I have the XP60 and was curious . . . rather anxious to get my hands on a workstation version of the new XV modules as soon as they were available.

NOT! I checked the module out today - the XV3080 at my local Sam Ash. This module seems like a JV1080 with a couple of expansion boards. The new guitars sound not too far off from the old guitars. I was really dissapointed and expected much more.

The Drums are really good though. Perhaps the SRX boards will be something to look at.

The Infamous EPU.

Epu- I don't agree about the guitars! The XV guitars are much better than the JV's (even though the JV's guitars are still very good!). I love the way you can use velocity to realistically imitate 'bending'- it is so realistic and as a matter of fact I'd go to say that these are the most realistic guitar sounds this side of an actual sampler! Even better than the Kurzweil K series guitars.

The strings, pianos, electric pianos, brass and drums are also much better than in the JV's. However, I still can't help for more variety in the drums department (like in my Korg Triton!). I suppose that is where the new drum expansion board comes into it!

The pianos in the XV put the JV pianos to shame and you would need the sessions expansion piano sound to get anything as good in the JV synthes (the JV1010 already has this built in!).

The strings are much better but still aren't as responsive and realistic as those in my Korg Triton and TR Rack. I will get the orchestral 11 expansion board for this.

However, the JV's are still great sounding synthes (that's why I'm keeping 1 of my JV1080's- I sold the other one to put money towards an XV3080).

For those who do not wish to (or cannot afford to) upgrade from a JV to an XV- I must admit that adding the session expansion board largely fixes up any of the JV's weaker waveforms (most notably the acoustic pianos).

This board is superb IMHO. It adds alot of good 'meat and potatoes' sounds to an allready impressive range of synthes.

I see everyone's points. The EP's are better, but I have an SC880 and most of the XVs new Pianos and EPs are already included in the SC880. As well as many of the guitars. The basses in the XV sound pretty much the same. As for the bend in the guitars, that could be programmed into the JV using the TVF. That's why I wasn't too impressed. The XVs are good though.

I think that with a Session and Bass & Drums board, your JV/XP would be almost as good as any XV.

The Infamous EPU.

I think you all may have right about the quality of the sounds. But I think you forget about the new 24-bit D/A-converter, which gives the XV-series much better Studio-performance. When I now use my JV-2080 for sequencing, I'm also often in short of polyphony. I look forward to the XV-5080 with a polyphony of 128.

Don't get sucked in to the "Polyphony Whirlwind" The new sounds are no doubt made up of more partials to improve the quality. Remember, a 4 tone voice cuts you down to a 32 note synth before you play a note !
To be fair, Roland has always been very good with dynamic allocation of voices, so I expect the new stuff to be at least "AS GOOD" as the older stuff in that area.

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Uncle Dave

Epu- you make a good point with regards to adding the bass&drums and session expansion boards to a JV/XP synthe.

But I must confess that the XV's do have a fuller sound to them than the older JV's- most probably due to the improved D/A convertors. Yes and 128 notes of polyphony means that I'll still have a respectable amount of polphony even with 4 stereo oscillators stacked up!

Thank you Korgasm. You are 100% right about the polyphony issue. The deal is however, that you could be fine if you limit your tone switches to two per patch in each performance to get a respectable amount of polyphony in the JV/XP.

On some sounds, the 4 tones being on is essential. For some others, four tone switches on is a waste. More like a show off of factory synth programming. Remember this when you use an external module too. When doing that, turn off three of the four tone switches in a patch on the MIDI channel you are using with the external module to get more polyphony.

You'd be surprised to see how many of the XVs waveforms are from past Roland module. The SRX is what makes the XVs appealing. Remember, a fully expanded XP/Super JV still has much more wave memory than a XV with one SRJV expansion board. Also, just because you have more wave memory doesn't necessarily mean that you'll have better sounds. Sometimes, it just means that you have more sounds.

With all of that said, the XV is not that bad of a value, considering that the XV3080 goes for $1299 brand new. That's a couple of hundred dollard less than what the JV1080 was going for upon its debut.

The Infamous EPU.

Hey! Also, weren't people complaining about that grunge decay noise in the XP60/80 and JV2080. It's funny how someone mentioned that the XP60 and JV2080 had better (18 bit) D/A convertors and that's why you could hear the distortion all of a sudden.

I hope that we don't experience this with the XVs. Don't forget that with analog circutry, you never get to take advantage of all 24 bits. The noise from the outlet contributes to nearly 1 db of noise on the high end and 2 db of noise on the bottom end, chopping off nearly four bits which leaves you with a 21 bit equivalent sound.