Recommedation of soft synths to replace Roland JV-1080?

[FaX]

Dimension Pro - would IMHO be the best substitute from a sonic, voice architecture and structure and programming perspective. Especially coming off a JV/JD style synth engine IMHO.

[Tronam]

It's funny how these "old" romplers outperform even multi-gigabyt plugin romplers (Sampletank comes to mind). This is of course my opinion only so take it as that.

Cheers!
bManic

The answer is clear. It's not the size of the samples, but what you do with them that's most important.

[allofdrab]

I'm sorry to burst all your bubbles here but so far there is no real replacement for the JV/XP series.. not to mention the far superior XV series of synths.

http://www.u-he.com/zebra/CGGallery/pag ... kannt.html

[Armadillo]

http://www.u-he.com/zebra/CGGallery/pag ... zebra.html



Don't know Zebra 2 that much but I somehow find it hard to believe it can accomplish good pianos, brass and strings.

With Colossus down to $595 I think the JV series have been beaten. Ok, as Devon B says, perhaps the synth sounds are not as good, but I'm sure a couple of good freeware synths could cover the synth sounds in JV-1080.

I mean show me a demo from the JV-1080 that comes even close in realism to "hot wing" and "stomping at the springs" found here http://www.soundsonline.com/Quantum-Lea ... W-164.html

[DevonB]

With Colossus down to $595 I think the JV series have been beaten. Ok, as Devon B says, perhaps the synth sounds are not as good, but I'm sure a couple of good freeware synths could cover the synth sounds in JV-1080.

It's $499 at Guitar Center, and has been for awhile. Good freeware replace synths in JV? Something about the Roland hardware and the bass end just sounds better than most software. Keep , Warm Pipe, Temple Of JV, DesertCrystl, and several others just sound so darn good.... Just finally had the opportunity to try the old rebuilt patches on the XR that are teh re-creations of teh XV-JV. Not bad at all. Some are really damn close, some are a bit off, but still, it's good enough to make me happy. 1000 patches on the XR, 1000 patches from the XV, and lots of Roland lovin' goin' on.

Devon

[Suspended In Dusk]

Hypersonic? That's Steinberg isn't it? From my point of view they have way too long history of discontinuing/dropping support for their products, plug-ins and instruments, and sometimes rather quickly... (D'Cota, Plex, Model E, LM-4, Warp, Voice Designer and pretty much all their plug-ins as a matter of fact...)

Another voice for Dimension.

[bmanic]

I'm sorry to burst all your bubbles here but so far there is no real replacement for the JV/XP series.. not to mention the far superior XV series of synths.

http://www.u-he.com/zebra/CGGallery/pag ... kannt.html

[allofdrab]

I'm sorry to burst all your bubbles here but so far there is no real replacement for the JV/XP series.. not to mention the far superior XV series of synths.

http://www.u-he.com/zebra/CGGallery/pag ... kannt.html

I just posted that because the pic seemed funny in the context of your post and this thread. I don't actually believe Zebra can replace the JV-1080 outright. Hence I used the Emoticon. Perhaps another Emoticon would have been more appropriate.

[bmanic]

Dimension Pro - would IMHO be the best substitute from a sonic, voice architecture and structure and programming perspective. Especially coming off a JV/JD style synth engine IMHO.

This does look like a pretty good candidate. I have to explore this a bit further. At least the sound demos at their site sound good.

Cheers!
bManic

[bmanic]

Perhaps another Emoticon would have been more appropriate.

Yes.. would have been more proper.

Cheers!
bManic

[zvenx]

The only two hardware that I have that I can't find a software replacement for are my Roland JV-2080 and S-760.
I own lots of software synths but none imho can come even close to replacing these two. For me there is something about the fatness and warmth of roland hardware that for me nothing i have ever heard (the virus comes the closest) can rival them.
I would honestly pay $1,000 if roland were to port the XV-5080 to a software, roland is that important to my sound and I believe that much more in the convenience et al of software synths.
My biggest disappointment at NAMM was neither roland nor yamaha came out with great or any rompler vsti's..... my last hope is that spectrasonics will come out with something that can finally replace my roland hardware.
rsp

[grymmjack]

what bit depth and sample rate are you testing the plugs against the hardware at? i'd tend to agree at 44.1k 16bit, the plugs dont hold a candle to the outboard gear, but take that stuff up to 96khz (if your audio interface can do it) and then compare. it's still not as good but it's a hell of a lot closer.

