Hi, I got myself a JV-1080 as a birthday+christmas present after getting fed up with the terrible VST and I'd like some help with it. (I signed up here specifically to avoid running into EvilDragon and especially Don Solaris, don't think I've seen either of them here thankfully)

1: The outputs at the back and the headphones out work just fine (although I need to clean them a bit, haven't done that yet) but for some reason there's like a jump in volume when you get just a fraction of a hair past the 4th mark from the bottom. The volume almost doubles for some reason and the sweet spot for the volume is rather low. It's not a huge issue since I don't use the output that much but I'd still like to know why it does that. The potentiometer feels "scratchy" when I turn it (with a smoother spot towards the middle of the travel) but it doesn't affect the audio at all. Got some contact cleaner to try and smooth it out but I still have to take the thing apart. I asked a few friends and they have no idea why the problem is only present on the headphones out. I'm no expert but could it be cause the IEMs I use are only 32ohm? I got some 42ohm headphones coming in soon anyway so I'll report back once I get them.

2: What editor do you guys recommend? (both Windows and OSX ones are fine) I tried the one from Ctrlr and it doesn't scale well at all in terms of resolution and some things are pretty hard to see. It also has a weird problem where it tries to send data to my 1080 right after I open it and then my 1080 reports "Block Dump: receive data error" but I can back up and restore my User data dump just fine. I'm using a Roland UM-ONE MK1 if it matters. It's a shame since it seems very complete (but for some reason it can't read which patch or performance I have on the 1080 itself?) I also tried Patch Base on Mac but they want like 40+ bucks for a single-instrument license or like 80 bucks a year for a subscription and I just said nah, that's batshit insane. I found Midi Quest too but those prices are even more insane (and I don't think I've seen a cracked version around)

3: I know that the 1080 and the 80/880/1000/90 (and I guess the 1010 and the XP-50?) don't share all the same base waveforms but is there a way to load the factory patches from those units into the 1080? Just the ones that use the waveforms that are also present on the 1080.

4: Similarly, I know that some of the SR-JV80 expansion boards (and the old cards?) have presets that only use the internal waveforms (thanks Roland, very cool) so is there a way to load those too without getting the actual hardware?

5: My 1080 came with the SR-JV80-04 expansion board (the Vintage Synthesizer one) and I heard that this board is special cause it has an extra hidden 256 patches that are only available on some of the synths. Is there a way I can access those on the 1080?

6: Is there something like the WaveRex for the Wavestation/M1 but for the JV family? I'd love to collect the SR-JV80 expansion boards but some of them are stupidly expensive and rare (especially the World Collection Latin one. Those ZUNpets are calling me tho..)

Sorry for the stupidly long post and thanks in advance.

 

Anyone?

 

you may not have much luck here. It's a smaller site than KVR or gearslutz and probably a higher percentage of the people here are all or mostly ITB.

Why avoid evildragon? Seems to me he's pretty knowledgeable

 

I'd still rather avoid those places. Audiosex seems like a more welcoming community overall.
And I just don't like the guy. I've noticed that a lot of the time whenever someone asks something he just drops some mostly vague statements that half time aren't really helpful and only cause more debate until his buddy Don comes in to override everyone's opinion. I don't mind him too much though. (Also unrelated but I still can't tell if it's the same ED from the Pandora/Pyra project. If it is then OUCH.)

 

Have you tried Sound Quest MIDI Quest software editor? It's probably the best editor for most of the MIDI devices.

Regarding the headphone output, I would also suggest opening the synth, spraying some contact spray [while it's turned off of course!], turning it left right a dozen of times vigilantly, leave it to dry off for a few hours or overnight, and then see if it gets any better. It might be that someone changed the potentiometer for a different value than the original one, too.

Cheers!

 

I had one of those Roland synths decades ago with the Vintage synth expansion board.
Think it was the JV-880.
All vintage patches were accessible from the front panel.
Don't remember any secret menu button pushes for hidden presets or menus.

 

Haven't tried it but I had a look at it. Honestly I'm broke and their prices are pretty insane even for the "basic" package.

Yeah, I think the "extra" patches from the Vintage Synth expansion board were only available on the JV-80 or the JV-880 or something

 

Last edited: Dec 24, 2020

Have you tried to contact Roland support, at least for some of your questions?

 

when thread begin to sleep after some time just bump it here and there if needed (gently)
usually its rather rare that nobody has solution here on asex

you mean don solaris ?...

 

Yep, I mentioned him right at the beginning of my first post. The less I see of him the less baby seals I want to club.

 

interesting...but he is the knowledge monster thats for sure , but i get you on the kvr/gearslutz vibe ...

(the emojis are for me not you of course )

 

An electronics repair shop will probably charge about $30 to fix the headphone volume. Or just spend $100 and get a small mixer and use the line outs. Some even have USB interface to record into computer.

 

and here enough hardware users thats for sure.at least the half of posters here use hw synths...and a big load of 20 years + in game ppl here...and best place for computer related questions ..really

 

1: Definitely dirt/dust in the headphones volume pot. After opening the box, you can try to apply contact cleaner and move the pot between minimum and maximum several times. Even better if you have a compressor to blow the dust out after applying the spray.

2: My favorite is Emagic SoundDiver, an old version that runs on XP. (in a virtual machine here). But you'll find many others online.

4+5: AFAIK No.

6: Maybe the Roland Integra rack would have been a better choice if you want them all?

