xtra ROLAND XV5080 RACK SYNTHESIZER/SAMPLE PLAYBACK MODULE

review
sound
module
ROLAND XV5080
xtra special
ROLAND XV5080 RACK SYNTHESIZER/SAMPLE PLAYBACK MODULE
In their eagerly-awaited new flagship synth Roland have
harked back to the sampling technology of their respected
S-series samplers, as well as adding some contemporary
touches to equip it for the 21st century. Gordon Reid
assesses past, present and future.
‘B
egats’ are a bit like buses — they always
come in bunches. Take the
development of Roland’s S&S
synthesizers as an example. First there
was the T110, but you won’t have heard of that
one, as it was never released. However, the T110
became the U110, and this begat the popular U220
and its keyboard counterpart, the U20. The U20
then begat the U70 — or it would have done if
Roland’s marketing gurus hadn’t decided to cash in
on the success of the D50 and call it the D70
instead. The D70 then begat the JD800, the first
incarnation of Roland’s ‘four tones to a voice’
synthesis system, which has since become the
trademark of the company’s sound engines. The
JD800 in turn begat the JD990 module, and then
the JV80, the first in Roland’s most successful
family of synths to date. The JV80 begat a plethora
of JV keyboards and, more importantly, the JV880
module, which in turn begat the JV1080, the
JV2080, and the JV1010. Recently, the JV2080
begat the XV3080 and the XV88 keyboard version.
There’s been an awful lot of begetting going on.
If you trace the developments of Roland sound
engines from the T110 onwards, you’ll see that
each has led logically and smoothly to the next,
culminating in the XV3080. But hang on… why
haven’t I included the XV5080 in my story? Surely
this is simply a sexier version of the XV3080? Well,
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SOUND ON SOUND • november 2000
yes it is, but it’s somewhat more than that. Unlike
its predecessors, the XV5080 has both a father and
a mother, and it’s the first Roland synthesizer in
more than a decade to incorporate traditional
sampling technology. It’s not a sampler, but it
owes its existence to both the ’90s JV sound
engines and the S-series samplers of the late ’80s.
Intrigued? Then read on…
The Basics
The XV5080 is Roland’s new flagship. Surprisingly
supplied only in 2U rackmount format (there’s no
keyboard version), it’s based on the XV synthesis
engine already discussed in our XV3080 review
(see the July 2000 issue). This means that, like its
little brother, it offers a substantial 128-voice
polyphony, GM Level 2 compatibility and advanced
multi-effects, and it can host Roland’s new SRX
expansion boards.
Unlike older Roland synths, the heart of the XV
engine uses stereo PCM waveforms and, with well
over 1000 multisamples, the XV5080 offers more
than four times the ROM of the previous ‘JV’
models. This includes all the JV2080 waveforms,
many waves from the respected JD990 module,
and still more from Roland’s extensive sample
libraries. With huge editing potential and literally
hundreds of Patches, Performances, and Rhythm
Kits taking advantage of these waveforms, it’s
ROLAND XV5080 £1799
pros
• Powerful, high-quality synthesis.
• Sample-replay capabilities.
• Generous display.
• Decent multitimbrality.
• Eight expansion slots.
• Good-quality effects, including
COSM-modelled guitar effects.
• Eight analogue outputs.
• Digital I/O
cons
• Sample management, ‘Load’ and
‘Save’ algorithms need a serious
overhaul.
• Supplied without any sample RAM.
• Sample Patches overwrite existing
XV Patches rather than loading to
sample RAM.
• Limited effects busses by modern
standards.
• No external input to take
advantage of the filters, envelopes
and effects.
• No numeric keypad.
• No floppy drive.
• Manual very poor in places.
summary
The XV5080 is Roland’s most
powerful and best-sounding digital
synthesizer to date. Add some of the
numerous JV expansion cards or the
newer SRX cards and — with the
exception of true analogue sounds
— it can cover almost all of your
sound-generating requirements. If a
future OS update sorts out the faults
in the sample management and disk
operating systems, it could become
hard to resist.
No fewer than eight expansion
boards can be inserted into the
XV5080 to extend its sonic
capabilities.
going to take you (and me) quite some time to
fathom the depths of this synthesizer.
