Has anybody used the Roland XP-30

**hatembr** · 07-02-2002

Hi!
Who uses XP30 ? any comment ? how many user sounds... Is it good for trance ?

**Club Zero** · 07-02-2002

I have, I have! The XP-30 has great strings / pads. There were lots of sounds alltogether (also there are sound expansion cards). It has those good little lead sounds as well as some main leads. Mainly it's great for strings and pads.

CZ

**Club Zero** · 07-02-2002

Oh yeah, when I get my website up and running hopefully this or next week, I will put leads and pads from the XP-30 on the site as free samples.

CZ

**THM** · 07-02-2002

I do.

The XP-30 has the same sound engine (and sounds) as the wellknown JV-1080/2080 series. So that means it's plenty of good 'bread and butter' sounds, like acoustic piano's, organs, acoustic strings, bass guitar, but it contains also some nice pads and trance leads, dance pizzi's, subbasses and ordinary dance basses, as well as an emulation of the usual TR-808 and TR-909 drumsounds (and other drumkits).

There are 5 open expansion slots available. Free for the XP-30 are the 3 free built-in Roland JV expansion boards "Session" (quite good acoustic sounds), "Techno" (this expansion sukzz into my opinion, except some nice pads), and "Orchestral" (some very nice acoustic orchestra sounds).

For pure trance sounds I would recommend an analog or VA (virtual analog) synth like the Roland JP-8000, Novation Supernova II, or last but not least the Access Virus B or C.

You maybe know my device: TRY THEM OUT FIRST !!!
Any more questions ? Go ahead !!

Good luck !!

**hatembr** · 07-02-2002

thanks for your replies ....one more question though:
there is no user sounds ? only ready-to-use expansion boards ?

**Club Zero** · 07-02-2002

You can make / save your own sounds with it too, there are user slots for it.

CZ

**hatembr** · 07-02-2002

great

**THM** · 07-02-2002

There are exactly 128 'User' patches in Patch Mode, and 32 in Performance mode (there you can layer several sounds).

If 128 'User' patches is not enough for your needs, you can always buy extra user memory cards for the XP-30.

But once again; for trance you should better look for a VA synth like the Virus.

**hatembr** · 07-02-2002

I already ordered a Virus in France 6 months ago, that was too long, so two weeks ago I re-ordered it in Lesley's Music Store in belgium. I have to call them !

I hope they are more serious than the french distributor !

**helpermonkey** · 07-02-2002

i just sold my Roland XP80, which is the same synth engine but without the extra expansion boards. i liked the sound of it, but by the end i was mainly using it to make synthy sounds, and found it too much of a ***** to edit patches (i don't use presets). for that reason i'm about to buy a VA synth (probably Novation Nova).