I bought an XP80 here in UK but when I got it home and really started to listen to the sounds, I was incredibly disappointed. Especially in the Piano and Strings, which I do use a lot on live work and in fact sold the keyboard again.
I called Roland UK and their reaction was and I quote 'the basic palette of sounds is rather poor, but if you get the expansion boards they are much better'.
I have always liked Roland for their conventional sounds, so I don't want to give up on them just yet.
Has anyone else found this problem with the basic XP80 sounds?

To a degree I agree. The expansion cards really make this synthe. Also, the vast amount of editing capabilities help. I have created a piano sound that I'm happy with, to the point where I almost never use any of the preset pianos. I made it of stock waves, using no expansion board waves. I wouldn't say all the basic sounds are poor, but they are less than awe inspiring. My XP is fully expanded. That's what adds the professionalism to the synthe. I've played extensively on the Korg Trinity and o1W, and I'd say they have better basic sounds, but they don't compare to an expanded XP-80.

Well, thanks for that. I was beginning to think that maybe I was deaf,or just too old. .I am thinking of actually buying another one, (having resold the first one that I bought) and at least getting the Orhchestral and one other board to get started and give me something akin to my needs. Apart from obviously the dedicated Piano board .. which of the others would you suggest might have a workable piano on it. Maybe the Session board ??

I used to own an XP-50 and now I've got an XV-5080, and I also have a triton. And I would pick the XV-5080 over the Triton anyday. Yes the Triton sounds better in the patch/prog mode than the XP-80 but that is because alot of the sounds use around 5 FX. The Roland on the other hand use mainly chorus and reverb. So when you go to perform/seq mode the Roland can be made to sound better than the Triton. As for the piano sound the xp-80's sounds alot better than the Tritons. Now as for the string sound they are both real close. But the Roland gives you 100s of ways more to edit the sounds over the Triton. All in all they are both good but you can obtain better sounds with the XP-80. As for the XV 5080 it totally blows the Triton out of the water.

And yes the Expansion boards do sound great and that is a way that you customize your synth to your likeing.

Just my opinion, hope it helps.

If you'd like you can check out my music at: www.Mp3.com/RuslanY
Most of the songs were made on an xp-50 and the newer ones were made with the Triton and a Yamaha EX5R.

PYCLAH www.mp3.com/RuslanY

I don't know about the Piano board but the Orhchestral, Session, and the Base and Drum boards are real Good. I heard the Sessions board has one of the best pianos from the whole collection of boards.

PYCLAH
www.mp3.com/RuslanY

The SRJV piano board isn't nearly as good as the session board's piano. The piano board has some nice electric pianos, but for acoustic pianos is not worth the money. I don't have one, but I've heard many demos. The session piano is much better.
Remember, the SRX02 concert piano board does not work in the XPs. Those boards only work in the XV and Fantom keyboards/modules. If you want the best ever piano on a synthe, you want this board.

Hi

In my opinion the pianos and a lot of the other sounds on the Session expansion-board are great! Very playable!

The "basic palette" of sounds is in my opinion quite good, but not exeptional. It is to give "normal" users what they need. If you have a "special interest" in a category of patches, then it will maybe not be good enough. I think this is a problem with most synths.

My brother owns a Korg Karma; this has the same samples and patches as the Triton. The Karma really has terrible pianos and emulative sounds in general.. So if you buy something else than Roland to get better conventional sounds, don't buy Korg! Even their "Classical Keyboard Expansion", that adds "quality" piano sounds, is in my opinion terrible.. Perhaps even worse than the built-in piano sounds??!?

Stig

I agree. Triton definitely went downhill from Trinity. At least as far as conventional sounds go. I liked the Trinity's piano much more than the Triton's. Korg seems to have taken a turn toward the dance/hiphop/techno side.

The Korg Karma at least is clearly meant to use for electronic music.. It is great in this department, but the conventional sounds are really no good..

One more thing that was mentioned here: The Korgs depend heavliy on effects to produce their sounds. Very nice in patch-mode, but in performance-mode it's a totally different story.. Sure, they have a lot of processing power, but not enough for 16 parts..

This is what I like about Roland synths.. Instead of tons of effects they have a bigger synthesis engine.. I personally like that better..

Stig

Okay,
I think I read this on the Roland site...the session expansion board has the most "professional" sounds on it...including piano. The Piano expansion board was made when the xp's first came out...so it's one of the oldest boards...since then they made the xp 60 and 80, and have improved piano sounds that come with it, and that kind of makes the piano expansion board obsolete. This is what I read on the Roland site anyway.

-Tracey