Hundreds? Well, there are seven preset groups
of 128 Patches, a group of 256 GM Patches, 14
preset kits of 64
percussion instruments,
nine GM kits of 64
instruments, and 64 preset
Performances. Add to this
the 128 slots for user
Patches, 64 slots for user
Performances, four slots
for user Rhythm Sets, and
the (up to) eight banks of
Patches and Performances
that appear when you
install expansion cards…
I’m sure you get the
picture.
In addition to all of the
above (which already
exceeds the capabilities of the XV3080 by a
considerable margin), the XV5080 also offers
extensive sample replay options. You can install
up to 128Mb RAM, and use this to load Roland
S-series samples, Akai S1000/3000 samples, WAVs
and AIFFs. But don’t for a moment think that the
XV5080 is just an XV3080 with more memories
and a bit of RAM thrown in for good measure. It’s
much more than that, as we shall see.
Physically Speaking
Synthesis
Before we move onto the sample section, it’s
worth noting the handful of significant differences
between the synthesizer engines of the XV3080
and the XV5080. One of these positively leaps at
you: thanks to its dual MIDI inputs, the XV5080 is
32-part multitimbral. Clearly, Roland are making
an effort to make the XV5080 an ‘every synth you
need’ sort of product, and the ability to access 32
independent sounds makes a great stride in this
direction. Or, at least, it would with a better effects
structure. (We’ll come to this later...)
The inclusion of Roland’s COSM guitar effects
processor is another big step forward. These
physically modelled effects, first seen in the
V-Guitar, make the guitar simulations in the
XV5080 far more authentic than those of any
previous Roland synthesizer or sampler. If you’re
looking for a quick reason to justify upgrading
from a JV1080 or JV2080, I would suggest,
“because the XV5080 has COSM”. If you’re trying to
create a ‘band in a box’, you need convincing
guitars and basses, and this synth generates them.
Sticking with the effects for a moment longer,
the XV5080 also boasts more effects slots — three
MFX (multi-effects) slots, compared to the 3080’s
one, just as the JV2080 had three EFX slots to the
JV1080’s one. Indeed, parallels between the
XV5080/XV3080 and the JV2080/JV1080 are quite
extensive, both of the bigger brothers featuring
more effects, a better screen, more internal ROM,
and more expansion slots.
november 2000 • SOUND ON SOUND
219
▲
A well-equipped rear panel offers
eight analogue outs, S/PDIF digital
I/O and dual MIDI ports.
The synthesizer engine within the XV5080 is in
most ways identical to that of the XV3080, but
with a number of important additions, which we’ll
come to presently. Externally, there are a number
of more obvious improvements, the best of which
is the tasty 320 x 80-pixel screen. This makes all
the synth’s facilities more accessible and more
pleasant to work with, removing the
user-unfriendly barrier imposed by the XV3080’s
2x40-character display. Indeed, the front panel on
the XV5080 is altogether better designed and laid
out, although it lacks a numeric keypad — a real
shortcoming when you have thousands of sounds
and parameters from which to choose.
Other physical differences between the two
machines become apparent on the XV5080’s rear
panel, which has two additional analogue outputs,
plus digital S/PDIF and optical outputs. There are
also two MIDI Ins, a SCSI port, a word clock input,
and Roland’s proprietary R-Bus interface for direct
connection to its V-series digital mixers.
Less obviously, as they’re tucked away behind
the large panel on the upper surface, the XV5080
also boasts eight expansion-board sockets (as
opposed to the XV3080’s six), thus increasing the
synth’s maximum ROM capacity considerably.
There are also two slots for sample RAM, and
these accept 16Mb, 32Mb and 64Mb SIMMs. Mind
you, not just any old SIMM will do. These must be
60µS, with a board height not exceeding 36mm.
