KVR Audio

beely · Post by **beely** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 12:11 pm

Ingonator wrote:For creating your own patches from scratch it might make sense to use the new SRX instrument instead of the JV-1080.

And then what happens when the next "SRX Expansion Series" plugin comes out?

As it is, I really suggest making patches in the plugin containing the SRX expansion you want to use for that patch. It will be interesting to see whether you can port patches between plugins (if not, perhaps another conversion utility possibility..?)

fmr wrote:Didn't the original instruments that used the SRX expansions allowed more than one installed?

Yes.

fmr wrote:If so, the method followed by Roland Cloud will prevent us to use more than one SRX at the time, because each expansion will only offer the original + THAT specific SRX expansion, and doesn't allow to use more than one.

It looks like that way, yes. Note that even the Integra, which contained *all* the SRX expansions, doesn't let you use them all at once either - you have to choose which ones you want loaded.

However, while it's annoying and a pain for patch management, it's less restrictive that it would appear - remember that the plugins are monotimbral, so each instance has the full FX engine and 128 voice polyphony, rather than having to split one set of resources across multiple parts as with the hardware. So you can load whichever "SRX" expansion plugin for whichever part you need.

The only real limitation is that you can't build single patches that use waveforms from multiple SRX cards.

EvilDragon wrote:Yeah they didn't really think it through very well. Instead of making one plugin to which you could add separately licensed expansions just for ROM and patches...

Indeed. All they needed to do is have the wave group menu give you the options between Internal and whatever SRX bin file expansions are loaded in the one plugin, simple, neat, tidy, flexible, and sensible. But it wouldn't increase the number of plugins you get with your subscription count, so wouldn't have the same "marketing power", which is presumably why they did it this way...

Echoes in the Attic · Thu Feb 15, 2018 12:44 pm

Even though the GUIs are blurry when made bigger and the circular mouse movement is absurd, what makes these appealing to me is two things: The sound is closer to the originals than any other attempt, and also every parameter is exposed to automation, meaning that it is easy to assign all controls to hardware. And since these older synths like the juno, jupiter and 101 don't have too many controls, you can actually get a good hardware like experience with these using something like A Novation SL or Nektor Panorama. And for the total hardware layout I'd be ok with these synths not having any advanced features since 70% of the time I'd want the types of sounds that the originals could make. I might have to do the cloud for at least 2 years to get at least the 101 and jupiter. Who knows what else will come along though, probably a 303. And I wouldn't mind the drum machines. But each of these being a separate plugin, it would take a lot of years to actually own the ones I'll end up wanting.

sinemotor · Post by **sinemotor** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:06 pm

beely wrote:Indeed. All they needed to do is have the wave group menu give you the options between Internal and whatever SRX bin file expansions are loaded in the one plugin, simple, neat, tidy, flexible, and sensible. But it wouldn't increase the number of plugins you get with your subscription count, so wouldn't have the same "marketing power", which is presumably why they did it this way...

Yep. 100% a marketing trap. I was naive to think they would add SRX expansions into the JV plugin damn... That is freaking alienating, isn't it? It's even more pathetic when the SRX orchestra contains all the JVs waveforms. But this is what Roland has been doing for decades : putting arbitrary gates to prevent people from having everything on the same plate at once. That old school marketing greed shouldn't be reproduced in the software market imo...

Anyway, I wanted to import JVs .bin files factory patches into the SRX but the plugin couldn't read them. Both plugins are extremely similar (to not say they're the exact same) so I wonder what prevents it. I'm not a computer guy unfortunately though I'd like to understand how those .bin files work. To figure out how to import JV patches in there.

beely · Post by **beely** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 2:39 pm

sinemotor wrote:It's even more pathetic when the SRX orchestra contains all the JVs waveforms.

I'd guess they had to as the SRX patches also use internal waveforms as well as the expansion waves.

(Of course, doing it all in one plugin would mean you wouldn't have to duplicate the internal waves everytime, but...)

sinemotor wrote:Anyway, I wanted to import JVs .bin files factory patches into the SRX but the plugin couldn't read them. Both plugins are extremely similar (to not say they're the exact same) so I wonder what prevents it. I'm not a computer guy unfortunately though I'd like to understand how those .bin files work. To figure out how to import JV patches in there.

I'd guess the file format is the same, but maybe the header is different [edit: just looked "PG-JV1080" versus "PG-NEX01"].

Apart from that, the 1080 files would likely load in the SRX plugin, I'll give it a try in a bit...

Edit2: Confirmed, I changed the header in the JV's PR-A bank, and it loaded fine into the SRX plugin, and sounded as expected. If anyone wants the "SRX" compatible JV-1080 preset banks, say so, and I'll upload them here...

Edit3: Oh, here you go anyway: JV-1080 presets that load into the SRX Orchestra plugin:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qc6cm3nozc7zo ... X.zip?dl=1

Maybe I'll need to add a "Target Plugin" for this sysex import tool, to import into whatever JV/SRX plugin you require...

sinemotor · Post by **sinemotor** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 3:00 pm

beely wrote:Edit2: Confirmed, I changed the header in the JV's PR-A bank, and it loaded fine into the SRX plugin, and sounded as expected. If anyone wants the "SRX" compatible JV-1080 preset banks, say so, and I'll upload them here...

