Roland JD XA

[jimknopf]

Four octaves is completely ok for a monotimbral analog synth like the Prophet 6, where you either play chords, bass, or lead sounds, but no splits and layers.

But it is of course nonsense to do that with a board made to provide both SN bread and butter sounds, and analog synth sounds, which only makes sense with splits and layers with at least a 61 keybed..

[Bald Eagle]

It looks promising but only time will tell. Brilliant showing a nonfunctional prototype to get feedback before committing to a final spec. Maybe Roland can make a comeback.

[Kevin Nolan]

I liked the potential of the prototype Roland JDXA on display at NAMM. Here's a clip just released from the Roland news conference describing it as a 4 voice analog with Roland Supernatural voices and sequencer. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4KeiyYPsQ4

After Namm i had a hard time to place this ... But as the video says, its the new flagship synthesizer, which makes it the follow up of the Vsynth for me..

I hope it can live up to that standard...

With the greatest of respect, this seems far from a V-Synth GT. The V-synth GT has superlative VA synthesis for sure, but it goes far beyond that with Articulation Phrase Synthesis, Vocal Design and Variphrase technology (and COSM effects). the GT is a formidable synthesizer to say the least.

I own both the V Synth GT and Jupiter 80. While I very much like the Supernatural Synth Tone on the Jupiter 80, it has a fundamental and important flaw - namely it's PWM produces Aliasing so audible that it's utterly unusable - the aliased artefacts are as loud as the PWM wave from C4 upwards, rendering all pad sounds that use it useless.

I have flagged the issue with Roland UK, but Roland are not interested in fixing it. The issue is within all existing Supernatural Synth tone synths released by Roland - the Jupiter 80 and 50, Integra 7 and the newer FA range.


If the JD XA is based on the same Supernatural Synth tone, it will contain the same flaw.

And believe be - this flaw is dire. Absolutely brutal. On the Jupiter 80, about 90% or presets use it (you can layer up to 27 Supernatural Synth Tones on the Jupiter 80). Its so horrific that you could never use any of those presets on any live or recording performance. Once you hear it, you can not ignore it.


I strongly suspect this upcoming synth will have the same issue; rendering this a flawed beast.


But claims of "flagship" are also quite misplaced in my opinion. You cannot have a 4 octave "flagship" synthesizer. I have to proclaim to be highly skeptical of this too - simply because of the amount of pointless Orange LED lighting across its control panel. A significant part of the price for this instrument will be paid for that useless lighting. That tells me Roland are pointing this squarely at the EDM market (where quality just does not matter - it's all mp3 and Beats headphones, and where many listeners of EDM wouldn't notice if an EDM track was mixed through Pringle Tins with Radio Shack speakers in them or through K&H O300's). I suspect "audio quality" will not be a 'goal' of this synthesizer. I hope I'm proved wrong - but to me the new management of Roland seem to me to be more akin to Casio than classic Roland, and any synthesizer with that amount of pointless lighting rings major alarm bells for me.

[EvilDragon]

Don't worry, V-Synth can also produce some nasty aliasing just as well.

[Kevin Nolan]

Less than Supernatural Synth Tones - I assure you !!

I should also qualify my other points above and say that , aside form the PWM issue, Sypernatural Synth Tone IS a very nice VA engine. The filters are magnificent - very smooth - and I always like Roland Sawtooth wave forms. They could do with more LFO routings and destinations, but apart from the PWM issue, a very nice VA indeed - I have to say I find it a far more inviting sound than AL-1, even though AL-1 is significantly more sophisticated and cleaner in sound


I tell you what WILL win me over, big time, with JD XA - if you can install Plugouts on it.


Imagine that 4 octave keyboard and that control surface capable of playing both the onboard analogue and the Plugouts for Sh101, SH2 and Promars, aside from the Supernatural Synth. That would be a formidable instrument.



I haven't heard mention of such capability - but certainly the amount of Orange illumination would then be totally functional, as on the System 1, in revealing what parts of the control surface are active for each plugount.


If Roland have not implemented that, they have missed a major trick.

[Jan1]

Without having heard its sound, not even knowing the specifics of the JD-XA, any judgment about the synth seems very premature to me.

I like the combination of a 4-voice polyphonic analog with the SN-engine, and I noticed the JD-XA also has a microphone section on the right which features a 'Mod' button below the 'Vocoder' function, so I assume it will feature the option of using your voice as a modulator for a specific sound.
But of course the sound is what it is all about.
The inclusion of a '4-voice analog synth' sounds trendy, but demos of Akai's latest 4-voice offering make it painfully clear that if the sound is not right, the term analog does not mean a thing.
Depending on the price this could become a great success for Roland.

