Looking for local (Long Beach Ca) help w new JD-XA

[Tomando]

Hello, Clan members,
I was wondering if anyone in my area or Orange County, familiar with the XA, or a similiar synth, would be interested in sharing their expertise with me. I have some piano background, (no synth background). interested in using the XA in a mix of original music . I'm a bit overwhelmed with this thing! :)
Thanks!
Tomando

[DWareham02]

Don't be intimidated by the JD-XA. It's a great synth. I'm really a guitar player and I bought one. Now I have JX-03 and JP-08 with it using MIDI. It's a blast. You being a piano player really have the advantage over me. But I muddled my way through the instructions and got lots of help here on the forum. If you want to make beautiful music, the JD-XA is the tool for the job. Go for it !! You won't regret it and it will renew your interest at capabilities.

[cello]

Welcome to the Clan Tomando!

My recommendation (supporting DWareham02's above) is to break it into chunks. There are different sections to the XA - don't try to learn them all at once!

First, play around with the analogue path. That's basically the top row of knobs with other ones slightly underneath. Just work with one voice (one orange light lit with a blue one above it) - the blue one means that's the one you're editing. Then a second voice (have two orange lights on) and change pitch and quality to hear how the sound is getting bigger.

Second, use the effects section to see how much more the sound can be changed.

Third, then go to the digital section on its own (same rules with lights as above).

Fourth, Add the analogue to the digital sounds, with the FX and hear the magic!

Fifth and finally, learn about the sequencer. You can make this play on selected sounds at the same time as you play pads or a lead for example.

Lots of fun ahead for you and we're always here if you get stuck :)

[Tomando]

Thanks for your support, Cello & DWareham02! Good advice.

I've been trying accompanyment to a couple tunes that my band plays. Just using 'heaven' preset. I already love the sound. I am probably being impatient re. customizing sound settings. But there's all those pretty knobs just staring at me! ;) It's kind of a brain health challenge for me, albeit an expensive one, to learn a new device this involved. Meanwhile, I'm making a custom dust cover out of black fomcor, just to keep it looking pretty..

Tomando

[rsaintjohn]

This set of articles is commonly pointed out as a great introduction to synthesis (start bottom to top). The Roland documentation is going to assume that you already know how the common terminology -- oscillator, filter, cutoff, VCA, envelopes, modulation, etc -- relates to the resulting sound. These are the things that set a synthesizer apart from a piano, and some familiarity with it will help you understand the JD-XA (and any synth) much better.