The new modx is firce competition for the Roland fa08.



Just decide which you like better...
the brand new modx
Or the good olf Roland fa

I own both (modx6 and integra7 which is the same soundsource, just more of it)
I made up my mind which altough i really like them both..

I listened to about six or seven of the comparisons. Although most of the best samples were too reverb-y, I consistently liked the Roland better. Without going into a lot of detail, the Roland just seemed to have more clarity (definition?). I have absolutely NO BRAND BIAS, and besides, it's all subjective. I guess you're going to wait on a few more opinions before you tell us your pick (we're almost always biased towards our latest big expenditure ).

chas

I played both at SamAsh music..

I was glad to see Yamaha come out with a reasonably priced keyboard,,

At the end of my playing both.. I thought overall the FA08 was the better buy..

I listened to the YouTube demo , and had my integra7 set up with a controller.. This way, I could see the selected Roland sounds, if they were Supernatural or PCM from the 5080..


I didn't expect the Yamaha to compete with SN sounds, and it does not, neither does any other source..

I was surprised that the MODX didn't fair well against the pcm Roland sounds either..


I especially thought the Yamaha EPs were not good ..Their Rhodes sounds can't touch the Roland offerings..


Reading the comments on youtube made me laugh.. biased towards Yamaha ..


Any honest evaluation would be along my lines..

PS: I still think it was the right move for Yamaha... I can't believe the Montage is doing that well.. price wise.. over priced..

Roland FA are priced right where they need to be..

Guitars and horns go to Yamaha, keyboards...a horse a piece. The remaining sounds were just kind of chopped up by mediocre playing.

jingleman

Fran, The last arranger I had from Roland was the bk5. Some of the best styles I’ve heard on an arranger keyboard.

My problem with Roland electric guitars is their insistence on keeping the same chunky attack on every note. It destroys any realism. The best electric guitar sounds I’ve heard on an arranger keyboard, are the ones on the psr970.

JMO...jingleman

Supernatural takes it to the next level..

Which brings up the Roland paradox. They played with sonic cell sounds in their arrangers forever. They kept the E series sounds tucked away for some reason. Now they’ve got SN sounds and some decent E series sounds...but no decent arranger to compete.

What gives?

The BK9 has 22 Supernatural acoustic sounds , plus around 500 SRX sounds..

I had the BK9 and there was a lot to like, sound and style wise. I had other issues with it and sold it to Bill Lewis. I am wondering why it was not successful. The organ and leslie was great. Many did not like the two small screens, but they had a logical purpose.

The BK9 has 22 Supernatural acoustic sounds , plus around 500 SRX sounds.. [/quote]

The BK9 is no longer. Why not put a touch screen on it...a vocal harmonizer...price it competitively...throw in more SN sounds with a sequencer...and then load it up with their great styles. Personally...I think they'd have something. But who am I. A lonely old jingle writer who registers sex offenders to make a living. I'll get off my soap box now.

jingleman

The BK9 is no longer. Why not put a touch screen on it...a vocal harmonizer...price it competitively...throw in more SN sounds with a sequencer...and then load it up with their great styles. Personally...I think they'd have something. But who am I. A lonely old jingle writer who registers sex offenders to make a living. I'll get off my soap box now.

jingleman [/quote]

If you want the full Roland sound, go integra7 combined with the roland cloud..

Absolutely agree.

Let me give my .02. The BK9 I believe was designed for the working musician more than the home player. I think it didn't sell as well as it should is because it is a Pros keyboard and most Arranger buyers are home players who want all kinds of extras. Weight, features, and price all point to that. I like mine so much I bought Bernies as a gig unit so my other could stay setup in my studio.
* Touch Screen-- do you really need it ? When I'm performing I can't be messing with making changes on a screen, hitting the wrong spot on the screen and then having the whole setup go South. Do this on my IPad all the time ! The BK9 has OTS which are easy to setup and very easy to access on the fly. Four for each Style, enough for any song. There are also Favorite sound lists for each section which again are easy to setup and use live. I've used these features playing with a band as well as a solo. As for editing there are some good free IPAd Apps which will give you touchscreen functionality
* Harmonizer - why build one in when the outboard ones are changing and improving constantly. Go simple or all out with whatever one you want. Me personally I've tried a few times to use one and its more of a distraction when playing and makes me feel more disconnected from the audience. Some use them to great effect but for the most part I haven't seen many.
* More sounds. Get the Integra 7 and your in Sound Heaven. For live work the BK9 has a good enough variety of quality sounds to go with.
The BK9 came in at a decent price and you can expand it all you want if you can find one. Add the IPAd, Harmonizer, and Integra and your still under a Genos price.

