Jump to content

Tell Me about the Roland V-Synth GT


Crazyfoo

Recommended Posts

  • Members

You guys who have one (had one), what do you think?

Did you love it? Any regrets?

Strengths and weaknesses?

 

Easy to use? Easy to program, save and recall patches?

 

Ive been reading reviews noline and checking out YT videos but there's something valuable about listening to forum members give their own opinions, for some reason I put more stock in those opinions.

 

Knowing what you know now would you buy it again or would you get something else instead?

 

Thanks

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

my non-helpful reply :

 

I've had the non-GT vsynth. I liked it. Wish i have it back. GT being over 2K and non-GT being less than 1K, can I suggest you google the difference between GT and non-GT, then decide if the differences are important to you? I absolutely love the dual d-beam, almost "theremine-like" expressiveness. very easy to program, im sure GT is the same. I don't remember exactly how u call patches though.

 

download the manual so you can understand the UI better

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

i know that chromalord has one for sale, you could buy that!

 

i had an original vsynth for a while, so i will only comment about the overall sound and the features that synth offered.

 

 

the overall VA feature set was great - there are plenty of oscillator types (including a fun 'feedback' oscillator), tons of COSM filter/processor options for the freely assignable processing blocks and that glorious 'random' lfo. many modern roland VAs have many of these same features, but the Vsynth really ties everything together and brings a lot of modulation routings and an interesting sequencer/arp section to the table. as a VA it's still roland's king. it's quite a powerful one, and it sounds very much post JP8k roland - maybe not as polite as the JP, but capable of much of the same functions.

 

the sampling i was less enamored with. sampling and sample storage was easy enough - there was a bit of adjustment to the way Roland works with samples in the vsynth, but that didn't take long and i was loading up loops to pitch transpose in no time. this also is real easy, and my big draw to the vsynth - just create a sample, dump it into the Vsynth and it immediately becomes a polyphonic sample playbacker with no phancy key mapping or anything like that.

 

trouble is whatever black magic that roland uses to stretch the samples so they can be manipulated independently of pitch gave everything this 'vsynth sheen' , and i didn't like that very well. it sounds a little sickly to my ears. that is the primary reason i got rid of it - if i had it out front in a mix, i could always tell there was some vsynth happening. didn't like that.

 

i also didn't like the way the 'time trip' pad was implemented - when you touch it and scrub through it, it only will snag a single cycle waveform's worth of sound. this is fine once in a while but of very limited utility with many sounds - if one could edit the start and endpoint audio looped by the time trip pad it would be much more useful. hard to describe this without having one in front of me.

 

 

i don't know if the GT has solved these gripes or not - sometimes i think wistfully about a vsynth XT, but the memory of that ugly sheen over all my polysamples doesn't sit well with me at night. your mileage may vary.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I've got one. Truth be told, I hardly use it. It sounds very good, so no complaints there. It's built very well, the screen is nice, the key action is very good.

 

I rate the touch screen interface as "meh". The touch UI elements on the screen are a touch too small for my tastes. I wish that either the screen were bigger, or that the touchable UI elements were larger.

 

I don't use the AP thingamajig part of it at all. I just don't get it. Nor do I get the D-Beam thingie. It's not my cup of tea, I guess.

 

Overall, I rate it as... "Eh, it's nice."

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Thanks everyone, that was very helpful.

 

EP, I kno what you mean about the D-beam, Ive had my fiurst taste with it on the JP-80 and I find it....whats the best word?

Gimmiky!

 

I dunno, maybe it will grow on me but I doubt it. Still, not a deal breaker, its just a function I wouldnt use.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

I never warmed up to the GT the way I did to the original 2.0 and even 1.5. I never bought a V-synth but had the GT for a month and returned it. I did not use the AP stuff as much as thought and I kinda missed the magic of the original V-synth with the D-50 which I played on many times. They blew one out here locally for $1099 plus tax, new in the box and with the D-50 card heavily discounted to boot. Should have jumped on it.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Funny...I just got one two weeks ago.

 

I used to be a major Roland-hater, but the GT has cause me to have a change of heart.

 

I think it is a serious, kick-ass synth. Granted, I'm still in honeymoon phase. Also, I haven't gotten too deep yet; I haven't sampled anything...but its pretty terrific.

 

Often, controls available at the knobs are also on the screen...I find myself using the physical knobs more often. But the screen isn't too bad. Not my preferred method, but its ok.

 

I got mine real cheap because one of the sides was seriously scratched up...and who cares about that, it sounds great.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Let me start off with the negatives (IMO):

 

1. Aliasing in high notes with some sounds/patches

2. No D-50 card/expansion ability

3. Zipper noise when manually tweaking filters and stuff off the knobs and Time-trip pad (probably the biggest issue for live users, but to be fair, so does the Kaoss Pad)

4. Screen graphics sort of delay if doing a lot of quick stuff in succession

5. Arpeggiator timing slips (if you keep an arp pattern running for a few minutes, it tends to hiccup... not sure if it's because of menu diving while it's playing or if it's just a little buggy, but this has occurred with me a couple times)

 

That all said, when I first bought the GT I wasn't sure about it, I naively thought of it as a glorified sampler, which it sort of is, but it's a whole lot more... a whole lot! As time has gone on it has become an integral part of my work for creating ambient soundscapes and sound design tweaking. What's great about it and stands above most other synths is:

 

1. Sound quality - it just sounds beautiful and full

2. Effects - the reverb sounds better than my PCM-80, and there are a lot of other great effects

3. Ease of use - programming and sample importing is a breeze and loading projects off a USB stick is a glorious thing

4. Love the look and feel of the synth and key action

5. color touch screen

6. the very programmable arpeggiator

7. the ability to split two different patches

8. virtually endless sound tweaking - I've spent hours in awe with some of the samples I've worked with

9. imports original V-Synth projects (and there are quite a few project files out there)

10. Endless fun IMO

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

mpeg is selling one for $1800 in this thread
http://acapella.harmony-central.com/showthread.php?2846032-Do-you-guys-check-the-classifieds-here
. I'm sure you've probably already read it but thought I'd give it a plug anyway.

 

Thanks man,

 

I have some stuff up for sale, if it sells, I will buy his :)

 

I dont know the guy but his avatar is awesome, that counts for a lot.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

  • Members

Correct me if I'm wrong but the original V-Synth could only play a single patch at a time. While the GT can play two fully different patches - be it multi-timbral or key-split. Both synths, of course can be controlled on any of 16 midi channels, but you can't simultaneously play one patch on channel 1 and another on channel 2, etc.

Link to comment
Share on other sites

Archived

This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.

×
×
  • Create New...