MATRIXSYNTH: Between | Roland JD-990 controlled by the JD-800 space ambient


Sunday, March 03, 2024

Between | Roland JD-990 controlled by the JD-800 space ambient


video upload by MIDERA

"Today I figured I would test combining the JD-800 as an editor for the JD-990 and quickly decided: I hate it. You just can’t edit enough to make it worth it. Yes, you have access to all of the front panel controls, which is nice, but you really can’t do it very seamlessly. Imagine you are editing Tone 1 and want to switch to editing Tone 2, but you don’t want to hear Tone 1. Normally you can shut off Tone 1, but you can’t do that via the JD-800, you’d have to use the 990 to do it. And the only way to access card data on the JD-990 is by ensuring both the JD-800 and 990 have cards in them (obviously the JD-990 needs a card if you want to use it, but it’s frustrating that the 800 also needs a card for you to switch to the JD-990’s card). You can’t edit the FX or really anything embedded in a menu.

As Don Solaris and others on Gearspace suggest – they really are two separate synths. Using the JD-800 as an editor for the JD-990 is just not efficient or fun. The whole point of all the sliders is for ease of use and speed – things you begin to lose when using the JD-800 to edit the JD-990 because of all of the gotcha’s.

I don’t know if I want to keep the JD-800. The JD-990 is just so much better for what I want that I think I can live with the worse interface in exchange for the better sound. I’ll keep them for a while perhaps and see what I create that I like more with each. I think the conclusion will be that the JD-990 will be more useful and take up less space. Hard to give up such a great UI, but I have other synths. And actually, something nicer about the 990’s interface is that you can independently turn on and off Tone’s AND also turn on and off the ones you wish to edit. On the JD-800, you have to press a button to switch between ‘layer/active’, which is an extra annoying step.

Such a shame that there is no Roland JD-900. If Roland tried making it today, they’d use zencore and it wouldn’t be the same thing. Again, huge shame.

No FX added."

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