SRX 11 Complete piano and XR V2

[John01W]

If you look on this page everyone's been talking about, you'll see a srx 11 complete piano listed!!! Also noticed on the bottom is the XR V2, oh man what could it be?(akai and multisample support please!!!!:

http://www.rolandus.com/index_namm.asp

maybe this is the X piano for all of you s users, or a new one!

[dansgold]

Hmmm .... "Complete Piano" ...?

I can't imagine them just releasing the X piano in SRX form for S users. It's like they'd be saying "hey DON'T buy a FantomX, buy a used Fantom S and this card!" Even so, if they supported the S community that way ... wow, what a cool customer support statement THAT would be.

Seeing that they already have a piano card out, and the X has that very nice piano ... what else could this be?

If it turns out to be a LIBRARY of nothing but new Acoustic and Electric pianos ... could be pretty cool.

Of well, just a few days and we'll all know.

[Sergievsky]

You know, even though I bought the XR mostly for the piano, it really does have a lot of room for improvement. I have A/B'ed it to the concert grand exp rom in my Triton (standard on the Studio and Extreme) and it really isn't that much better. And I was really trying my best to believe that it was way better. Anyway, I have extremely high hopes for this SRX piano.

Raul

[John01W]

Funny that you say that, because I have a Triton Studio V2 with EXB08 built in and the pianos on pcm 01, and I found
and the Fantom X piano destroyed Korg's pianos IMO. I say that as a huge Korg fan for many years.

You can hear pretty bad the very obvious pitch stretching on ALL of the pianos in Triton Extreme/Studio, Fantom X's have no pitch stretched samples.

Very full sounding though(pcm 08) It's better than all of the other Roland pianos in there, but not the new Fantom X piano by far IMHO.

That being said, a newer better piano is always a good thing.

[stevie]

Well I have to agree there is plenty of room for improvement in the X piano - will look forward to testing the SRX11 - also great to see V2 of X software going to be released.

Steve

[2TIM316]

Yeah, I've posted this on a number of other occasions, but I'm not at all thrilled with "Ultimate Grand". For gigs in mono I use "Warm Grand" from the S ROM bank. Ultimate grand is unusable in mono and doesn't wow me all that much in stereo.

But for me, I've always been most impressed with SRX-02. Frankly I can't see why Roland needs another piano SRX. They've got SRX-02, and the built-in waves in the Fantom-X.

I think this is a preparation for Roland to release some cheap modules (like they did with the XV series - i.e. XV-5050 and 2020), and then use that as a marketing tool - "expandable to Roland's flagship piano.... with SRX-11"

[thunderkyss]

It would be nice to get the Ultimate Piano in my XV-5050

Sonar
Fantom-S
Now all I need is talent.
Anyone selling any talent??

[Lord of the Badgers]

i generally really like the SRX piano.. i love that warm tone.. but i HATE.. the stupid velocity settings, and that sample artifact around mid C.

so i hope it's a piano board based on one sound. sampled as best they can given the memory constraints (what are they on an SRX board btw?)

c'mon Roland.. no weedy SRJV rehashes please!

Regards,
Rob
-------------------------------
http://www.lotb.co.uk
Motif ES8
Roland F(***ing) X(cellent) R(ack)
Roland MVS-1 (Vintage Synth Rack)

[rbarkhouse]

Hey guys, just thought of something:

It wouldn't make sense that this SRX-11 board contained the Ultimate Grand samples from the F-X. If that was the case they would be guaranteed to NEVER sell one to a Fantom-X owner! I can't see Roland doing that.

So here's hoping that it's an even BETTER set of piano samples than the FX ones!

- Rick

Rick Barkhouse

[dboulden]

Rick, but also consider the market for an SRX board with the FX piano... how many Roland owners out there with FS's, XV's etc that can use SRX boards compared to the number of FX owners... it's a pretty large market (comparitively), and we all know roland aren't above rehashing existing samples in new products. I think it's make good business sense (for Roland) to release the FX piano on an SRX board to extract the maximum revenue return from what they consider to be their flagship piano sample set.

There's nothing out so far that rules out more SRX cards at the Winter NAMM, there may simply have not been enough space on the NAMM splash page we saw briefly to list all the new products being released.

Dave

http://www.drstudio.demon.co.uk/"Some musicians have a physical block, some have a mental block, while others have a wooden block". Unfortunately, I'm in the 1st category!

[zacko]

I'm hoping the 'Complete Piano' means an all new acoustic piano, and some really good vintage rhodes and EP sounds. I'd like to see them jump ahead of Yamaha.



It would seem that the new piano might be the X piano, although if they make something better, then everyone will be a potential customer, including X owners. That would be smarter.

The SRX-02 is (was) a good piano, but I think it's dated when compared to what's out there now.
I think they'd be smart to come with a piano card that's on par or outdoes Motif ES Ac. pianos and EP's.


A little OT, but I also feel Roland workstation organs (including SRX07) are also dated. The SRX07 organs sound good, but don't have any girth and grit. The stock Fantom organs are not the best.

They should do an SRX-Complete Organ.


These things would help bring my FAS88 back to life.

[synthguy]

I'm pulling for all new pianos too. One thing I'd like to see added is a very good CP80 Electric Grand. That poor thing is almost always a one sample layer stepchild. I came up with a pretty sweet Electric Grand patch on my XV-3080 but there are still synthetic qualities to it.

I love the future

[rbarkhouse]

Hey Dave,

Yes I agree that there would be a great market for a SRX version of the Fantom-X piano (as a F-S user I'd definitely want one!), but from a business point of view I think it would be bad for Roland to introduce a product that none of the current synth line has any use for. Plus Roland doesn't really have a great track record of doing things for older users -- usually they're only interested in supporting the latest greatest model.

Either way I'm sure the SRX-11 is going to be very interesting, especially for FS owners.

Rick Barkhouse

[2TIM316]

Well, this is a topic that can produce endless debate, but my 2 cents is that:

1) Roland wants to sell synths much more than expansion boards, so I don't think they are that interested in revitalizing interest in their older XV models via this board.

2) Saying that SRX-02 is getting dated is sort of like saying an old Steinway is not as desireable as a new one. As long as the original quality of the samples was top-notch (which it was in SRX-02) then IMO that board will never become dated

3) All of that leads me to believe that this board will not (I really hope not) have the "Ultimate Grand" samples. If it did, it would have no market among Fantom-X users, save for Xa users, who it appears Roland is going more towards the dance/electronica market with that synth anyway. So it would make no sense to release an expansion board that all users of your flagship synth would have no interest in.

At least I sure hope so. I think the word "piano" to Roland means exclusively acoustic piano. But it would be great if this thing had acoustic "piano" and electric "piano" samples.

[zacko]

As far as the SRX-02, we're all entitled to our opinions. I can't say I agree with your Steinway analogy. That's like saying recordings from the 50's don't sound dated.

A Steinway is a benchmark. An SRX-02 is not. It's a product of technology. Digital piano technology has improved since then - recording, compression, etc.

Also, I'd like some Steinway samples for my FAS88 - the SRX-02 sounds hardly anything like a Steinway.

I just think there's better sounding and playing stuff out there now. Just MO.

BTW, I've been using the SRX-02 for over 3 years.