Anything else may either (i) not work, or
(ii) prevent you from refitting the cover. A local
computer store quoted me £70, £160 and £230
(respectively) for these, so although you can
probably obtain them cheaper elsewhere you
should be aware that expanding the XV5080 into a
sample-playback machine is not a cheap prospect.
review
sound
module
ROLAND XV5080
▲
Returning to the matter at hand, however,
everything else about the XV5080’s synthesis is
identical to the XV3080’s, so we can now move
on to…
The XV5080 As
Sample-Playback Machine
“There’s no doubt about it — the
sound quality of the XV5080 is
exceptional, especially for
imitative and orchestral sounds.”
▲
I know I’m repeating myself, but let’s be clear
about this: the XV5080 is not a sampler. Like the
Roland SP700, it’s a sample-playback machine
capable of loading and using Roland S770, S750
and S760 data. However, unlike previous RolandP,
the XV will also load Akai data, WAVs and AIFFs.
Since there’s only one way to test how well it
does all of this, I located the SCSI port, hooked up
a CD-ROM drive that normally hangs off the back
of an S770, and tested a variety of S-series
CD-ROMs. These included Spectrasonics’
Symphony Of Voices, Roland’s own Keyboards of
the ’60s and ’70s Volume 2, and two CDs of
sounds and projects burned from a 500Mb HD
using Toast software on a Macintosh computer.
The operating system looked very S770-ish, so
I located the Patches I wanted and… everything
loaded perfectly! All the samples appeared, the
XV5080 allocated them to their Partials and then
into appropriate Patches, and my S770’s
Performances appeared with all their parameters
correctly defined. Much encouraged,
I disconnected the hard drive from my S770,
hooked this up to the XV5080, and tried again.
As before, everything loaded as it would on the
S770 itself.
Once loaded, the S770’s Patches and
Performances park themselves in the appropriate
number of user memories rather than any form of
buffer. Consequently, anyone wanting to load
S770 data into an XV5080 had better be careful
that they leave these memories free of any
essential sounds or, at the very least, that they’ve
backed up any important material. As you would
expect, these Patches and Performances are
retained in memory when you switch off the
XV5080, but the sample data itself is lost. That
seems a bit stupid to me. Since you’re never going
to want to load the ‘wrong’ samples into existing
structures, why not put the whole shebang into
sample RAM, and leave the internal memories
alone?
Moving on, the data are in, and we can now ask
what’s missing from the XV5080, aside from the
S-series’ sample inputs. The answer is: virtually
everything to do with
sampling and sample
manipulation. None of the
S-series facilities, such as
waveform compression and
expansion, time-stretching,
resampling, wave filtering,
smoothing and normalising,
are implemented. Of course,
this means that there’s no
need for a waveform display,
so this also is missing, as is
the S-series’ video monitor
output. The only ‘sample-level’ facilities to have
survived the purge are the abilities to set start,
loop, and end points, and to define loop mode —
forward, fwd+release, one-shot, fwd+one-shot,
alternating, reverse one-shot, and reverse looping.
OK — now we know what has been lost. But
has anything been gained? Absolutely! You can
now throw the enormous power of the XV5080
synthesis engine at your samples. To help you
understand how you can do this, I should first
explain the two sample playback modes that the
XV5080 offers. The first of these is multi-partial
mode. If you ask the XV5080 to load data from any
S-series disk, it auto-selects this mode, whereupon
a number of XV facilities disappear, to be replaced
by a menu structure that (notwithstanding the
omissions) looks identical to that of the S770
Vive Les Differences: XV3080 versus XV5080
The XV3080/XV88 and XV5080 share many capabilities, but big brother adds a
number of important facilities not found on the lesser module or its keyboard sibling.
The following table outlines these:
Synthesizer:
Parts:
Maximum Waveform Memory:
Effects Algorithms:
Expansion Board Slots:
Sample Playback
Sample Memory
Sample Formats:
XV3080
16
256Mb*
SRV-3030,
V-Studio, RSS
6
no
n/a
n/a
Display:
Analogue Outputs:
Digital Outputs:
2-line
6
n/a
MIDI Connectors:
In, Thru, Out
SCSI Port
no
R-BUS 8-Channel Digital Output:
no
* If converted into 16-bit linear format
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SOUND ON SOUND • november 2000
XV5080
32
386Mb*
SRV3030, V-Studio,
RSS, COSM
8
yes
128Mb
Roland S-series, Akai S1000,
WAV, AIFF
320x80 pixel
8
2 Stereo (Coaxial and
Optical)
In1, In2, Thru, Out
yes
yes
Given the differences between the XV5080 and the XV3080,
should you be thinking of finding the cash for big brother? I’m
going to turn this question on its head. Given these differences,
why would you seriously consider buying the XV3080? Its
shortcomings may not seem of overriding significance, but in my
view they render it significantly less attractive. Take the
XV5080’s larger screen as an example. Why struggle with the
XV3080’s 2-line display when a full graphic LCD is available?
