Roland JV expansion cards?

[DavidK]

Are these good?

I have a JV1010 and it serves me well, but I need more and dont have much $$. Are there some good expansion cards? I do orchestra, would love choir stuff and maybe some world ethno stuff. What do they cost??

[Agent47]

Hi David.

I've got two SRX cards for my XV5050, and their banks (as far as I've read) are taken directly from the JV libraries. So the below is probably relevant sound-wise.

Complete Orchestra - A good choice of articulations: trills, glissandos, pizzicatos etc. Used sparingly they add to the realism, although ultimately its down to your programming. Some pre-recorded elements are a nice touch: 'good ending' and 'band ending' are a complete orchestral ending for your music, ending on either a major or minor chord, rooted to what key you're pressing. Basically a run-up on the scale to a held note, then a crash as you release the key. Life-like orchestral percussion, and some amazing gongs.

A few pre-recorded choir phrases (latin) to give you that requiem feel, but there's only a handful, so if you want choir phrases, better look into a sample CD. For example, a whole keyboard's worth of one monk chant seems a bit pointless. But the general string pads are quite realistic, as are the solo strings.


Ethnic - This card is great. Lots of plucked strings, bells, hits, wind, percussion. Some very life-like stuff on here. A great variety of ethnic 'drumkits': 'latin', 'Egyptian', 'Asian' etc. I'm currently using this card a lot on a project involving 20 pieces of music, and I couldn't do without it. Indispensible if you're doing 'world' music stuff.

As for price, I think when I bought them a couple of years ago here in the UK they were around £150.

[DavidK]

Thanks for the great reviews!

Hmmm, the Orch Percussion sounds like it might be worth it. Roland has some hit or miss sounds ( to me), my lowly JV1010 has one of the best flutes I have heard. I should go with samples but I hate working with them, I am an oldskool synth guy.

I only paid $340 for the JV1010, I will look aroung and see if I can actually FIND some expansion cards. Cheers!

[SonicAlbert]

You'll be able to find them on eBay, no problem.

It is worth mentioning that the SRX expansion boards hold four times the memory that the older SR-JV board do. So the Complete Orchestra SRX board has the sounds from the JV Orchestral 1 and 2, plus a bunch of other stuff including choir.

For orchestral type sound on the JV-1010 you might look at the SR-JV Orchestral 1.

[Agent47]

Hi David, I've dug around for some more info for you:

http://www.louisville.edu/~gtcraw01/expbrds.htm

http://www.roland.com/products/en/go...me&sName=SR-JV

The below link is the SRX series which won't be compatible with JV series, but I think a lot of the sounds are taken from the old JV library - they have some audio demos to give you an idea. I personally have 'World collection' and 'Complete orchestra':

http://www.roland.com/products/en/goPrd.cfm

[DavidK]

Thanks fellers! I think I will just go for it and get the Orchestral Expansion board. I need a change, it will be a help

[SonicAlbert]

Good links from Agent47.

You can easily find brand new SR-JV boards on eBay, just do a search for (srjv*, sr-jv*) and include the parenthesis in the search.

The board you want is the SR-JV80-02, the Orchestral #1. I'm sure you can find this for under a $100 on eBay.