Roland JD-Xi

It's love.. true love.. and lust.. had this 2 months now and man, I can't sing it's praises enough.. I've had groove stations before and analogue and digital synths.. SH-2 and EG101 amongst others.. nothing is as much fun or as versatile as this.
Sounds... plenty.. and for the most part all very useable.. not many synth preset lists can say that … and all extremely tweakable with the intuitive pot controllers... easy to record / save patches sounds and patterns to a user destination...
sounds are grouped into Keys / Bass / Strings / Pads / Lead / Sequences / FX / Brass.. easy to navigate / find what you want quick..
Drum sounds are all grouped into great kits.. 606, 707, 808, 909.. the fabulous CR78.. they're all here.. and you can move any sound to any "pattern"
I do a fair bit of dance / ambient.. but also a bit of rock and even irish trad.. I use this on everything....
It's easy to get started out of the box and not a steep learning curve... but there's so much more under the hood I've barely scratched at yet.
Not really used the vocoder much so can't comment on it.. except to say the thing itself is sturdy and solid, as is the xlr socket.
Mini keys... not for some, but my first synth was a casio CZ 101 so I'm used to them...
Midi and audio straight into my Cubase... easy>
Mad Fun... Great sounds... so much synth in such a small footprint, insane.
SHIPS with good quality white on black overlays to make reading the panel easier... that said, I don't mind the red on black... and after a while you know what buttons do what anyway.
Rave on dudes. killer machine.
Oh... Only minor gripe... the tempo dial, I find it can be quite easy to bump accidentally while accessing other buttons and parameters.. But once you know that, you're just more careful ;-)

This itty-bitty little keyboard looks like something that You?d give a child to learn a bit of music.

However..

This small-form keyboard is a full-fledged 4-part Synth+ Rythm-machine!

It is ab-so-lutely amazing how much functionality Roland crammed in it petite housing. 3 full-on Integra like synths, 1 analog monophonic synth with sub-occillator with a bunch of creamy filters, ànd.. as cherry on the pie, about EVERY classic Roland drumcomputer as samples (that can be filtered and mauled to Your heart?s content..in real-time..) Just because ?they could?

Only disadvantage are the tiiiny keys (with velocity sensitivity !) but, attach a Midi-keyboard with full-sized keys, and it starts to réally shine.

Important: Download the latest patches and firmware. It adds much broader functionality to the sequencer and drums.

Be aware, though. The thing is completely geared towards Dance in all it?s iterations with basses and drums that make Your woofers cry for mercy and tweeters scream in agony. No violins, or endless saxes, guitars or classical organs, just very useful ( fully editable) sounds for about any type of dance/hardcore( a great overdrive, fuzz and digitizer on-board) LOVE it!
Combined with a very comprehensible sequencer, You?ll make Your hard-house or your Wub-wub track in no-time short. But it also excels at weird swooshy, dreamy ambient stuff.

For this price a no-brainer for anyone dabbling in modern dance-styles.

I have the jdxi for about 2 years now using it all the time and I felt like finally leaving a review for it. In short this is probably the best music related purchase I've made in years and has found a permanent place on my desk under the computer screen as my studio centerpiece.

+ The SuperNATURAL engine of the 2 digital parts is very up to my liking. The analog engine even though it is simple and rather limited, it has a very characteful sound to it. The drum kits are are also really good. Even though sound design is not really possible on jdxi without endless menu diving, there is a fantastic unofficial editor that opens up the synth possibilities (even more than whats possible even with the menu diving). Just get that editor and donate to the guy making it.

+ The built in reverb and delay are great (the other effects are not so great though but may find some use case occasionally).

+ 4 parts 64 steps sequencer with step recording, realtime recording, TR style recording, and automation recording with good controls for doing all these stuff is awesome for coming up with ideas and insipiration, or even for a minimalist live gig or a secondary synth intrument as a bandmember for providing some synth tones (which what I've also done with the jdxi as a bass player).

+ The on board vocoder/auto-tune sounds great, even though enabling it sacrifices 1 digital synth and the analog synth (which is kind of a bummer but OK).

+ Using its MIDI OUT I've hooked it up to my other synth modules to play and sequence them when I feel I need some other sounds, essentially replacing the jdxi synth parts (or even drum part) on the spot, while still using all the sequencer features the jdxi has.

= The keys are not that good, but I've come to like them over time for how light they are (I'm probably the minority). They can get the job done in any case when I don't feel like pulling out my full size midi keyboard.

// The only cons I have to say for the jdxi (and my wishlist) are:

- There is no real patterns mode, meaning having different patterns per part and changing them on the fly to create a full song with the same 4 part tones. This is my biggest con. Wish it was possible to just hold down a part button and hit one of the 16 steps to change the pattern for that part.

- When creating up a project (called a pattern in jdxi for some reason) and selecting up the tones/preset you want each part to have using the big categories knob and +/- buttons, it is only possible to select from the presets that jdxi comes stock with. In other words you can't create your own presets (either on board or using that unofficcial editor) and add them to the categories or anywhere else for that matter. A custom preset can only be saved as part of a project and is impossible to select it for use in another project in any easy way. Wish it was possible to save custom presets to those categories and select them just like we do the stock ones.

- There is no way to set different lengths to the 4 parts (eg have drums at 16 steps and everything else at 64).

- Wish there were separate outputs for each part.

// Bottom line: despite the cons, I think this is a fantastic piece of gear that will remain front-center on my studio desk probably up until jdxi 2 comes out (Roland please make it happen).

I have a full-size hammer-action piano synth already so this little number nicely fits the electro gap in my repertoire. I find the smaller, snappier keys fit this genre better than weighted keys. I certainly find it easier to play the luxurious drum samples on this machine; its keyboard provides a very positive and direct connection to the sounds.

Of course, to test it I just got stuck in and ignored the user manual. The layout is quite simple to understand and twiddling with the knobs proved a good way to explore the functions. I've never used an arpeggiator before and in no time I was arpeggiating like a pro. Well, it's not that hard, as I found out. Easy on a machine that just lets you do what you want with no menu-diving.

This keyboard sits with the Mininova and Microkorg in roughly the same category and price point. I agonised for a while over which one suited me best and I decided that, pound for pound, the Roland had the best set of features. One deciding factor was it has 16 sequence pads above the keyboard. And it has 128 polyphony. Sounds good to me!