Indeed, why deny yourself the myriad possibilities of the XV5080’s
sample playback capabilities, even if you don’t intend to use them
immediately? Why suffer the lack of the authentic guitars afforded
by COSM? Why sacrifice the additional outputs (always very
welcome) and the possibility to hook the thing directly to one of
Roland’s V-wotsits?
It’s also a real shame that you can’t upgrade any part of the
XV3080 to XV5080 specification. There’s an extra price to be
paid for the XV5080 — £500 — but I think it’s too small a
difference to justify the dissimilarities between the two machines.
As Derek Johnson and Debbie Poyser pointed out in their XV3080
review in SOS July 2000, the Proteus 2000 is in many ways
comparable to the 3080, and in some ways superior, but costs
just £749.
review
sound
module
ROLAND XV5080
The XV5080’s generous 320 x 80-pixel LCD is a great improvement over the XV3080’s
2-line display, offering graphic and parameter-based editing of synthesis and effects
parameters.
▲
itself. However, if you select 4-part (XV) mode you
can access all the synthesis capabilities of the XV’s
engine, and apply these to each of the samples
independently. This, of course, means that you can
use your samples in two distinct fashions. Firstly,
you can treat samples and multisample sets as
components within an S-series Performance, just
as you would on an S-series sampler. Alternatively,
you can treat any single sample (but not a
multisample set) as a source PCM within the
XV5080 synthesis engine.
At first sight this makes the XV5080 seem
somewhat schizophrenic. However, if you’ve used
the S-series and JVs in the past you’ll appreciate
just how cleverly Roland have integrated the two
domains of synthesis and sampling — not just by
placing the two alongside each other in one box,
but by allowing them to combine complementary
capabilities in a simple and flexible way. One
consequence of this is that you always have access
to 128 voices — whether these are all PCM-based,
all sample-based, or anywhere in between. It’s a
far cry from the S-series’ 24-voice architecture. The
only obvious deficiency in this area is the
XV5080’s inability to treat an S-series multisample
set as one of its own PCM multisamples within the
‘4-part’ mode.
Now for the acid test: do the same Samples,
Patches, and Performances loaded into both the
S770 and the XV5080 sound the same? I plugged
the master outputs from both devices into
adjacent stereo channels on my desk, flattened all
the EQ, defeated all the aux sends, and balanced
the gains so that both instruments achieved the
same loudness. I then used the channel mutes to
perform instantaneous A/B tests on a variety of
samples, including harps, pianos, orchestral
strings, Mellotrons and assorted percussion.
Do they sound the same? I think that the
differences (if any) are extremely subtle. I tried to
detect quantifiable changes in filter tracking,
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SOUND ON SOUND • november 2000
keyboard response, or even a consistent bias in
warmth or brightness towards one or the other,
but I was unable to do so. On some Patches I very
slightly preferred the sound of the S770, while on
others I felt that the XV5080 had a tiny edge. Even
in my own studio I don’t think that I could have
identified one from the other with 100 percent
success. It would be a far more critical user than
I who would love one of these instruments and
refuse to use the other.
Akai Samples, WAVs & AIFFs
Since Roland claim that the XV5080 will also read
and understand Akai S1000 and S3000 samples,
I had a snoop around my studio for an Akai
CD-ROM. Unfortunately, being a Roland sort of guy,
I have only one Akai-format CD. Placing this in the
CD-ROM drive and selecting the Load page caused
The Joy Of S: Roland Sampler History
Roland came late to the sample game. When,
in 1986, it finally joined in, its offerings were
meagre, to say the least. While Akai and Emu
were streaking ahead with the S900 (1986)
and the Emax (1987), establishing a
dominance in professional studios that has
never since been broken, Roland brought out
the S10 and S50 keyboard samplers, plus the
pitiful S110 and S220 modules. Of these, only
the S50 used 3.5-inch diskettes, and the
other three were duly consigned to the
2.8-inch Quickdisk dustbin of history.