 

Still haven't tried the contact cleaner (haven't had too much spare time these days) but I got a pair of ATH-A900Xs yesterday and the issue seems to be slightly less noticeable on those. Maybe nobody noticed it since few people use <80ohm headphones in a professional environment? It's not a huge problem since I just use the speaker outputs and plug it straight into my Onyx 2.2 but it's still something I'd like to solve anyway.

Yeah, I think I might give SoundDiver a try. Hopefully the UI won't drive me crazy like Logic Platinum.
And well, I got my 1080 for like 250€ shipped (with the Vintage Synth card included and that's a good 200-250 bucks alone on Ebay from what I've seen) and an Integra is at least 1K used.

 

Errr, you haven't looked enough hehehe... MidiQuest 11 is floating around...

The only really special expansion was the Dance Expansion, only because it was discontinued shortly after release due to a copyright matter.
In terms of usage though, the Vintage Synth is the most useful.

Try a SysEx dump or a Ram Card if you can find one that is. JV1080 and XP50 patches are inter-changeable, i have both machines. When a waveform is not present the machine will replace it with another or just leave it blank on the patch.

Nope. At some point i had all expansions. Btw, they are called expansions because they contain extra PCM waveforms in ROM chips.
You are confusing the SR-JV series expansions with previous ROM cards from the JD (and early JV) series. Although JVs are much different than the two JDs released in the early 90s, the JV can read those and load patches from them, but of course due to different waveforms and internal osc/mod/envelope structure, also much different FX section, some patches sound much different but some very close. In the card expansions series (not the SR-JV series) which were also avail for the earlier JVs like the JV-80, most were ROM cards with extra waveforms and patches, iirc only a couple of those had just patches and those were of the JD series.
Cheers

 

https://stephanepigeon.com/1080.php

 

Yeeeah I think I found it. Just 11, not 12. (And the OSX version is a tiny bit out of date) I wasn't inputting a space between "midi" and "quest" so it was messing with my search results.. Let's see how that goes. Been trying to get SoundDiver to work reliably on OSX 10.14.6 via various WINEs (Crossover, Winebottler, Wine Staging) but it always crashes after a while or during some operations so that's a no-go without a VM I guess. Also yeah, I'm wondering if someone made a sysex containing all the "compatible" patches (instead of having to load those machines' patches and check one by one)

Oh and I see. I think I read the whole "some SR-JV80 expansions have patches that only use internal samples" somewhere on KVR iirc. Must've been wrong.

Oh, thank you! I did some more research and apparently those extra 255 patches are only available on the JD-990 (and it's the only expansion board that does this) Oh well.

 

@Xeraser that is a whole lot of questions. Here are some answers.

1. You have to be extremely careful when you use contact cleaners on those pots. You will dry out the lubricant that came with it. If you do use the cleaner, make sure to lubricate afterward because contact surfaces that dry end up causing excessive wear. For that use a lubricant like Rheolube 716A for its low base oil kinematic viscosity. Best way is to open it, disassemble it, clean, lubricate, reassemble.

2. Editor? Any of the above mentioned or http://akatuystudio.com/?fbclid=IwAR2oe4xoOoLKQDIG9JElYCefvmxX1RB3ZyqUkvMibEKW2bSC6bhLbDtAK_I

3. You can also load all of the patches from JV-80, JV-90 and JV-1000 into JV-1080.Some correction in resonance is needed because JV-80, JV-90 and JV-1000 had two resonance settings, Soft and Hard. Their equivalent on the 1080 are:
Soft setting resonance in JV 80,JV-90,JV-1000 set to max = JV 1080 resonance @ 44
Hard setting, resonance in JV 80,JV-90,JV-1000 set to max = JV 1080 resonance @ 88

4. No but yes! Look here https://www.sector101.co.uk/sr-jv-romulator.html

5. You simply press the EXP button on the Sound Group buttons. Choosing "A" "B" "C" "D" selects one of the 4 expansion cards. Look at page 29 of manual https://static.roland.com/assets/media/pdf/JV-1080_OM.pdf

6. Look at 4.

Finally, if you start throwing money into the 1080 very soon you will realize that it could have been better to buy one the the latest Roland synths. Used ones will provide you with more bang for your bucks when it comes to sound selection, accessibility and ease of programmability.

 

Thank you for your answers!
1: I'll keep that in mind, thank you. Maybe the problem isn't the fact that it's dirty but the fact that the lube dried up? I don't have any suitable lube so I guess I'll order some.

2: I'm trying Midi Quest 11 and it's preeeetty janky but I guess it works. Still trying the Ctrlr one and it actually works fine for the most part (aside from those transfer errors on startup) but the UI feels very unresponsive for some reason and changes take ages to apply (they're pretty swift in Midi Quest despite the jank). I'll give the one you linked a try as soon as I install Max.

3: So in theory all I need to do is find a sysex dump for those synths and load it into the 1080? (and then adjust the resonance if needed)

4 & 6: That's really cool. Would it be possible to use one of those to "duplicate" a real SR-JV card assuming I have the .bin files?

5: Oh no, I know that much. The exp board presets thing is something exclusive to the vintage synth board. Apparently there's another 255 presets exclusively for the JD-990 and no other card does this

And nah, I don't plan on spending that much on it. Only cards I really want are the orchestral ones (which are quite cheap) and the world latin one. I don't have the space (nor the money) for another keyboard and the Integra is just.. very disappointing to me. The super natural sounds don't interest me (I got a copy of the old VSL in giga, why bother?) and IIRC the other sounds are just recycled from the 5080 and SRX cards (and half of those are just recycled SR-JV80 cards) and from the comparisons I've heard they somehow sound thinner than on a 5080 (which already sounded oddly thin to me) but that's just me.