Bad Gear - Roland JD-Xi - Toy Keyboard or Synthwave Monster??? 

Life is beautiful and it's full of Bad Gear

Big thanks to Roland for making the bad gear series possible ❤️

This was my first synth and it's still my favorite because it makes great sounds and has a lot all in one little package that I can take around. The fact that it can record directly into my DAW is so nice since I can just take it and my laptop and have a full set up. My friend who is a synth snob laughed when he saw that I got one and told me about all the better things I could have gotten, until I turned it on and started making noise. He then shut up and bought one a few weeks later.

Not gonna lie, after buying a JD-Xi a couple years back, a lot of my gear got put away, and the JD became the workhorse of the studio. Whole albums performed and recorded in their entirety using this beast! Lol

1:11 Adrian’s inner monologue: “I bet I can get away with calling this a ‘Jack-off, all trades’ and everyone will think it’s just my accent.”

"Prices are around 500 planetary credits, which translates to 5 billion dollars on reverb, for a model in ok condition" 😂😂 Love it

”Five billion dollars on reverb” ROFLMAO!

mention on bad gear, bucket list #1 - check!

The best legends are toys. Their disarming nature helps musicians lose their ego, lower their guard and embrace their creativity.

That Nick Batt clip made me laugh with the mention of PWM

I like how Roland always incorporates the 808 into everything they make but people are always like "I'm still not satisfied".

This is one of the most underrated channels on youtube, period.

if you were on tv when i was a kid, i would be synth by now.

One of the most impressive things about Pilz is that he already had his entire format nailed & refined since his FIRST posted video. Came out swinging on day one. You’re the greatest, Audiopilz... You tick off all the boxes. 🤘

It always makes me happy when I find out someone I respect is a Bojack Horseman fan 😁

Rolands commitment to the dying art of busy overlay printing is admirable.

Underrated synth :)

Your memey style of edit is honestly so refreshing. It's not over the top or cringe like with some channels, you've really mastered the art of applying it tastefully and effectively. Hilarious.

If Roland would have just made a 3rd version of the JD-XA - a module with no keys but additional per-function knobs and less menu diving, priced right in between the XI and XA, that would have been great. The JD-XA is a beast.... that most can't justify.

"law enforcement x-wave straight from the land of ro" feels like the same universe as "the justified ancients of mu mu"

Weird little quirk is that the delay time can go up higher than any other delay I've seen. A band I played with wanted a single note backing an entire song and I just hit the hold key and cranked the delay and played with the filter. It's outrageous.

This little machine was my first step into playing with beats, synths and sequencers. I still love it!

This synth is genuinely such a handy piece of kit to have around ! And that song at the seven minute mark really shows how massive it can sound ! Well done my dude

I literally decided to start saving for this thing yesterday. Then this video popped up lol

Praying for: *“Moog Subharmonicon: Overpriced Existential Nightmare or Experimental Dream Synth???”*

YAY FRIDAY!!!! I can’t WAIT to be impressed by DEAR GAWD WHAT’S THAT?!?!?!

Fridays never start without some Bad Gear!

This is by far the best gear I ever had. Pure fun. I am no pro and never going to be, just playing music for my soul. If you have kids that like electronic music. Buy it!

Thanks to your review I decided to buy the JD-Xi early this year (late January), and this being my first synth, I'm absolutely loving it even still. Much love, keep up with the great content!

For me anyway, the JD-Xi really brought back the fun into making music. For just switching on a creating ideas its hard to beat. The sequencer whilst it has its limitations does cover all the bases and is incredibly easy to use. There are definitely enough decent sounds to get started with a song idea and actually some pretty usable ones too. I made a lot of music just using this synth and nothing else, it really can sound amazing.

I've learned a lot from your channel: benefits of chaining gear together for real time simultaneous use, what external FX play well with synths, more about DAW-less setups, and how the instruments and sounds we like are largely tied to personal music tastes and the music we grew up with. Recently bought a small mixer, routed my keyboards, synths and a Boss BR600 (for backing drums) to it, and having a lot of fun with it. Thanks for everything, keep up the great work!

Gracias a Dios es viernes y tenemos nuestro video!!! Cheers from Argentina 😊

Dude I just bought one of these about a month ago. I have tons of gear and i have to admit I love it. Its perfect for putting down quick ideas and you can take it anywhere. Great video as usual bro.

I already know he’s gonna make every piece sound good at this point. I watch for the 3rd jam mash up genres strictly. Love this channel. Keep going brotha

THANK YOU. Happy to see my favorite instrument on your channel. I can tell you really know your audience. Really loved the jam at the end too. I'll be watching your videos till the end. The best to you!

