Roland Clan Forums

Hi, I was surfing the forum and I got this idea. Most Fantom owners are in this page. A great number of them.

So I have a proposal. I think that if ROLAND lowered the prices of the SRX Expansion Boards more of us would buy them. Indeed this cards are about U$S 300.

If they were at a lower price it is very possible that we (people who haven't bought them) would have bought some cards. My case would be buying SRX 02 Concert Pianos and SRX 07 Ultimate Keys.

It is also a mathematical relationship. When it was expensive you lower the price at a good price and more people that were interested would buy them and MORE QUICKLY.

See if you agree and we can make something.

Consider this forum's voice has POWER, because it concentrates Fantom owners (I don't mention other ROLAND instruments since this cards are for the Fantoms).
We can make something.

What do you think about the whole idea?

POST YOUR COMMENTS

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T14 - Argentina

Where I am the Srx expansions are about $250 But Americanmusicsupply.com has sales where I ve seen them $150. But still really expensive.

Hi. Yes I talk about U$S to make a rounded up mean between those which are 250 such as SRX 07 and 330 like the SRX 02.

Hey people what do you think about mi original post. Artemio, tzoid, V-Cee-Ooh, Jim Stout from ROLAND US... everyone... Post your comments.

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T14 - Argentina

I personally think the price is not insignificant but that they are good value. As a pro musician and regular on this forum I prefer to wish for more/different/better features and so I can't really complain about the price now can I.

I will say that I find Roland products to be good value for the money, however much I push for increased features...

Music tech is an expensive field.

Regards,

Adam




http://adampianoman.googlepages.com

the roland cards are more expensive than korg's, but are a better value. the triton can only fit 2 user loaded banks in its memory, even though the triton rack can fit 8 cards. and you have to load patches by floppy disk. with the SRX cards, you pop it in and BAM, get 256-350 patches loaded and organized when you boot your synth. the convenience was well worth the price.

i wish roland would make more cards with more sounds. but as my x8 already has all 4 slots loaded, i'm not sure i'd give up any of the cards i have.

---
helping unwed pregnant mothers get their start
http://lo-res.com/gear/instruments.htm

I actually do agree that those exp.-boards are indeed blatantly expensive, as my SRX-03-studio srx,was a huge dissapointment. I don´t know about the other boards, but i don´t even use half of what´s on them. Of course Roland tries to suit more or less every musical style, but still I don´t consider the sounds"that special", which makes them insanely expensive indeed.1/3 the price of a brand new Juno or.. the same price as a 2nd hand blast of a J.P.8000!(with much more usable sounds). There could be a solution made in the future though, as it would be possible to actually upload cards to your own taste in music-stores, so that you at least know what you pay for: 10 new sounds? That´ll be 25$ please! 100 new sounds?That´ll be 250 and so on.I´m sure Roland would find out quickly that this "ukrainian bagpipe" wouldn´t exactly be everyone´s favorite!!!

x-desert

If those cards where about €100,- I may buy four of them. If the were about €150,- I would buy the two I need most. As long as there more expensive than €150,- I won't buy them. I like them, but I still get the job done without with only a feeling of 'I wish i had ...'. And I'm a semi-pro user. I see them as a luxury not as a necessity. Here in The Netherlands there €299,-. Way too expensive.

SRX cards are a very good idea but I agree they are too expensive..
Instead of 4 SRXes you can get a new rack mount synth like MotifES or Radias. I'd like to put one extra into my Juno-G but it's not an easy consideration..

I'd like to put one extra into my Juno-G but it's not an easy consideration..

I also have the same problem. I'd like to buy the SRX-03 or SRX-07, but for that price I'd like to hear *all* the sounds on the card, not just the few patches on the website demo. What if I pay 250 euros for a card and then find out that the patches are not that good, or simply different from what I need?

After all, when I buy a keyboard I can go in a shop and listen to every sound on it.

Roland should make a better demo, where *every* patch of the card can be heard... if cards were less expensive one could just try and see, but for that price I have to think well if I can take the risk of paying so much.