Edit3: Oh, here you go anyway: JV-1080 presets that load into the SRX Orchestra plugin:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qc6cm3nozc7zo ... X.zip?dl=1

Awesome! Thanks a lot. You're the man beely

This is what I noticed about the headers when I opened the .bin files with TextEdit (OSX's Notepad). It was totally random and it's certainly not the right way to do so but I tried to save the JV bank with the SRX header and obviously it didn't work.

beely · Post by **beely** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 3:07 pm

sinemotor wrote:I opened the .bin files with TextEdit (OSX's Notepad). It was totally random and it's certainly not the right way to do

Yeah, that won't work!

(Text files are encoded 7-bit ASCII, not 8-bit binary, so it would mangle the data, not least inserting line breaks everywhere...

beely · Post by **beely** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 3:35 pm

I modified my SRX Orchestral plugin more to my taste...

pic.jpg

EvilDragon · Post by **EvilDragon** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 4:17 pm

Nifty!

lectropunk · Post by **lectropunk** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 5:22 pm

Does anyone here have the Roland system 8 ?
I can't find any info about the presets how many ? Third party etc
And I never had a hard ware synths I was just wondering about can I draw midi in ableton with the system 8 ? I know it works as a audio interface. Thanks in advance

sprnva · Post by **sprnva** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 5:29 pm

sinemotor wrote:This is what I noticed about the headers when I opened the .bin files with TextEdit (OSX's Notepad). It was totally random and it's certainly not the right way to do so but I tried to save the JV bank with the SRX header and obviously it didn't work.

If you want to try anything like that in future, use this.

fmr · Post by **fmr** » Thu Feb 15, 2018 9:20 pm

beely wrote: The only real limitation is that you can't build single patches that use waveforms from multiple SRX cards.

That's the limitation I was referring to.

Funkybot's Evil Twin · Fri Feb 16, 2018 12:29 am

lectropunk wrote:Does anyone here have the Roland system 8 ?
I can't find any info about the presets how many ? Third party etc
And I never had a hard ware synths I was just wondering about can I draw midi in ableton with the system 8 ? I know it works as a audio interface. Thanks in advance

There are 8 banks of 8 presets per plug-out (so 64 presets per engine) x 4 engines so you can count that as 256 presets. Note that it only ships with 3 plug-out slots, so you're only talking 64 presets x 3 engines by default. There's also an additional 64 "performance" patches, but these are just combinations (splits or layers) of other patches. I've seen some third party presets, but don't know how many people are making third-party patch banks.

I don't know of anyone actually using it regularly as an audio-interface so I wouldn't get too hung up or excited about that functionality. It works pretty well as a synth controller for other analog VA's, but you could probably say the same thing about a Prophet Rev 2 for a similar price and get an all analog synth that transmits MIDI CC's. I like my System-8 as a hardware synth, but I like it a lot more as a VST controller. That said, I still crave a Rev 2.

If you want more info, search out the System-8 thread on Gearslutz. There's well over a hundred pages of discussion with lots of owners.

FoyMania · Post by **FoyMania** » Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:20 am

I don't understand why they didn't just make the JV-1080 plugin, and what they could have done was update the cloud with SR-JV/SRX Expansion bin. files. Every month they would issue out a bin. set with which ever expansion they choose. But who knows? And they should REALLY consider the "World, Super Sound Set, Country" Sound expansions. They just gave us the SR-JV Orchestral Card, now another ? I'd like more than strings, bassoons, etc. It's about time for some accordions and guitars!

braj · Post by **braj** » Fri Feb 16, 2018 2:22 am

I am guessing each of these cards is a separate plugin "purchase" in your yearly subscription, right? Maybe that's why they are separate.

Ingonator · Post by **Ingonator** » Fri Feb 16, 2018 8:16 am

beely wrote: Edit3: Oh, here you go anyway: JV-1080 presets that load into the SRX Orchestra plugin:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qc6cm3nozc7zo ... X.zip?dl=1

Many thanks for converting the JV-1080 presets for using them in the SRX Orchestra plugin.

Together with those JV-1080 plugin presets the SRX Orchestra plugin really has a big amount of presets and PCM waveforms included.

FWIW i never owned that SRX Orchestra expansion when i owned the XV-3080 hardware and i found some really nice presets in the new plugin. Three of my favorite presets besides several others are e.g."Sweet Oboe" (Bank B), "MultiMallets" (Bank C) and "Choir" (Bank C).
With the copy/paste features in the plugin i also created a new patch where combined those Mallet and Choir sounds into one new patch.

Overall the SRX expansion includes 417 presets (Bank D is not full) and 5 drum/percussion sets.
The amount of SRX PCM waves is 430, additionally to the 1083 "Standard" PCM waves.