JV1080 - How to acquire new instruments sounds?

[mike gouthro]

My JV1080, with the Classical And 70's Keyboards cards, has hundreds of sounds, most of which I will never need. There are some sounds I would like to add to my 1080 e.g. calliopes, old pump organs, concertinas, accordions, toy pianos, bagpipes, zither, kalimba, harmonicas, musical saw, Theramin ...

 

Is there a way to obtain just the sounds I want at a reasonable price per sound? Where could I obtain them and how would I make them accessible to the 1080?

 

Thanks

[Tusker]

Mike:

 

I don't know of a way to get a 'per sound' rate on JV XP sounds (or XV sounds for that matter). It is the weakness of the expansion board system that you get to buy sounds in clusters (expansion boards). Also you get the limitation of the medium such as data compression... etc.

 

It sound like you may want to look at a sampler at some point, since you will have finer gradations of sample choice, as well as non-compressed samples. A more laborious option is to get some recordings of these instruments and program the sounds yourself.

 

I too own a JV/XP machine and am beginning to chafe at the prospect of buying any more expansion boards..... uggh.

 

Regards,

 

Jerry

 

[ 01-04-2002: Message edited by: Tusker ]

[Dave Bryce]

It sounds like what you are basically looking for is customizeable expansion ROMs.

 

This has been tried before - Alesis' QS series allowed end users to burn custom sample sets onto flash cards, which gave them exactly what you are asking for here. According to Alesis' market research, next to no one took advantage of this feature. This is mainly due to the fact that it's a relatively complicated procedure on a few different levels.

 

First of all, the best sounds on any expansion ROM (or ROM set) are usually the biggest ones. Consequently, doing a "best of" ROM set will usually end up being bigger than you think it will. Secondly, once you get a custom ROM set of raw samples that you are happy with, you need to then come up with the programs that will go along with these samples. The best (and pretty much only) way to do that is to write them yourself. This intimidates the average user. You may think that it's just a matter of importing programs that already exist - this is not necessarily the case. Since many ROM samples are very short and can tend to be somewhat compromised in quality in order to fit them on to a ROM, many programmers use all sorts of different waveforms to get their programs to sound good and/or to get around limitations of their engines, not necessarily just the ones that are associated with the specific sound that they're trying to emulate.

 

Here's an example - to get a really great sizzly sounding lead synth sound out of an engine with no resonant filter and no noise generator, I'll start with a saw wave, then mix in a ride cymbal sample set to play the same pitch on every key to add sizzle (it works great - try it!) - maybe I'll then add a brass sample to fatten it up as well....the point is that you may find, say, an accordian program that you like that uses more than just an accordian sample, and so it will not directly translate.

 

Also, if Roland were to make the ability to burn custom ROMs available to you, it is a very safe bet that they would not give you access to their ROM library.

 

I think that brother Tusker is correct when he says that you may have better luck with a sampler than you will with seeking customizeable ROMs from Roland.

 

dB

[mike gouthro]

Thanks for the help and the insight. I can only find a few of the sounds I want on all the Roland expansion boards, so I guess the JV1080 is out at any price.

 

If I pursue a hardware sampler, are there sources where I can economically obtain just the instrument sounds I want or would I have to buy several sample collections for major $$ in addition to the sampler?

 

Can I drive a hardware sampler directly from my Roland A90 keyboard controller as I do with my JV1080 or is there another piece of the puzzle I'm missing?

 

Thanks.......Mike.

[mike gouthro]

To the top.

[RABid]

Yes, you can play a hardware sampler from your A90 as you would a JV rack module. Do realize that a hardware sampler is not going to be any cheaper for adding sounds. While you would spend $220 for an expansion ROM for the JV with only a few sounds that you will use, sample collections range from $50 to $3000. A good drum collection may be $200. Electric bass, $150. Collection of acoustic and electric guitars and basses, $200. A grand piano between $200 and $300. Vocal collection starting at $400. Strings for orchestration, $300 for basics, $1000 for a nice collection, $3000 for top of the line.

 

I guess what I am saying is this, before you buy a hardware sampler check the availability of sounds and make sure you do not end up in the same position as with a playback module and ROMs. Sound fonts are the only format I can think of where it is easy to get individual sounds and most sound fonts don't have the same quality.

[Rod S]

I'll add one more thing as far as samplers.

 

You'll *possibly* end up having to buy a few more things in order to get your sampler 'functional'

 

1. More memory

2. A SCSI Hard disk/removable midi to store samples

3. A SCSI CD-ROM to read samples

4. A SCSI Board for your PC (this one less likely)

 

So by the time you add it all up, the sampler suddently isn't a good deal any more.

[mike gouthro]

Thanks to everyone for the advice. I'll have to make do without the instrument sounds I mentioned above. I can't justify the cost to obtain a few unusual sounds which I would rarely use; not to mention the technical challenge of working with a sampler and the associated costs. Based on my quick internet search, it may not even be possible to obtain most or all the sounds I want at any price. It's unfortunate that a more open and novice-friendly system for acquiring and playing any instrument sounds doesn't exist.

 

Mike.

[Tusker]

Originally posted by mike gouthro:

There are some sounds I would like to add to my 1080 e.g. calliopes, old pump organs, concertinas, accordions, toy pianos, bagpipes, zither, kalimba, harmonicas, musical saw, Theramin ...

 

The only thing I would add to what Rod put very well, is to ask how you would use these instruments. The specificity with which you are listing them seems to imply that you may want to do an entire mix with the 1080. That has been done, and there is nothing wrong with that. However the more of the unit's personality is impressed on the sound (through the synth architecture or effects) the more flat the entire mix becomes. At some point it starts to look worthwhile getting a second unit (sampler or rompler, hard or soft) to flesh things out.

 

In the spirit of making do, have you taken a walk through the patches on the web? There was at least one patch set (french origin) that had some interesting unusual instruments, including (I believe) toy piano, reed organ, calliope etc. There are some decent accordians on the session board. There are rudimentary kalimbas and harmonicas in the stock sounds of course. The theremin is a patch someone would have made up, I believe.

 

Dunno if this helps,

 

Jerry

[mike gouthro]

Thanks Jerry,

 

I record from my JV1080, A90, DR770 and various live sources into a Roland VS1680. I would use each instrument sound on its own song as needed and sparingly. I probably wouldn't use more than one of the sounds on a particular song.

 

Could you provide a website or other info on the sound collection you mentioned? A Google search didn't come up with anything.

 

Thanks....Mike

[Tusker]

Mike:

 

Here you go. Not complete, but maybe a few of the patches you were looking for:

 

http://perso.club-internet.fr/bigtown/

 

I went through the patch names and I found a toy piano and (I think) a reed organ, I thought he had a couple of the others you were looking for, but I couldn't tell from the patch names. Hope this helps,

 

Jerry