Roland SC-880 64-Voice Synthesizer Module

Advantages: quality & quantity of sounds
Disadvantages: bit tricky to programme

...the roland jv1080 i own is not used to its full capacity. It has great high quality sounds and an effects section but using it has been a bit of a chore. I tend to stick to preset sounds of which there are around 664, then theres performance mode and the rhythm sets. There are 40 effects but its a bit tricky assigning them. I tend to do everything I need withing Cakewalk Pro Audio rather than touch the JV panel! The outputs are a bit limited. I would have liked an output for each midi channel. The owner manual is a bit mind blowing as well, with little diagrams of how the sounds are made up, ring modulators and other things you dont really need to know. Im a musician and just wanted to get some sounds out of it. At the time I bought the jv1080 it was £700, this has probably dropped dramatically by now. Overall it has been a useful sound... Read review

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Advantages: Great authentic sounds, feels like playing real drums
Disadvantages: knowing that if you had £5000 you could get a much better one

...idea for parents who have children who realy want to play the drums, or already play them. With a regular acoustic drum kit, the noise can be unbearable if your trying to watch your faveourite TV show in the next room. However, with the roland V drums, there is very little noise. You can plug in your headphones and not have to worry about the neighbours complaining. Also, having one of these is like having 64 drum kits all in one that are all fully customisable. There are so many voices to choose from to build up your drum kits. However, admitedly i have about 6 that i use regularly and the others rarely get a look in. There are 1024 voices in all, and they are grouped to make it nice and easy to select them. In terms of durability, in a year and a half, my drum kit hasnt broken. still plays and looks as good as it did after a week... Read review

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Advantages: Some very realistic synthetic sounds at an affordable price.
Disadvantages: Requires a lot of fine tuning.

...Background: I bought this pedal in Japan for £290. The Roland GR-20 is renowned for it's value for money. For this price you get: The GR-20 Synthesizer GK-3 Dedicated Pickup + Cable (to connect the GK-3 to GR-20) Power Supply Unit Short Guitar Lead Instruction Manuals Warranty Screws, tapes etc... to attach GK-3 to your guitar The pedal is very versatile and also comes with an in-built tuner. Installation: The GK-3 needs to be installed on your guitar before you can use the pedal. Ideally the GK-3 should be around 1mm away from your strings and should not be installed further than 1cm away from the bridge. The GK-3 has two main parts. The main body, which has the up/down buttons (to scroll through the patches) and a volume knob, and the pickup itself. The pickup can either be installed using screws... Read review

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