My New JD-XA arrived.. Yay

Forum for the JD-XA.
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Jdoo
Posts: 216
Joined: 06:19, 19 February 2016

My New JD-XA arrived.. Yay

Post by Jdoo »

I added a JD-XA to my gear, and have had a couple of hours with it.

Initial impressions. Unlike a "Preset Synth" .. clearly the interface is going to have to be learned. :) TBH, that was part of my motivation for getting the JD. Thankfully there are posts on this forum, and around the 'net that talk about how to go about basic things. The manuals ( Owner's Manual, Parameter Guide, and MIDI Implementation ) are pretty sparse. I've been using an FA-06 for the past six or so months, and expected it. Being most familiar with the Digital side of Roland's methodology... I was drawn to that area of the synth... and quicklythrew together a couple of patches based on the included waveforms ( even finding where those are located, and how to get access.. was a chore). If you've used the FA series... this (digital waveform/program construction) side of the JDXA is familiar territory. I created a couple of bread-n-butter keyboard Programs (ePiano layers ; Organ; Strings ).. then caught myself and realized I was turning my JDXA into a FA06. :P It was easy, and a good first step... but even aside from the Analog bits I had been ignoring.. there are a lot of other areas of the JDXA to learn. Anyway.. so far this is everything I had hoped it would be. I've spent a good bit of time, reading through various forums on the JDXA, and knew that it would have it's challenges. It sounds fantastic though.

My first impression though -- is that this is a synth with fantastic capability.. that is in sore need of more tutorials, or better manuals.
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cello
Posts: 1487
Joined: 11:47, 1 August 2011
Location: Glasgow, UK

Re: My New JD-XA arrived.. Yay

Post by cello »

Welcome to the XA club Jdoo :)

I like your initial thoughts and laughed at the 'turning it into an FA' comment! Whilst the XA can do it, that's not what it's about - the XA is very different and you're going to enjoy the new sonic vistas it presents to you.
Jdoo
Posts: 216
Joined: 06:19, 19 February 2016

Re: My New JD-XA arrived.. Yay

Post by Jdoo »

cello wrote:Welcome to the XA club Jdoo :)

I like your initial thoughts and laughed at the 'turning it into an FA' comment! Whilst the XA can do it, that's not what it's about - the XA is very different and you're going to enjoy the new sonic vistas it presents to you.
Thanks cello! Spent more time with the XA today. Struggling with a couple of things... but it's a learning experience. Am taking notes as I go through this. I keep getting distracted by the sounds/tones :) .. So many 'happy accidents'.. and I find myself jamming around, and forgetting what I had had set out to do, initially.

Currently... I could use a nudge/point in the right direction for figuring out:
Mapping parts across key ranges. The reference in the "List of Shortcut Keys" part of the manual, isn't working for me? The Shortcuts page says:
Press Part On [01]–[04] + keyboard twice (to specify the lower and upper limit) -> Specifes the key range of each part.

I press the Part on buttons.. but don't understand what they mean by "+ keyboard twice" ? A mystery... wrapped in an enigma. I am probably just reading this wrong... but would really like to be able to map parts to different areas of the keybed. Is this possible, and with what key combination?
Jdoo
Posts: 216
Joined: 06:19, 19 February 2016

Re: My New JD-XA arrived.. Yay

Post by Jdoo »

Oops... there it is... in the Parameter guide... (Part Edit). Never mind...

Joe
JDBoy
Posts: 45
Joined: 08:02, 8 April 2016

Re: My New JD-XA arrived.. Yay

Post by JDBoy »

Have found the JD-XA a joy to program, had loads of various analog and digital synths but XA is very well laid out considering the depth. The menus are logical and not too deep either.

And it is most definitely not "meant" for making organs, pianos and such (even though you can) it's a synthesizer for synth sounds. To make it do rompler stuff is a gross misuse (and underuse) of the XA :)
Jdoo
Posts: 216
Joined: 06:19, 19 February 2016

Re: My New JD-XA arrived.. Yay

Post by Jdoo »

JDBoy wrote:Have found the JD-XA a joy to program, had loads of various analog and digital synths but XA is very well laid out considering the depth. The menus are logical and not too deep either.

And it is most definitely not "meant" for making organs, pianos and such (even though you can) it's a synthesizer for synth sounds. To make it do rompler stuff is a gross misuse (and underuse) of the XA :)
Totally agree.. What I am now getting my arms around -- is separation of (cover tune ) duties, between my JD-XA and my FA-06. I have created (and shared in another part of this forum) something North of 23 FA Studio Sets for bread n butter 80's+ synth Studio Sets (Cover tune songs). These are not piano / organ things... but primarily synth-based songs. Stuff from Toto, Journey, Van Halen, Howard Jones, etc.. viewtopic.php?f=55&t=51714 I can re-create these on the JD-XA but it's not straight forward as Studio Sets don't equate directly to JD-XA Programs, nor is there an easy way to copy them. In fact, replicating even the keyboard splits and layers is a pain, as the JD-XA doesnt have as easy an interface for defining them as the FA does. In any case, I may replicate some or all of the sounds. I did a couple, and in addition to the JDXA having a fuller synth feel, it's nice to have both hands actively jamming portions of a song, live. There seems to be a few folks (self included) who liked the gattobus covers. He has a few overlaps with what I have created but his use of patterns is great. I really like the idea of creating JDXA patterns to accompany the Programs/songs. The JD-XA open up a whole realm of cover-tune capability that I didn't have with the FA, especially for more complex backing, patterns / sequences (not to mention the synth engine). Anyway - I'll post up a few Programs as I get going.. In case there is any interest.

cheers -

Joe
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