In 1988, Roland released the S550 (a 2U
rackmount version of the S50 with twice the
sample memory of its predecessor) and its
little brother, the S330. But it was not until
the launch of the S770 in 1990 that the
company truly entered the professional
sampling arena. By this time, Akai had
streaked ahead with the S1000 (1988) and
the S1100 (1990), so the S770 was never
going to challenge Akai’s dominance.
Nevertheless, Roland followed it up with the
S750 (1991), the SP700 Sample Playback
module (1993) and, in 1994, the S760.
Excellent instruments, all of these, they
offered users two benefits not found
elsewhere: intuitive operating systems and
unique on-screen editing capabilities. On the
other hand, they were constrained by their
24-note polyphony and limited sample RAM.
(The S760 and SP700 were the biggest, with
just 32Mb RAM). Consequently, Roland’s
samplers were overshadowed by the likes of
the Akai S3000 (1993) and S3000XL (1995),
Emu’s E4 (1995) and, more recently, the Akai
S5000 and S6000.
But maybe 2000 will be the first year in
which Roland takes the lead in the world of
sampling. With the VP9000’s unique
Variphrase technology, and the replay
flexibility of the XV5080, the company just
needs a true sampler to replace the ageing
S-series...
the XV5080 to display the partitioned Akai disk structure
rather than the Roland sampler structure. It then allowed me
to select desired programs or samples and load them without
further ado. Once loaded, the Akai samples and programs
appeared in the same multisample structure as the Roland
samples but (and I was very impressed by this) all the Akai’s
filtering and tuning information was retained and interpreted
correctly.
Further encouraged, I then tried a CD of WAV and AIFF
files. At first I thought that the XV5080 was going to trip over
because, on selecting Load, I was presented with an
‘Improper Disk’ message. However, within a few moments
the XV5080 recognised the CD and allowed me to load the
WAVs and AIFFs; either individually, in user-defined groups,
or all together (up to the limit of the installed RAM, of
course). My only gripe here is the lack of an on-screen
progress meter. It can take minutes to load larger clips and,
while there’s a ‘barber’s pole’ graphic to show that something
is happening, there’s nothing more informative. Shame.
At this point I was a little concerned about how I would
use these WAVs and AIFFs within the XV5080. Then
I discovered the ‘Create Patch’ utility, which allows you to
choose one or more samples and then automatically create a
multi-partial Patch from it or them. The XV places the
resulting Patch in the ‘Temp’ buffer, thus allowing you to edit
it further before saving it to a User memory. The utility does
nothing that you couldn’t do manually, but it does it almost
instantaneously, and takes all the pain away — very nice.
Such facilities also make it simple to use the XV as a
straightforward replay device for extended samples (rather
than the snippets from which you create Patches). For
example, many bands use samplers not as sound sources for
playing ‘live’, but to replay complete musical sections derived
from their — or other peoples’ — recorded tracks. The
XV5080 allows you to load several such sections, and use
them much as you would use backing tracks replayed from
tape or disc. You may or may not approve of such tactics
but, either way, the Roland gives you the option.
Flies In The Ointment...
The Patch Finder button,
as on the XV3080, allows
sounds to be searched for
by category, making it
easier to handle the
hundreds of timbres an
XV5080 can provide.
▲
Finally, the time had come to save my new Patches. Oops…
a problem! Try as I might, I could not get the XV5080 to
recognise that there was free space on my S770’s hard disk.
Whether the source was originally Roland, Akai, WAV or AIFF,
the result was always the same. Does this mean that the
XV5080 will refuse to save to any S-series disk? Yes, it does.
The disk formats and data structures of the two instruments
review
sound
module
ROLAND XV5080
▲
are completely different. You can save an XV’s
memories plus samples to an appropriately
formatted disk and re-load them into the same
machine (or, of course, into another XV5080) but
the S-series is out of bounds. This is a shame,
because it precludes you from building and
configuring libraries on an XV, and then taking
them elsewhere for use on the older machines.
