KVR Audio

bebop · Post by **bebop** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 10:02 am

Well the Motional Surround allows you to precisely place the parts in a spatial dimension so there's more than just panning involved and you should get more flexibility for spatial placement from that. It mostly makes sense when there are several parts involved relatively to each others. It also reacts strangely to some phones (but you can select), and you might have to balance the tonal change of the spatial placement with some part eq maybe.

Also as for the reverb alone you can set the reverb send signal in the main mixer per part, then you have a reverb level on the reverb itself. The default parameters are rather conservative but if you push the values you get more consistent feedback.

On the Motional Surround you have instead an ambience level and a part ambience send level. If you adjust these in correlation and to the reverb time and density and damps you get anything you want. You can think of the Motional Surround as a more precise reverberation type : first you set the parts relatively to each others, then you apply a reverb to define the room this dimensional effect takes place into.

And it's not stellar, ok, say as cold as digital reverbs can be, although you have LF and HF damp, density, diffusion, spread, tone control, quite a lot of things to work on. To me if you tweak the parameters of the reverb itself you can go anywhere you want, from the 10s abyss to the subtle ambiance. And the other hand the preset studio sets are not drowned into reverb. And the Motional Surround (which is also motional if you automate the moves of the parts over time) is a nice way to subtly do something other than flat stereo panning.

But probably you have a mixer into which you input this expander together with your other synths, and it has a reverb as well, so all in all, the Integra-7 reverb is quite subtle per se to add some tails to the sounds (but you can push the parameters if you need to), and just subtle the right amount to allow for a master reverb to bring it forward. And you can ouput the reverb alone itself on a separate channel as well. I believe it's a little different from a workstation where you would want the entire treatment to be followed onboard, here obviously the Integra-7 is a sound source mostly, you would process it outside in a mixer where you could finalize the result mixed together with other sources.

So maybe the reverb is designed so because at the end of path the processing power was a bit short for more, but on the other hand, it serves well the purpose imo in the way maybe many people use it, as an expander in a wider setup including a master reverb to unify the entire project.

Muziksculp · Post by **Muziksculp** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 10:20 am

Hi bebop,

Thanks for the feedback regarding Motional Surround feature of the Integra-7. I thought this was more useful when using the Integra-7 with surround monitoring scenarios, but I guess that's not the case.

I have not done much experimenting with the MSurr. feature, so.. I will give it a try, and see what I get.

I also feel that a high-quality reverb on the mix might be needed. My Integra-7 (Main Stereo Outputs) are connected directly to my Audio Interface, I don't have, or use a mixer to sum the separate outputs. Just using the stereo outs. That is one of the reasons I would have liked a higher-quality reverb built-into the Integra-7, but it surely is not a show stopper, just a bit of extra polishing is required at the final stages of the production workflow.

Cheers,
Muziksculp

Muziksculp · Post by **Muziksculp** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 11:13 am

Hi,

Well.. I started experimenting with the Motional-Surround feature of the Integra-7, (using only the main stereo-outputs).

I then added a much better sounding reverb, compared to the built-in Integra Reverb, to the audio in my DAW. and Yes, I think this is a much better way to use the Integra-7.

Thanks for the feedback.

Muziksculp

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 8:46 pm

Thanks for the replies, Here is a SOS review of a software editor for the fantom sereies\http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/aug05/a ... ntomxr.htm

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Fri Jan 23, 2015 9:05 pm

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AowGClP ... l=84503534

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 11:18 pm

My order of a used fantom XR got cancelled.When they turned it on, before sending it,
Lcd didn't light.Some one on the forum said his Lcd burned out too. I wonder if this is a common problem
with the XR. Can you use the machine without the lcd via a software editor. the Fantom xr has some unique
sounds that i did not see in the Integra 7.Can the fantom sounds be loaded into an Integra 7.
Integra 7's are going for about $900 used.

emcee · Post by **emcee** » Mon Sep 26, 2016 11:38 pm

I bought the Integra-7 to replace my JV-2080 with a stack of cards, and nothing short of impressed. It does everything the 2080 did and some. SO it was a weekend of work to remap some of the patches from old to new, and then exploring all the new ones. I was contemplating also retiring my Fantom XR but this now is mostly used as a Sampler and spreading some of the general sounds over to for busy compositions, as the Fantom Integra also has a lot of patches with same name as the Fantom. And to find a decent 1ru sampler that I could buy for the same $$ I'd sell the Fantom for, just can't see anything out there.. It's a bugger that you can just edit via ipad, I have a stack of cheap droid tablets and quite often the kids will commandeer the ipad for games, first world problems eh..

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Tue Sep 27, 2016 4:21 am

Thanks emcee, The fantom has some patches the I couldn't find in the integra patch list.
Seems like a bargain for $350.I may be able to get it cheap now that the lcd is broke.
The integra now has an editor librarian for ma/pc.