The BK9 is no longer. Why not put a touch screen on it...a vocal harmonizer...price it competitively...throw in more SN sounds with a sequencer...and then load it up with their great styles. Personally...I think they'd have something. But who am I. A lonely old jingle writer who registers sex offenders to make a living. I'll get off my soap box now.

jingleman [/quote]



The BK9 already has a decent sequencer... one of the reasons I switched from an EA7 to BK9..

I saw a couple used Integra 7s for under $1k, half their original price.

Thas because used hardware is becomming harder and harder to sell..
And prices are dropping appidly..

In general everything created the last decade sounds great..almost as good as the latest new instruments. The video can be seen as proof of that..

That‘s what I meant when I said in another recent thread that a few years are not the giant leap in development any more it was in the 1990s. More and more megabytes or gigabytes of sample data don‘t necessarily result in a totally different realism of sounds. We are approaching a kind of saturation of sample quality, where e.g. in a live situation, small samples don‘t sound so much worse than bigger ones.

Regarding BK9, I think the poor demand was largely irrationally motivated by catastrophic marketing and people being focused more on features like a big colour display than on sound quality.

It is just perplexing that a company as large as Roland piddles around with mediocre products like...GW7 (which I had) GW8...Prelude, when they could have packaged the Integra sounds in a nice arranger. Never played the bk9...but I can’t believe they couldn’t have beefed it up a little to make it a major competitor in the market place.

Alright....I promise to slither back to my little studio and dream of a day when Roland releases that new product (arranger) that Fran teased us about.

jingleman

At that time there was still the strict separation between Roland Japan and Italy-based Roland Europe. GW7 and 8 were arrangers from Japan, and they didn‘t use some samples which had obviously been developed by Roland Europe exclusively for their arrangers (E-80, BK series). BK-9 was the last instrument developed by Roland Europe, and it included this small selection of 22 SuperNatural instruments from the Jupiters and Integra.
I think Roland has always been afraid of including too many of their new sounds in the factory sounds of their instruments, probably a mistake. I owned the BK-9, and NO, they did NOT include many SRX sounds in the factory ROM, in fact almost none of the SRX 04, 06 and 10 (I analysed the tone list thoroughly). Then, they announced expansions for the BK-9 which never came.
There‘s also a problem with the sound processor regarding SuperNatural sounds, this might be the reason why they just included 22 of them. It‘s a common issue of the Integra, too: too many SN-A sounds simultaneously result in timing issues, the processor can‘t manage the workload, as there is physical modeling involved.

Rachel you may be correct, but I read that there were over 500 sounds taking from the SRX and Fantom collection.

While switching performances on the BK9 that used all Supernatural tones, I did have glitches in maintaining the sounds from one performance to the other.. I believe it is the processors inability to handle the data.. Since it includes MXF changes too..

When I use the Integra7 with 16 SN parts while playing big band sequences.. (assigned instruments and no program changes or gm and gm2 resets)… there are no timing problems or glitches .


Same results with the above settings in style play on my G70.. No glitches on the Integra7.. Most likely for folks that are having timing problems, program changes and system exclusive come into play..


In the past I had timing issues with my xv5080 and G1000..

I can see the sn issue on the integra 7
Its thesame processor of the jupiter 80, which is restricted to 10 voices(all supernatural) probably for this reason.

This is not how i use the integra 7, i only use a few sounds at max..
Soni don't have this issue..

Yesterday i connected the integra to the modx..
And been playing with it..
The Roland sound definately sounds top knotch for a seven year old module
The SN synth espescially is so sweet..
The SN acoustic sounds, are a blast to play... feels really good
Altough i prefer the sound of the Modx most of the time (personal prefference)

I still think, Roland should make an arranger/workstation with the integra 7 as sound source
Expandable with Roland cloud
Something to replace both the bk9 as well as the Fantoms..

Roland is going through massive restructuring at the moment and until they define what their focus is, there will be nothing radically new, however I believe the way things are going, TOTL arrangers are pretty much dead, (Just like there Atelier organs) particularly as arranger sales in Europe are declining fast. (To the current and recent generations of players there is virtually nothing of any relevance in an arranger for them)

Bill

I think its obvious where Roland has been going the last 5 years..

Back to the core o synthesis
And less expensive products that offer a lot of vallue for the dollar..
I thinkmthe integra might be the last we have seen from Old Roland.