporating independent reverb, chorus, and studio-quality multi-effects processors. The lush, ambient reverb algorithms are derived from Roland’s top-of-the-line SRV-3030 24-bit Digital Reverb Processor. The chorus section
produces a rich, thick modulation perfect for fattening up leads and pads.

The new M-FX section contains all of the JV-2080’s EFX algorithms, plus popular V-Studio effects, RSS, and unique algorithms like 3D Delay, Slicer, formant filter, Isolator, and a triplet-based Shuffle Delay. On the XV-5080, the M-FX section* is beefed up further to include COSM processing and a set of multi-effects optimized for guitar, bass, and keyboard. The 5080 even sports a master EQ per output.

Most importantly, with entire XV Series all of this massive DSP processing is heard through 24-bit D/A converters, ensuring crystal-clear sound reproduction.

Regards,
Chris

Hi,

Well to go on about the idea how pre xv5080/3080/88 sounds could be in a 24bits environment, I thought about this..

Original sounds don't have to be 24 bits to be dithered in that format, you can easily do this with soundforge/wavelab etc.. so if you follow that idea, every first and second generation jv sound could be dithered in order to be compatible with the true xv 24 bit sounds no? so this said I think it can be true that 24 bit sounds (and the upgraded 18bit sounds from older JV's) can be routed trough a 24 bits processor...

24bits......err I mean
CD

Hi all,

Back to the original intent of this thread: the XV-5080's are out there. I just got a call from bpmmusic.com, saying they got a shipment: would I like to order one? Well, duh, of course!! It should arrive later in the week.

They may have one or two more, so you might give a call if in the market for one of these babies.

Regards,
Chris