New Owner - Question Re: Axial downloads

Forum for Roland FA-06/08
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tcastlejr
Posts: 16
Joined: 17:50, 30 September 2017

New Owner - Question Re: Axial downloads

Post by tcastlejr »

Hey folks.
So I'm just getting back in to my music after a long hiatus. (really long). So I just took delivery on Friday of a Roland FA-07. My first board since a Roland Fantom X7. I sold it about 4-5 years ago.

At any rate... I was browsing around on the Axial website. I understand the EXP packs that are available under the FA06/07/08 category. My question, however, is can I download banks from the other categories? For instance, I THINK I've read that I can download stuff from the Integra 7 section... is that true? Can I download from any of the other sections? Will they work? Please help this aged old newbie ;)

Thanks,
Tom
CobraJet
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Joined: 18:07, 24 July 2017
Location: N.Y.C.

Re: New Owner - Question Re: Axial downloads

Post by CobraJet »

Yes, they will work, but they work differently than the other ones. There are instructions here and on YouTube that will explain how to load them.
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tcastlejr
Posts: 16
Joined: 17:50, 30 September 2017

Re: New Owner - Question Re: Axial downloads

Post by tcastlejr »

Thank you for the replies and the video. So.. just to make sure I'm following... I can download the EXP's from the FA06/07/08 section and the synth sounds from the Integra 7 section. But the other sections (ie. RD-2000) would not work on my FA correct?
Sorry I'm being dense but just want to make sure I don't mess anything up before I start this :)

Thanks for the help...

Tom
gg22
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Joined: 22:29, 23 June 2017

Re: New Owner - Question Re: Axial downloads

Post by gg22 »

tcastlejr wrote:Thank you for the replies and the video. So.. just to make sure I'm following... I can download the EXP's from the FA06/07/08 section and the synth sounds from the Integra 7 section. But the other sections (ie. RD-2000) would not work on my FA correct?
Sorry I'm being dense but just want to make sure I don't mess anything up before I start this :)

Thanks for the help...

Tom
correct.
stevel
Posts: 520
Joined: 07:08, 17 May 2015

Re: New Owner - Question Re: Axial downloads

Post by stevel »

Tom,

Just some further details:

Of the 11 current EXPs, you can only install a maximum of TWO of them at any one time.

However, it's not too difficult to swap them in and out so it's worth it to go ahead and download all 11 to have.

It's possible you may want 2 in there for doing one style of music, and a different 2 for another style of music, or other various combinations. So it's good to have them all.

I did a review here on the site for all of them so you can find that and maybe at least use it to decide which to install first.

As mentioned above, the Integra sounds work a little differently. Think of the EXPs as physical cards that in the old days, you'd install into a memory slot physically in the keyboard.

The Integra sounds are more or less, just extra patches created by some pros. They're not unlike the "patch sharing" patches you can find in this forum at the top. It'd be like if you created your own patch, then saved it, then uploaded it to a site like this to share it. Except Roland already did it for you.

I would recommend the Synth Legends Pure or Synth Legends pack first. The two differ only in that the "pure" set doesn't have effects added to most of the patches. There are 128 sounds and they basically cover all the other Integra banks you see - D-50, Jupiter, etc. There are also some "super saw" and more "EDM" type patch sets but I haven't tried these as I feel the FA already did a great job of covering the sort of modern EDM sounds

(side note, before EXP11, the FA was a little weak in "vintage" synth sounds from Roland themselves, so Synth Legends was a great way to get earlier Roland synth sounds into the board while the EDM was pretty well-represented in the board and with EXP 01 so SL was the only place to get these and EXP 01 and the onboard sounds kind of made the other Integra patches superfluous).

Be aware that when you install something like SL, it uses User Memory slots (unlike the EXPs).

So it's a good idea to do a backup or if you haven't already made a lot of changes, be prepared to reset your FA to factory settings - when you load up the Integra stuff if you do it willy nilly you'll get things not in any really logical order and if you over-write some with others you can end up with a mess.

So I'd say if you have done to much you'd lose yet, go ahead and load up and try everything, then once you decide what you want and in what order, go ahead and do a factory reset (or go to your backup) and then load the EXPs and any additional Integra sounds in the order you want to help keep things organized.

There are also some "sample banks" which can be loaded into the FA but I've not tried them. They just add more samples than it comes with to be played on the pads. I'm just not into the whole loop-based music production thing, so I find even the pre-loaded ones to be very cliched once I've heard them once or twice...
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tcastlejr
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Re: New Owner - Question Re: Axial downloads

Post by tcastlejr »

@stevel Thanks for your post. I read your evaluation of the EXP's yesterday. Again, I appreciate all the info. Sorry for being such a noob.

Tom
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