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#27205 - 08/03/00 09:29 PM XV-5080 Christmas in August!
feefer Offline
Member

Registered: 05/14/00
Posts: 84
Loc: XV-5080
Hi all,

The XV-5080 arrived: very impressed with the sounds I've heard, so far, especially the bank 'G' guitars that use COSM. All I hoped for, and more.

The owners manual alone is 300 pages. Quick Start is 50 pages. That should give some hint of the capabilities.

The major buzzkill is that the nice, large display arrived with many fine and no-so-fine scratches on it: the (double layer) box looked factory-sealed by Roland, and there's no apparent reason why it would have gotten scratched in transit (nothing loose in the box). Roland usually places a 'saran wrap' translucent cover over displays to protect them during shipping: this one didn't have one.

Comparing this display to all my other rack modules reveals the material used is VERY soft, easily scratched with fingernail pressure. Even my MBD-1 module (which I bought second-hand) has less scratches than this one, because it uses a harder material.

I hope this isn't an omen of things to come.

Chris

[This message has been edited by feefer (edited 08-05-2000).]

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#27206 - 08/04/00 12:56 AM Re: XV-5080 Christmas in August!
Cosmic Dreamer Offline
Member

Registered: 05/20/00
Posts: 70
Loc: Hasselt, Limburg, Belgium
Hmmmm,

Like the XV5080 would have been made with transistors from befor world war II?

I can't wait untill tuesday (then I'll have mine).. I'm going to slam all my exp boards into it and roam all the functions untill I 'm going to make a dedicated xv5080 song

.....I just like to be weird

BTW: How does the tvf/tva editing look, is it anything like the jd990 (visual envelopes)?

cd

[This message has been edited by Cosmic Dreamer (edited 08-04-2000).]

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#27207 - 08/05/00 11:11 AM Re: XV-5080 Christmas in August!
feefer Offline
Member

Registered: 05/14/00
Posts: 84
Loc: XV-5080
Hi CD and all,

Quote:
Like the XV5080 would have been made with transistors from before world war II?


Well, that explains all those tiny glowing glass tubes I saw inside the 5080 when installing the expansion boards: the sucker is just packed full of vacuum tubes (i think that's what they're called?).



Quote:
I can't wait untill tuesday (then I'll have mine).. I'm going to slam all my exp boards into it and roam all the functions untill I 'm going to make a dedicated xv5080 song


CD, call in sick for work right NOW: I hear the 48 hout flu is spreading thru Benelux.

Quote:
BTW: How does the tvf/tva editing look, is it anything like the jd990 (visual envelopes)?


I don't know how they look on the JD990, so can't say. But the display layout is great, offering tons of easy to see info. per page, i.e. EXTREMELY user-friendly inferface.

Regards,
Chris

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#27208 - 08/06/00 12:12 AM Re: XV-5080 Christmas in August!
Cosmic Dreamer Offline
Member

Registered: 05/20/00
Posts: 70
Loc: Hasselt, Limburg, Belgium
Quote:
Originally posted by feefer:
Hi CD and all,

I don't know how they look on the JD990, so can't say. But the display layout is great, offering tons of easy to see info. per page, i.e. EXTREMELY user-friendly inferface.

Regards,
Chris




On the JD990 you had 2 rows of functions (if you place yourself in an envelope menu).. For example if you were in the TVF menu you had a row with t1 to t4 and you could dial your values there, next to it there was a row with l1 to l3... You could just dial values and besides these rows was a flatline wich would bend and twist according to your configuring the thing, so it was easy to see (like with the triton) how your filtertime/level looked over time...

cd


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#27209 - 08/06/00 12:14 AM Re: XV-5080 Christmas in August!
Cosmic Dreamer Offline
Member

Registered: 05/20/00
Posts: 70
Loc: Hasselt, Limburg, Belgium
....BTW, I didn't have to try hard to get sick here.. The weather is freaky, one morning i wasn't awake just yet en there was FOG ! (Fog in summer??°. But not the tranclucent kind that you sometimes have from mountain dew but the real thick one like in early spring/late fall/winter..

The world is really going crazy, i hope it will still exist when I get my xv-5080 :-P

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#27210 - 08/06/00 11:29 PM Re: XV-5080 Christmas in August!
feefer Offline
Member

Registered: 05/14/00
Posts: 84
Loc: XV-5080
Hi CD,

I think you'll be very pleased with the user-interface (aside from the display's predisposition to scratch).

So far, I'm very impressed with the XV: I've got two SRX boards installed, and have triggered the drums via MIDI. The (4) velocity layers and sample quality makes it sound BETTER than my TD-8 and TD-10 V-Drum brain!! (However, the 5080 is not designed to be used with a drum module, and hangs up on some hi-hat functions). Even the non-SRX drums sounds great.

BTW, the preset bass sounds are rather weak: I have the MBD-1 module and won't install a Bass and Drums JV board, but will purchase the SRX bass/guitar card if/when it becomes available (I'm hoping that one would be SRX-03, with woodwinds/horns as SRX-04 and an orchestral board as SRX-05).

After wading thru many kitchsy presets, I'm wishing Roland will lay off the quickly outdated techno-type sounds and continue to focus on great quality instrument samples in all further expansion boards.

Regards,
Chris

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#27211 - 08/07/00 02:28 PM Re: XV-5080 Christmas in August!
Cosmic Dreamer Offline
Member

Registered: 05/20/00
Posts: 70
Loc: Hasselt, Limburg, Belgium
Still one night of sleep befor santa comes for me as well

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