In my last post, I wrote about my old Roland XP-50, which I regretted selling. My wife had asked me to start looking for potential birthday presents for next month, so I was searching for synthesizers on Craigslist and found someone selling a Roland JV-1080 synthesizer rack module for a really good price. The JV-1080 is essentially the same as the XP-50, minus the sequencer and keyboard but with extra expansion card slots and a few more audio-outs. I couldn't let a deal like that pass by, so last weekend we drove out to Plano to buy it and bring it home. The seller was also selling some expansion cards, only one of which I was at all interested in, the "Experience" card (SR-JV80-99) which is sort of a sampler card with some extra piano, orchestral, and synth-style sounds.
On the way home from picking up the synth module, we stopped at a music store to pick up an extra MIDI cable to control the module with, and we also decided to get a synth stand with a second tier addition. So now I have my Korg R3 and the new JV-1080 on a double-decker stand. I don't think it will work to keep them like this permanently, but it will do for the moment.
Before we picked up the synthesizer, we actually made another stop to pick up a package from FedEx. It was my Fast Track USB sent back from M-Audio. I mentioned a couple posts ago that it had broken. When I opened the box, I discovered they had sent me a brand new model. It looks different, I think the buttons are different, and it even comes with different software. So that was a bit surprising.
I've spent the rest of the weekend and this week just playing with the JV-1080 and connecting and disconnecting various cords and wires for audio, MIDI, and computer input. I think I've got things more or less to a point where I can start trying to make some music soon. So here's my semi-annotated current set-up:
To follow up with my previous Fast Track humming problems, I set things up with this new model and discovered that I'm still getting the same humming problems. However, I tried something new. I routed my MIDI cables through the JV, in the R3 and then back to the computer. Doing this eliminated the hum! In some of my tests, it still seemed like I was getting some audio looping this way, e.g. the metronome click faintly recording to the track; however I think I can get around that by either recording live without the MIDI cables connected, or recording MIDI first, and then turning off all accompanying tracks when I want to capture the final audio.
Anyways, I hope to be making some music soon! I'll post some more specifics on the Roland JV-1080 soon.
Wednesday, March 25, 2009
Lots of News; Early Birthday!
Labels: Korg R3, Roland JV-1080
Posted by Gumby at 3/25/2009 07:22:00 PM
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1 comments:
If there's one thing I've learned about soundcards, if you don't spend about $500+ on it or more, you're going to encounter little problems like that all that time. And that's not to say the higher end stuff doesn't have their problems too. The mic inputs on my MOTU 826 mkII have this incessant static noise that makes using them impossible. Other than that, it's great though. Their accompanying software is great, which is why I settled for it. Before that, I tried the Mackie Onyx 400F, whose software was in its infancy when I first bought it, leading to my returning it. Before that, tried the Focusrite Saffire, which would just give out on me (stop functioning, i.e., not allowing any sound through) mid usage. And, before that, I tried the Presounus Firbox, which would just give me all kinds of random, crazy issues.
So, I've already made my mind up that the next card I buy will probably end up being really high end, like a RME card or something like that. Or I might try an Apogee.
I know the average price for the products of both of those companies is pretty high, but, based off of the reviews I've read, you save on the peace of mind later on.
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