Looking into buying my first synth and I'm super attracted to the JD-XA, however I've been reading tons of mixed reviews. People say it sounds fantastic but is super buggy.
What bugs or other problems should I consider before buying this tool? What bugs have been fixed already? And is running macOS Catalina going to affect anything?
Thank you,
Ryan
What should I know before buying a JD-XA? (my first synth)
Re: What should I know before buying a JD-XA? (my first synt
As a synthesizer JD-XA is an outstanding machine without a doubt. I cannot see that many bugs in there to call it "super buggy". It's definitely not. There was a well known hardware "bug" when some cracks popped out in the sound for some reason but one was acknowleged by Roland and fixed with no charge at authorised repair shops. One unfixed firmware bug that comes to my mind may appear when JD-XA receives "PLAY" command from an external sequencer via MIDI it might play some short duration random(?) chord. The other features of JD-XA work as nice as claimed in specs.
JD-XA might seems to be looking "super buggy" just after reading some posts about it in the Internet as there are some frustrated JD-XA users out there. Their negative attitude towards JD-XA is the most based upon JD-XA didn't met their expectations but not the "bugs" it kind of has. Some people wrongly percieve this synthesizer as a workstation, so they get really upset when they couldn't find drum kits as well as a pattern chaining sequencer to write the whole song in it. But this is definitely not a bug. The others say a lot of BS about its overall build cause in their opinion any synthesizer which is lighter than 40 pounds yet doesn't have two big ugly chunks of wood nailed up to it on both sides "looks cheap" and doesn't deserve to be posessed by them.
Let them think what they want. Regardless of what people say about JD-XA it has got nearly unlimited sound design capabilities some of which cannot be achieved on many other synthesizers. For instatce I like having two identical saw tooth wave forms but one is RAMP UP the other is RAMP DOWN. That enables me to create a bass line similar to that one which CASIO CZ PH synth does with 4th wave form and a filter envelope. JD-XA has got beautiful vocoder, that can be run through the internal effects.
Prior to start programming JD-XA I'd suggest to print out a copy of its structure diagram from the manual on A1 size paper sheet and stick it to the wall as a reference so you'd be able to see what can be programmed and what cannot.
Hope it helps.
JD-XA might seems to be looking "super buggy" just after reading some posts about it in the Internet as there are some frustrated JD-XA users out there. Their negative attitude towards JD-XA is the most based upon JD-XA didn't met their expectations but not the "bugs" it kind of has. Some people wrongly percieve this synthesizer as a workstation, so they get really upset when they couldn't find drum kits as well as a pattern chaining sequencer to write the whole song in it. But this is definitely not a bug. The others say a lot of BS about its overall build cause in their opinion any synthesizer which is lighter than 40 pounds yet doesn't have two big ugly chunks of wood nailed up to it on both sides "looks cheap" and doesn't deserve to be posessed by them.
Let them think what they want. Regardless of what people say about JD-XA it has got nearly unlimited sound design capabilities some of which cannot be achieved on many other synthesizers. For instatce I like having two identical saw tooth wave forms but one is RAMP UP the other is RAMP DOWN. That enables me to create a bass line similar to that one which CASIO CZ PH synth does with 4th wave form and a filter envelope. JD-XA has got beautiful vocoder, that can be run through the internal effects.
Prior to start programming JD-XA I'd suggest to print out a copy of its structure diagram from the manual on A1 size paper sheet and stick it to the wall as a reference so you'd be able to see what can be programmed and what cannot.
Hope it helps.
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Stormchild
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Re: What should I know before buying a JD-XA? (my first synt
Roland was one of the first audio companies to update all their (current) products to work with Catalina. According to their compatibility page, the JD-XA has a Catalina-compatible driver.ohryan wrote:And is running macOS Catalina going to affect anything?
I don't have a JD-XA, but I have six other Roland devices (System-8 and five boutiques), which all act as USB audio interfaces, and they were all updated months ago. I updated to Catalina last week and I have no issues with any of them.