Roland JV-1010

Bought it at Guitar Center in Arlington, TX for $399.99 . Was in need of a sound module for a couple of years. This was the only thing I found in my price range atthe time.

The unit has a lot of really cool synthesizer patches. I have written 8 new songs in the last few months since obtaining the module and still have many varieties of unused sounds. The sustained sounds on it are great. It only takes up a half rack space making it more portable as well. It is easily expandable by purchasing sound expansions cards that come in various genres/instrument sets.

My favorite sound sample it just doesn't have: The double bass string hit sound. I can tweak the midi for max attack and set sustain to 0 and set reverb to 1/2 depth and still can't get a good low string hit. Of course it has a pizzicato sound but that is just a plucking sound. There is only one cymbal crash sound which is lacking for use of a metal or hard rock drum set. Should I decide to get more than one expansion card the unit only accepts one at a time and to change cards the top cover has to be dissassembled making it inconvenient to switch. I had a yamaha cs1x keyboard with better drum sounds.

It is sturdy, made out of steel, so it will be able to stand a little unnecessary knocking around.

Overall, it has plenty of good high tech sounds and brilliant sounding instrument sets. It is expandable, and I may be able to find the string section sounds I am looking for on one of the two orchestral expansion cards.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

As my first midi related purchase, I was going to buy a keyboard like most people do. Instead I decided to buy a sound module and a midi keyboard (without sounds) for more flexibility. Together they costed me about $800 and I'm pretty happy with the result. The sound module is the relatively new JV-1010, the younger brother of the famous JV-1080. It's been more than a year with me and I can tell you that I haven't listened to all the good sounds yet, and I use it a lot! Let me tell you that it contains 5 preset banks (128 patches each), 1 user bank which one can edit (128 patches) and the JV Session card (another 256 patches!) that add up to more than a thousand patches. All these patches are Roland standard and this unit also has space for another JV Card.

If you like to write tunes on programs like Cakewalk or Cubase and your soundcard isn't enough anymore, this could be a great solution. The JV-1010 is great for the purpose of having a really good quality thousand instruments at your disposal at a very affordable price.

The one thing that annoys me is the lack of knobs on the unit itself for editing sounds. It has only 4 knobs which are minimal like volume and category change. So if you absolutely need knobs to control (especially in a real-time situation) then the JV-1010 is not for you.

The construction is very robust and very small for the sounds it has. Some people that saw it here thought is was a compressor or a rack fx processor. The quality is standard Roland if you know what I mean.

This unit helped me in finding the sounds I had in my head. It's very affordable and as I said, a computer music writer will find it a great tool for recording music with the loads of great sounds it has.

This review was originally published on http://www.musicgearreview.com

The Roland JV-1010 is a smaller rack mount unit that was used a lot many years ago. This model is older and outdated, but some of the sounds still hold their weight. I have never been a fan of a lot of the products that Roland releases especially the keyboards and sound modules. But I must say this one is pretty good, it has midi connections as well as audio connections. This module isn’t the most complex module that I have used but the Roland JV - 1010 is still sort of difficult to get used to no matter what module or equipment you are coming from. You will need to pick up the manual and do some reading on the Roland JV -1010 before you will be able to navigate through the module itself.

UTILIZATION

The thing that didn’t sit right with me is the effects, there aren’t many effects to choose from when you want to add a little creativity to sounds.

SOUNDS

I had to use my DAW to add extra effects to the sounds which really isn’t that big of a deal, but when I purchase equipment I like it to be able to do everything that I need on that equipment not having to route it through another mixer just to add more effects. This can be a hassle and interrupt my workflow.


OVERALL OPINION

Overall the Roland JV- 1010 module is and was ok, but like I said Roland’s modules aren’t the best. This module is out dated and no longer produced so if you purchase it from a third party beware because you wont get much support from Roland at all on an item that is no longer sold and or produced. Definitely look into just fishing out more money and getting a more up to date module with high quality sounds that are ready to go, and with more effects for you to use.