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<\/figure>\n\n\n\nIt is a haughty machine, it has some reason to be, but also some some surprising failings. Let\u2019s start with the good.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It has 128 voices, most patches having 2 voices you are seeing about 64 notes at any time coming out multiple stereo pairs and digital interfaces. It\u2019s a film score machine, it has the breadth and the facility to make any reasonable Hollywood score by itself. Helicopter gunships, romantic interludes, dwarf parties \u2013 no problem for the 5080. The interface is very much about calling up a class of sound quickly. It feels different to the earlier JVs, although it\u2019s not that different really, somehow the weirder material is masked by endless pianos and string sections. It feels more like a ROMpler that will pay for itself at a studio.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
There\u2019s plenty of performance modes and three MFX sections before you get to the chorus and reverb. That is, you could stack three sounds each with their own dedicated treatments before hitting the mixer and its two send effects. Unlike the Fantom, you can\u2019t pass sounds through the three MFX units in series. MFX includes some pretty wack effects \u2013 the tape delay is great and the 3D panning is curious. The COSM sections are surprisingly fun \u2013 they can be utterly filthy, like busted smashed up piece of crap you found at a hock shop filthy. Although it\u2019s not represented in the presets the XV5080 can sound like the most evil wreckage.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Because frankly (and this where we slip over to the failings) the sound of this thing is not really an advance on the JVs. I pulled out my JV1010, a little mouse of thing, and set it against this elephant, playing the same patches. The 5080 is supposed to have more clarity but frankly any clarity from a sound source that\u2019s been companded into 8-bits is a special kind of aliasing. To sum it up the 5080 is a warm dignified sound, perhaps aware that it will be used for masses of film music where too much bottom end coming from too many sounds at once will not do well on a theatre system.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You can add an EQ bump to each of the output channels individually (that in itself shows how much thought went into this thing) but it starts at 200Hz, so not much point.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The 5080 has sample memory, and it can play back AKAI and Roland sample CDs. At the time it made excellent sense, as sound designers had a stack of these and an AKAI sampler on the way to the skip. Right now its an obscurity; who has CDs? Who has a SCSI CD drive? A Zip drive? How do you save your patches with samples? The way Roland has set this up is very much of-the-moment and it is difficult to make work 14 years later. Update \u2013 now added a SCSI Zip Disc. It\u2019s still a bit of a chore to load up samples but is actually faster than a Compact Flash. The Zip is definitely the right fit for this period.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So apart from Collector\u2019s Disease, why buy a XV5080? I would not. The Fantom XR<\/a> is probably a better idea altogether so long as you don\u2019t need to install JV-80 cards described below.<\/strong> There is a virtual XV5080<\/a> now available. And to be very honest – all of this is superseded by Omnisphere<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\nHear It In Action<\/h3>\n\n\n\n