Roland should make a better demo, where *every* patch of the card can be heard... if cards were less expensive one could just try and see, but for that price I have to think well if I can take the risk of paying so much.

It's a problem indeed because they can not be tested even in a shop - so far I have yet to see one which would have Fantoms loaded with SRX boards for testing purposes.

Perhaps it'd be a smart idea to offer downloads of reduced quality versions of SRX samples plus presets for evaluation purposes?
(so not suitable for real production yet sufficient for testing)

In fact, I know one store in Arnhem, The Netherlands where showroom Fantoms are loaded with some SRX cards.

Good service, I'd say!

(P.S. I'm *not* affiliated with that store)

That should be more common practice, or Roland indeed should put up better demo's on their web sites. Of course more audio demo's, but maybe also some kind of automated service, where someone could upload their own MIDI file (up to a certain size) and receive a link to a downloadable MP3 file with the MIDI file played with an indicated SRX-patch.

You are absolutely right!

Roland should make a better demo! I was complaining about this nearly two years ago, already!

I cannot understad it, really...

If the SRX cards ARE GREAT, they should make EVERY patch available to listen to (in a demo tune).

So like this, IT SEEMS that the SRX are not as good as Roland wants us to believe... (although I have to say, that the SRX that I was able to test in Hamburg, Germany, really were WORTH THE MONEY... well at least the money at eBay...

For those who are interessted how much the cards were sold at eBay during the past 2 years, here's an overview of the cards I was interessted the most:

Roland SRX-01 Drums - 175-182-202-176-140-126-112-104-108-139-105-108-
Roland SRX-03 Studio - 186-182-235-153-199-126-219-
Roland SRX-04 Strings - 162-199-186-200-199-
Roland SRX-05 Dance - 126-139-199-218-203-154-175-122-41-121-170-162-171-201-219-201-
Roland SRX-06 Orchestra - 231-226-201-239-239-189-
Roland SRX-07 Ult Keys - 211-256-230-254-262-233-218-192-200-210-211-221-221-
Roland SRX-08 Platinum - 184-125-126-119-136-188-175-
Roland SRX-09 World - 188-196-222-151-193-220-182-200-200-183-159-
Roland SRX-10 Brass - 181-152-189-
Roland SRX-98 Analog - 169-149-94-133-99-68-95-221-109-106-87-77-138-88-169-109-103-99-116-
Roland SRX-99 Mixed - 89-116-80-31-34-67-53-


shrewd-salut!
SRUT, BUT...

So like this, IT SEEMS that the SRX are not as good as Roland wants us to believe...

Well, I don't think this... I'm sure that their quality is good. I trust Roland and think they would not benefit in selling low-quality srx cards for that price.

But we all have different needs when it comes to judging the sounds on a keyboard or card.

Some cards could use the 64 megs of samples to offer just a few high quality sounds, some others could offer more sounds with less quality, it's just a choice. Some cards could offer high quality patches that I just don't like.

Also, if I needs, say, strings, brasses or pianos, there are dedicated cards and I'm sure they will contain the sounds I need. In this case, you can understand frin the demo that the quality is high (listen to the demo of the brass card...) and since the card just contains brasses I know it will solve my specific problem.

But for more general cards like srx-03/07 assuming that the quality will be good is not enough: I'd also like to be sure that I like the patches and that they fit my needs, which I cannot do because I can't try the card and the demo only lets you listen to more or less 10 patches out of 300...

Making a demo of every patch would not be so expensive.... let's say a couple of days of work for a musician and a technician to record a sample of every patch, and one day for the web designer to link the files...

Hey, thanks for that ebay analysis... good stuff! I've been watching the 05 for a few months now as well and it's been right around $200... same with the 09. Hopefully if I keep watching I can pick both up for $120-130 each or so. Plus, I just saw the 08 and will probably get that one as well. Of course, this is assuming I get the X6 instead of the Juno-G, something that is far from a done deal. If I end up with the JG, I'll probably just start with the 05, as I can't really see switching them out all the time.