i own a roland xp-60 here, and if it were easier to edit the damned sounds inside of it via the computer without using midiyoke and other tricks (all of which i have not yet successfully pulled off yet) i wouldn't have looked for the passed few years evaluating replacements for each type of sound it can make in turn.

for fun i'll list my findings;

edirol hq hypercanvas gets quite a lot of the sounds very close. the shitty bit here is that it's stuck at 44.1khz and if you run higher resolution it will simply be faster/higher pitched. for the $50 i spent though it's a damned good decision. lots of the GM sounds are pretty close.

for the drums like the xp-60 i use soundfonts. analog momentum did a great job of converting all of the roland drums to individual soundfonts and they sound exactly like the hardware. not as flexible to adjust/swap out as my xp but close enough for me.

i own komplete3 and upgraded to komplete4. with that it comes with kontakt, and kompakt. i prefer to use kompakt simply because it's easier to use. the sounds it comes with are very good quality and cover a basic spectrum about the same covered in the xp60 user banks. i'm quite sure the sample content provided in kontakt2 and komplete are much higher quality than the roland stuff. it's very easy to get to grips with kompakt and because it's like mini-kontakt (hence the name) it's much less confusing forsaking ultimate power for ease of use -- one of the things i like about the XP-60 is you can go as deep or as shallow as you like. you can achieve this kind of thing with kontakt/kompakt combination.

i also got ahold of dimension pro tempted by a deal offered by cakewalk and selling project5 with it. it was too good to pass up and i agree that dimension pro does many things much better than my XP60. the multipoint envelopes and the architecture of how the sampler engine works with sfz and so on makes it the ultimate open ended sound-hacker-hands-on instrument. i find myself using quite a lot of the orchestra provided in it in combination with the kontakt2 orchestra stuff, and i'm pleased to say that between these two it covers the roland xp60. i dont have an xp30 (that one i heard came with the expansions for orchestra) so my experience is based only on GM, PR-A, PR-B, PR-C ... i do have 4 sound board expansions installed in my XP60 but they aren't orchestral instruments.

between edirol hq hypercanvas, kompakt, kontakt2, and dimension pro i feel i'm covered for the XP sounds. the experience is a bit more interesting and quite a bit to get a handle on learning each instrument in kind, but it's been worth it so far.

i concur also that for synth sounds, fm8, pro53, and absynth4 are way beyond anything the ol XP60 could ever do. even with the fairchild soundlab sounds i bought back in the day for analog/physical modeling (though those were definitely awesome and i still find myself trying to program a plucked or hammer sound that sounds as nice using only vsti).

2 cents.

never tried hypersonic2 myself but from what i've heard brok (bigtone studios) rave about it, it's got to be awesome. if only it wasn't abandoned and didn't require the steinberg key. i own cubase sx so i have the syncrosoft stuff already (though i dont use cubase anymore and have since removed the dongle) but i dont know if the key is compatible?

anyway good luck on your quest for virtualizing your 1080.

[JCPZero]

Thanks for all the great comments.

Dimention pro has taken over some of the JV-1080 duties. Typically I just use presets, but I have done some tweaking in Dimention pro - so that's a sign it is intuitive.

There really is something about that Roland sound. All things considered, the most economical choice is a used XV-5050. Maybe I'll take that as a first step and see about adding some more soft synths down the road.

JCPZero

[JCPZero]

The only two hardware that I have that I can't find a software replacement for are my Roland JV-2080 and S-760.
I own lots of software synths but none imho can come even close to replacing these two. For me there is something about the fatness and warmth of roland hardware that for me nothing i have ever heard (the virus comes the closest) can rival them.
I would honestly pay $1,000 if roland were to port the XV-5080 to a software, roland is that important to my sound and I believe that much more in the convenience et al of software synths.
My biggest disappointment at NAMM was neither roland nor yamaha came out with great or any rompler vsti's..... my last hope is that spectrasonics will come out with something that can finally replace my roland hardware.
rsp

Do you think Roland or Yamaha will come out with some vsti's? Any rumors on spectrasonics - atmosphere 2 or something new?

JCPZero

[jones-y]

I've said all along that Ravity reminds me of the old Roland JV synths.