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Tue Sep 27, 2016 5:11 am

Love the control room patch at 2:03
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PU1NIdI ... C5339088EE

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Tue Sep 27, 2016 5:26 am

The ambience patch in begining and the 2.2 pad at the end.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlO8Uai ... C5339088EE

emcee · Post by **emcee** » Tue Sep 27, 2016 6:05 am

bill45 wrote:Thanks emcee, The fantom has some patches the I couldn't find in the integra patch list.
Seems like a bargain for $350.I may be able to get it cheap now that the lcd is broke.
The integra now has an editor librarian for ma/pc.

quick google for replacement LCD screen for the Fantom XR, US$180-$300 so if you can snag a new screen for maybe $200 delivered and get the XR for $300 you're doing well - has it got the Sample Kit upgrade? This also adds another bank of sounds, besides the Sampler enhancements.

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 5:34 am

I may get an XV 5050.

K-Bee · Post by **K-Bee** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 8:15 am

bill45 wrote:I may get an XV 5050.

If not, go for the XV5080. It's absolutely awesome and just oozes digital Roland. It even has some d50 sounds in there but unfortunately, they renamed the patches.
Still, it sounds fantastic

bill45 · Post by **bill45** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 8:50 pm

Thanks K-Bee, The XV5080 is awesome, But, LCD, issue seems to be a problem
with many Roland synths of this era.The 5050 is supposed to have all the 5080 sounds, but, the Patch lists are different on the roland site.
I'd hate to pay $450 for a 5080 and have the lcd burn out.I hope this is not an issue with the integra 7.

JCJR · Post by **JCJR** » Wed Sep 28, 2016 10:41 pm

Its something I wonder about with all the big beautiful color screens on many modern synths. How long before all those beautiful kronos, FA, etc screens begin failing? Perhaps an even worse replacement issue with the models using touch screens.

My old Kawai K5R has monochrome LCD screen with electroluminescent backlight. The backlight is powered with a little voltage converter part perhaps about a 1 inch cube. The K5R has several boards in a fairly tight chassis with lots of short cables between the boards. The first time that backlight voltage module failed I replaced it. Then after a few years the replacement module failed and its too much trouble opening it up and fixing again for another couple of years' light. Luckily with that old-fashioned LCD, a strong light on the outside of the screen makes the screen usable even without backlight. Hmm, maybe it would be possible to glue some bright white LED's around the inside of the screen and get it to light up with "more reliable" light than the electroluminescent.

The usage context of sounds can be befuddling. It is great that there are so many youtube sound demos available, but difficult for me to evaluate youtube sounds and infer how it might sound when I play the instrument. A few years ago was hot to get a kronos and all the youtube demos sounded great, but when I briefly had one it didn't sound near as impressive at my house.

I generally like the FA06 sounds in the office studio monitors. There are so many Roland models with similar sounds. The FA06 AC piano and rhodes sounds pretty good on the studio monitors, and many other sounds are passable.

Recently did a couple of spot gigs, first time for a couple of years. I had set up the FA stacked on the ancient Roland-Rhodes, thru a Roland KC-500 to program live sounds. The FA favorites and "part select" drumpads are real good for setting quick live sound sets. Managed to tweak up real good synth and hammond sounds. Made some multi-patches also getting rhodes and ac piano out of the FA, midi-controlled with the piano keyboard. The rhodes and wurlies sounded pretty good mono on the keyboard amp. FA AC Piano didn't sound so good at home mono thru the keyboard amp. Playing "reasonable volume" at home it is hard to estimate how different sounds will volume-mix together onstage.

So auditioning at home, decided to use the structured-adaptaptive AC and electric piano sounds from the piano with separate volume pedals for piano and the FA, easier to adapt the volume mix for stage. At home the SA electric pianos sounded good thru the keyboard amp and they also sounded good on stage. At home the SA acoustic piano tones sounded better than I remembered them, but onstage the SA acoustic piano tones were not good, bad enough to be "uncomfortable to play".

Got to web-searching all the modern lightweight pianos, maybe get one just for toting to gigs. But it seems near-impossible to listen to youtube sound demos and decide how it might sound when I play it either at home or on stage. I kinda rule out getting a modern roland "supernatural based" piano. Maybe a dedicated roland supernatural-tech-based piano would sound better-different than the sounds in the FA, or maybe would be buying nearly the same sounds I already have in the FA.

Its just hard to figure. Thru a keyboard amp, the FA AC piano sounds seem to decay too fast especially in the midrange. Have read similar complaints about other brands of modern digital piano. Last night was driving an old Sound Canvas piano patch from the KX-88 thru the studio monitors, and it had more sustain than most of the pianos in the FA. Probably sound OK onstage thru a keyboard amp. Or maybe not.

Tis puzzling.

Roland integra 7 and other sound modules I want (pros/cons) discussion