Not even one decent grand piano on JV cards ?

[gilwe]

I have a JV2080 equipped with 8 different cards (among them the Session, SuperSoundSet, Orchestral I+II, Pianos) but still I can't find even one piano sample which sounds really natural, the sort of what you have today on various VST plugins. Am I missing anything ? It's really a shame as I really like it for other samples, still no "real" acoustic piano

[Gribs]

Well, isn't the module's technology over ten years old? Does the piano card sound good enough to use in a live situation? I see a lot of love for them over at Vintage Synth Explorer. Have you tried the supernatural piano sounds on the new Roland stage pianos? I am not an expert really, but I think they sound pretty good. There is a new piano card coming out for the RD700GX that was announced at NAMM that is supposed to have another 18 (I think) pianos on it. If that is under 5 or 6 hundred US then I will probably grab it sometime. The funny thing is that for practice I have picked the one of the three built-in supernatural pianos that I like best and just use that all the time when practicing with headphones after my kids go to bed.

 

There is still nothing like a good old fashioned acoustic, though, even an upright.

[mrcpro]

No you are not missing anything. There are no good SRJV acoustic pianos. The best Roland did in this series is the Session Piano.

 

There was enough RAM in those cards to do a fairly decent piano if they had devoted the whole thing to just one multisampled grand, but for some reason Roland never did that.

[Son of HuHefner]

I have a JV2080 equipped with 8 different cards (among them the Session, SuperSoundSet, Orchestral I+II, Pianos) but still I can't find even one piano sample which sounds really natural, the sort of what you have today on various VST plugins. Am I missing anything ? It's really a shame as I really like it for other samples, still no "real" acoustic piano

 

you must be joking

 

the Jv acoustic pianos are noted for their compressed sound quality.

 

back in the day ( mid 90's) it was acceptable

[Spleencage]

The JV cards have been around since 1996? They held at most 16 meg of ROM,

At that time,I think the fastest mac was 300 mgHz. Romplers are like digital cameras- they're based on the tech/memory-to-dollar ratio for that time.

It would be the same for me to complain why the cameras back then were only 1 megapixel.

 

You yourself said" I can't find even one piano sample which sounds really natural, the sort of what you have TODAY on various VST plugins". There's your answer- get a piano plugin- there's tons of cheap ones out there.

If you need the convenience of a expansion board then get a later Roland module that employs SRX boards ( the SXR#11 Complete Piano is a very nice 64 meg piano) or get a Fantom G and wait for the release of the ARX-04 piano board.

[TechEverlasting]

Roland did some pioneering work in acoustic instrument sampling in the 1990s, their Orchestra family CD-ROMs have string and brass samples that are still quite fresh and useable sounding. The one thing they really sucked at during that era was piano sampling. The "Rhythm Section" CD ROM had what was reported to be a painstakingly sampled Steinway, 16 MEG which at the time was huge, and it was complete crap. Unfortunately your JV cards reflect this. As far as I'm concerned so does the useless SRX-02 "Concert Piano" card. I am very fond of the SRX-11 "Complete Piano". You might consider getting one of the inexpensive Roland modules that hosts SRX cards.

[-groovatious-]

The Session Piano is the best you can get out of the JV Pianos.

[Gaul]

Actually, JV cards originated in 1992 (OK, many of them later) for JV-80 synthesizer, and were used for 10 years in various synthesizers based on the same technology. It makes them 18 years old. Just imagine life and technology in 1992, and that's it.

Also, there is quite a history behind how much waveform memory do they store. Roland started advertising them in 1992 as 8 MB cards which was great at the time. But soon, 8 MB didn't sound anymore that much, and they came up with the advertising slogan: "16 MB when converted in the 16-bit linear format". But, in Germany, as of 1999 the same cards were still sold as being 8 MB.

[gilwe]

 

The Session Piano is the best you can get out of the JV Pianos.

 

 

Are you referring to the Session card ? Which Piano preset ?

[The Real MC]

Roland are not idiots... they also sell digital pianos. They're not going to supply a JV card with a piano sound that will cut into the sales of their DPs. On the other end, they're not going to put a sound library in the digital pianos that will compete with the JV2080 either.

[soundwave106]

 

Roland did some pioneering work in acoustic instrument sampling in the 1990s, their Orchestra family CD-ROMs have string and brass samples that are still quite fresh and useable sounding. The one thing they really sucked at during that era was piano sampling.

 

 

For the era, I think that the JV piano sound is okay but nothing better.

 

That was then, this is now. The Casio Privia has a better piano sound than the JVs these days. And many VSTs blow the Privia away.

 

We *are* talking about 15 year old tech here. 15 year old tech that wasn't the best piano sound to begin with (I remember *all* of the other competitors -- Korg Trinity, Alesis QS, and Kurzweil K2500 -- having better pianos.)

[poumtschak]