Unfortunately, there are one or two other XV OS
deficiencies to mention. For example, if you use a
SmartMedia data card as your backup medium,
you can only save the entire User area as a single
entity; you cannot save individual Patches or
Performances! This means that you could waste an
entire 128Mb card to store just a handful of
Patches.
The situation with external hard drives and Zips
is a little better, but not much. If you use these,
you can save individual Performances as ‘folders’
(which is more efficient) but you still can’t save
individual Patches. This makes it difficult to locate
and load disparate Patches into new Performances
unless you return to the original CD-ROMs or
S-series drives. (I get the impression that even the
person who wrote the manual was embarrassed
about this, because it is very woolly regarding all
these issues.)
Possibly the most infuriating news is that you
can’t quickly and easily load two Performances,
mix and match the sample-based Patches you want
from within them, and then save the new,
composite Performance to disk. To do this, you
must load the first Performance, then manually
delete the data in a second Performance slot,
manually delete the required number of Patches
for the second Performance and, finally, Append
the second Performance, its Patches, and the
Sample data into the user memory. Once you have
done this you can choose which Patches appear in
any given Performance, and normal service is
resumed.
I can understand this shortcoming to some
extent. After all, the XV5080 isn’t psychic and,
because it stores Performance and Patch data in
non-volatile memory, it needs to ask you what is
expendable. Indeed, the above procedure might
The XV5080 can
save data to the
widely available
SmartMedia cards.
make some sort of sense, but for two facts. Firstly,
it’s not necessary to clear any Performances or
Patches when you load the first Performance.
Secondly, you don’t have to jump through these
hoops when you load and overwrite individual
Patches. Finally, my (albeit volatile) S770 has no
trouble loading multiple Performances and keeping
track of all the appropriate Patches and Samples.
These faults are hard to forgive, bearing in
mind that one of the best things about the later
S-series instruments was their intuitive and quick
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SOUND ON SOUND • november 2000
The Sounds
There’s no doubt about it — the sound quality
of the XV5080 is exceptional, especially for
imitative and orchestral sounds.
Unfortunately, it’s very difficult to translate
these qualities into text. If I try to describe
what makes the XV5080 special, the best
words I can find are “clarity” and “openness”.
Part of this impression comes from the
stereo PCMs. These produce a more open
soundfield than you’ll ever achieve by passing
mono samples through a stereo reverb, no
matter how good that reverb may be. But,
notwithstanding that, the XV5080 still has an
indefinable “who took the cotton wool away
from the speakers?” quality. Furthermore,
minimal aliasing suggests some careful
engineering in the digital-to-analogue
conversion. OK… there’s some aliasing, but it
doesn’t grab you by the throat, unlike some
other contemporary synthesizers that I’m too
polite to name.
Sounds that rely upon clear, accurate
high-frequency content benefit greatly. These
include bells, mallets, struck strings and, for
that matter, any other sounds naturally
produced by hitting lumps of metal and wood
with other lumps of metal and wood. I also
like the harps very much, but perhaps the
greatest beneficiaries of the XV’s qualities are
the acoustic guitars. I’d go so far as to say
that I have never before heard such playable
emulations, whether produced by a
synthesizer or a sampler. I’m particularly
enamoured of the guitar Patches that offer
slides, plucked notes, and harmonics, with the
nature of the note determined by velocity.
Given a bit of practice, you can make these
sound really real. (Great sentiment, lousy
grammar.)
Then there are the basses, which are
greatly enhanced by the XV’s clarity — no
muffled “whoompfs” here. The transients are
all present and correct, and very nice they are,
too. That’s not to say that the XV is incapable
of thick, smothering warmth. Try some of the
strings and pads, and they’ll show off this side
of the instrument’s character, too. And the
horns? Ooh… the horns! Unmissable.
If there’s just one deficiency (and there
always is), it’s in typical analogue synth
sounds and effects. These simply don’t have
the complexity, the depth, the je ne sais quoi
of the real McCoy. But hey… why would you
choose to buy a sophisticated samploid synth
if you wanted to create another bunch of
unexceptional Minimoog and SH101
emulations? That would not be clever.