[SanderXpander]

Kevin, as I understand it the four voice analog is truly analog. Not SuperNatural synth tones. I was personally assuming the SuperNatural part would be for acoustics and the like. But we will have to wait and see.

[Kevin Nolan]

Jan -

We can see it has 4 octaves, and has orange lighting everywhere, so it is legitimate to comment on those. It also has Supernatural Synth Tones - which I know exceedingly well - and was the person to isolate and report its PWM flaw - so again - I do know that aspect of its sound structure. There is noting premature about any of that.

@SanderXpander - indeed it's final spec is not finalised (publicly) - and though it does have true analogue, it also has Supernatural Synth Tones - it's two synthesiser architectures under the hood, as with the JD Xi. It does not have Supernatural Acoustic Tones (the JP80 and JP50 have both Supernatural Synth tones and Supernatural Acoustic Tones - they are utterly different, have no relation to each other and are essentially two totally different Synth engines. There are other Supernatural 'engines' too). The JD XA will carry Supernatural Synth Tones - Virtual Analogue synthesis as found in the Jupiter range, but looking like at far less polyphony (the JP80 has an upper limit of 256 note polyphony).

The questions I'm anticipating are on whether the Supernatural Synth Tone PWM issue is resolved (and if it is, will make Supernatural Synth Tones exceedingly good all round); what the polyphony of each section is, and whether it will support plugouts (if it does, I'll buy it in a heart beat).

[Bertotti]

I am hesitant on the plug out concept, my concern being a mac person that when a few os changes roll around the plug outs will be lost and unsupported. I am interested in seeing how this plays out, so far though I don't see anything deflecting me from my Moog and DSI acquisition goals. I would like some Roland flavored pads though as of yet something I haven't tried to create on the Kronos. I find myself always going back and comparing everything to the kronos and wether or not I can get a close enough sound out of it to negate whatever bit of GAS is striking me at the moment.

[Jan1]

Fair enough, Kevin.
But for a definitive judgment we'll have to wait and see.
And yes, I would have preferred at least five octaves instead of four, and the surface looks like it is VERY prone to not only fingerprints but also scratches, thus being capable of making the synth look old and worn out before its time.
But with the appearance of the synth reminding me of the looks of the FA, I am hoping that the JD-XA will be priced accordingly.
I'm not expecting any plug-out capability on the synth, but it would be a pleasant surprise if it did have that feature. And I'm curious about the Mic section, whether or not it has an equivalent of the Vocal Designer card onboard.

[jimknopf]

I think both is true:
- we have to wait and see/hear for a definite jugdement
- but Kevin is completely right about facts indicating problems already. May well be that once more Roland is sticking to one striking habit of it's recent years managment: do something really nice, while at the same time putting in some really big annoyances into the same concept. And then wish your customers good luck in making the best of it.

[EvilDragon]

That aliasing issue with PWM might be indicative of using samples for waveforms instead of generating them (like a proper VA synth would do).

[jimknopf]

As far as I understood, Supernatural is one of the advanced sampling technologies which all essentially do the same thing:
- record samples
- slice them
- then have all dynamic responses (between velocity stages or other sonic changes) calculated based on the sample-slices, instead of just using heavy multisampling.

So it seems it's essentially modelling based on sampled material. And Kevin is completely right, that Roland up to now never got the aliasing problems in certain contexts like PWM out of that equation.

If using VAs, I prefer those which actually generate waveforms and do not at all rely on samples. This may change in the future, but we are not yet there.

The one thing I'm really curious for, will be the quality of the four voice analog singal chain. Will it remind of old Juno/Jupiter sounds, or just be a cheap reconstruction with the name "analog" for selling purposes on it?

[BobTheDog]

I have never understood what "Supernatural" means, I took it to be along the lines of Kontakts scripting rather than any modelling type stuff.

I have never understood why Roland stopped the Varispeed/V-Synth development, the last time they did anything really interesting lost to obscurity.

[jeremykeys]

I have to agree with Bob. Why would Roland ever quit on the V synth idea? I alos have to wonder if there has been a big shake up in the business side of Roland and now they have been counters instead of engineers and musicians involved with the product design. Not that I hav anything against accountants. They do wonderful things with my taxes!
It just seems to me like Roland keeps missing the boat whenever they have agood thing going.
This Aura stuff is okay but it's definately aimed at the dance music crowd. also, again, not necessarily a bad thing but it does make me wonder why they are doing what they are doing.
I thought the V Synth and it's other versions was amazing.
Maybe as we write they're about to relese something awesome. One can only hope.
The more, the merrier!