Any one have experience with the Roland JD-Xi, might have an opportunity to pick one up at a decent price?
Had one, but sold it shortly after. No swing, no muting of individual drum sounds, too few parameters directly accessable on the frontend, and the acrylic surface is awful.
I really like it, even though it has some huge flaws and limitations. Swing was added in the last update and they now ship with matte overlays, or Roland will send them out for free.
The digital synths sound great and have 128 polyphony, analog synth is a bit crap but useable, drum samples are great, vocoder is cool. I also use it to sequence some external gear, really like the sequencer and arpeggiator patterns. It’s basically a groovebox with keys, and I like it a lot more as a sketchpad than the latest Electribes. It’s good at a lot of things the OP-1 lacks and vice versa.
No muting of individual drum sounds is very annoying, surprised that wasn’t in the last update.
The menu diving is pretty bad, I use the okJDXiEditor a lot for editing.
My biggest problem with it is the file structure… patches can only be saved as part of a whole pattern / program. okJDXiEditor helps with this as I save all my individual patches and load them into any pattern from there.
I wouldn’t buy one even at a decent price. I would keep the money and add to it to buy something I really really wanted!
But, that’s me. I have owned it before. If I never experimented with it then I’d probably buy it.
I’m not sure if my post will help you in anyway whatsoever lol but let us know what you end up doing!
Problem with the matte overlays: they’re only fixed at the corners, so if dirt like grains of sand gets under the overlay it will eventually produce more scratches.
Ok, well then maybe there are other options. I’m looking for a small piece that has both synth and a decent piano to go with my acoustic and 404. Also trying to stay in the $300 range new or used, just sold my Martin uke to fund. Could grab a usb keyboard but so wanna stay away from the screen. Thoughts?
Not very synthy, but the Reface CP is an awesome piano thingie.
I chose the JD XI over Mininova and Microkorg, because it… I forgot.
Anyway, it is apparently love or hate with this cheap machine. I love it, but I also see why one would hate it. It has very usable, though not very innovative sounds. It has a fun vocoder and pitch corrector. Also, it has pitch to midi, which should appeal to us OP-1 weirdos; you sing (or play) into the mic and get midi notes. You could also pipe the audio from OP-1 (or anything) into the vocoder, pitch corrector or effects. The sequencer can be transposed by pressing a chord, making it into a live accompaniment thing.
Combine that with a passable sequencer, rather nice mini keyboard and the fact that it outputs audio over USB (which I personally LOVE and would like to see more often), and I call it a keeper.
On the downside: UI is pretty horrible. It has been said; menu diving for editing, sounds only get stored in combination with a song-sequence, weird choices for front panel controls (one knob envelope, muting tracks, etc).
Pay less than €300 and it’s good.
PS. do NOT make the mistake to think that the JD XA is better. It is worse. They keys are shorter, which feels superweird.
I had one I got for $300 USD, kept it for about a month, never bonded with it. It’s kinda too dumbed down and would be great for people just wanting to make some quick beats, it wasn’t for me. I sold it for $425 a month later! (It was the LE White one, so it captured more money online)
I’d buy the MiniNova (again) before I buy one of these again. The only good things I can say about it was that I really liked the function that would change chords automatically when you hit a new chord on the keyboard and that it was very compatible with my MX-1 via USB (Audio over USB).