The bottom line? I really want Roland to
sort out the problems I’ve reported elsewhere
in this review. The XV5080 sounds superb
and, because of this, I want no justifiable
reasons why I shouldn’t buy one.
sample management and disk operating system.
Despite its excellence in other areas, the XV5080
has taken a step backwards here, falling into traps
similar to those that previously crippled the
Kurzweil K2000 (now cured) and the Korg Triton
(still waiting for surgery). Power-users beware...
The Wish List
To err is human, so they say. To demand more,
even when you’ve already been offered so much,
well… that’s human too. Presented with an
instrument as powerful as the XV5080, I can still
find areas I’d like to see improved. For example,
the routing within Roland’s effects section is fairly
flexible, but it’s not a patch (sorry!) on Korg’s. Look
at it like this: the 1995-vintage Trinity is 16-part
multitimbral and offers eight independent effects
busses. The new XV5080 is 32-part multitimbral,
and has three busses. Oops! Indeed, given the
Roland’s sophistication in other areas, it would be
great if every part could have an independent
effects buss. Going still further, I look forward to
the day when all Patches retain all of their effects
when imported into a Performance. If the Novation
Supernovas and Novas can handle this, I don’t see
why a flagship Roland should not.
Secondly, I think that the XV5080 should sport
a floppy drive. Not, you understand, that I am
wedded to vintage technology, but because many
people — myself included — have large sample
libraries of DSDD 3.5-inch disks. The whole S550
library came like this, and it would be useful to be
able to load it directly into the XV. While we’re
“Presented with an
instrument as
powerful as the
XV5080, I can still
find areas I’d like to
see improved.”
talking about sampling, Mr Serious User of Woking
wrote in saying “Dear SOS, Why oh why oh why oh
why oh why doesn’t the XV5080 have a sampling
input? Surely it wouldn’t have cost too much to
add one?” Well, Mr User, all I can say is this: If this
The banks of sounds added by
fitting expander boards are
accessed via their own dedicated
‘EXP’ button.
omission isn’t a hint that there’s a real Roland
sampler in the works, somebody should take the
company’s President outside and give him a jolly
good talking to.
What else? How about an external input to take
advantage of the SRV and COSM algorithms?
(Hmm… I think I know the answer to that one. The
XV’s buss structure isn’t flexible enough — though,
in my view, that’s no excuse.) And what about
adding a numeric keypad for entering Patch and
parameter values? The sheer number of
possibilities in the XV5080 would seem to make
this a necessity, but it isn’t there. Consequently
(and this is also true of the XV3080) you’ll soon be
sick of the rotary encoder. Finally, it strikes me as
very strange that the XV3080 displays waveform
names in the edit palette, whereas the XV5080
only offers a number. This may sound trivial, but
when you’re scrolling through 1000+ waves to
find the sawtooth it’s a right royal pain in the
posterior.
Conclusions
information
£
T
F
E
XV5080 £1799; SRX-series
expansion boards £299 each;
SR-JV boards £199 each.
Prices include VAT.
Roland UK Brochure Line
+44 (0)1792 515020.
+44 (0)1792 799644.
www.roland.co.uk
If you’re in the market for a new rack synth, there
are obviously two members of the XV family to
choose from. I’ve explained what I would do, and
why, in the ‘Vive Les Differences’ box, but to be
brief, unless you really do have no way to raise the
extra cash, I think you should do yourself a favour
and ignore the XV3080. Provided that Roland sort
out the sample management and disk operating
systems, the 5080 is the way to go.
You might think that (as usual) I’ve found a lot
to criticise about this instrument and, of course,
you would be right. So let’s put one thing into
clear perspective: despite some significant faults,
I think that the Roland XV5080 is a fantastic
synthesizer. It sounds wonderful — clear and
precise, or warm and thick, as you choose — and if
you have one, you’ll never run out of new sounds.
Furthermore, if you are able to control it from a
poly-aftertouch keyboard, you could soon be
playing with more expression and/or imitative
realism than ever before.