This is not bad gear! My favorite synth! So good for different genres, trance, house, drum & bass etc. I haven’t watched the episode yet though, just saw the thubmnail. 😄 Will watch it later when I have the time. Can’t wait. 😊 Just love my JD-Xi. 😊

You did not just reference Type O Negative and the Aira series in the same sentence hahaha

I have a JD-XI, I love the string sounds I get from it. I hate the tiny keyboard size though, but they do have a nice press to them. Made an album with that, a MC303, TR8, and Korg em 1, I’m glad another one of my favorite instruments is now in an audiopilz vid 😁

bro your videos are always a joy to watch

Man, thx for all your videos, I always save them to watch them when I'm having dinner at the Hospital where I work. Big hug from Lisbon!

I LOVE the JDxi. It's such a great concept, the digital engine is fantastic, monosynth cool enough. Nice drums. Many limitations, sure, but a lot of fun. I wouldn't mind owning one tbh

With the accent, the way you said 'this jack of all trades' made it sound like, ' this jack off.. ' Wow, i thought... Going in hard with the abuse today! 😂 ❤️

Love this channel. It’s like you take a synth, shake it, an good stuff or bad stuff falls out, and you tell us all about it.

Good video man! your editing skills are getting really cool

Life is really beautiful with this machines. Wonderful vintage sounds.

That feeling when you bought your first synth last week and this week it's featured on Bad Gear 😂

Great job being entertaining whilst providing gear oversight. I loved all the quick interjection of pop culture, loved the Max Headroom and thought I spotted a glimpse of "Stallone in Over the Top". So good, keep up the good work.

amazing video as always !

You can only see it for a brief moment, but the selling point for me was the 4 part multitimbrality of the JD-Xi with midi controllable change messages in Ableton. Also the combination of those 4 sound generators give a rich and in the face sound in the mix. A good little piece of gear for people with a daw already and little spacy in their studio.

*SO GOOD* !! I just wish my coworkers cared about synthesizers... they've pretty much stopped asking why I'm 11 minutes late on Fridays 🥳

Love this channel, thanks!

love this channel, your formula is genius

I'm dying here from your screenshots. "Roland classics" - ReBirth. "Die Hard Roland Fans" - Rambo. LOL

Bad gear for life!! Called that one a few weeks ago. Love my jd-xi....also it is perfect for your jams. I can listen to a whole album of your jams with that synth!

ur the consistency i need in inconsistent times :-)

Reverb saw your review. Probably a cool ten billion now. So much work in this episode. Awesome.

That vocoder chain is the ultimate goal for my vocal practices. Void voice for life, and the life for bad gear

This video actually made me want one. The song you did had a Laserdance influence to it.

this channel makes me so happy

Your videos always manage to make me smile

I’ve been putting off watching this since it came out because, confession time, I own this synth and LUV it, so I’m admittedly a little afraid to watch. Let me say first what I love about mine: 1) its four-track sequencer is really fun and makes it conducive to creativity and to capturing ideas easily, 2) related to 1): I don’t have to use a DAW or open up my laptop to make music, which feels liberating sometimes and easier to focus on writing, 3) i thought Roland made good design decisions on what parameters to combine on some of the knobs, reducing menu-diving a lot (also, these parameters are actually fully tweakable if you’re willing to menu dive, like once and then save it in yr program), 4) the classic Juno/Jupiter sounds are fucking amazing, really lush and beautiful, 5) the analog synth isn’t going to make me get rid of my Novation Mono Station, but nonetheless sounds very good, 6) really fun to run a guitar thru and use the Auto Note feature to use it as a guitar-synth (no weird MIDI pickup required), 7) it has a fucking vocoder also, which is a lot of fun, 8) I wish it could program in time signatures other than 4/4, but nonetheless I find some of the sequencing and other limitations built into it to be both reasonable for the price-point, and also creatively useful for sandboxing (I find it hard to actually make anything sometimes or to make creative decisions and commit to them when presented with endless virtual instruments and sequencing power like I have in, say, Ableton or Pro Tools). Granted, there are fancier synthesizers out there, but many of us aren’t rich and can’t afford like a vintage Prophet V or something. (Oh and 9): I think the drum sounds are great. This thing is like an 80s or 90s “workstation” synth in a tiny, inexpensive package. I love this device.

I don't own one but as Roland user in general I think that the JD-Xi has a lot of great sounds and features but Roland indeed has the tendency of hiding a lot things behind a menu labyrinth.

Thanks a lot for this review. Desperately want this synth :)

Brilliant as always

0:53 Infinity War is the biggest crossover ever. Roland JD-Xi: "Hold My Beer"

The white version is easier to read. Roland did the overlays which also make it possible to use without Woody'ing the thing with masking tape. Good little kb to take out and about if you're going to be stuck somewhere for a few hours, but so much overlap with any other recent Rolands.

Your channel absolutely rules!

Was just wondering if and when you'd make a video on the JDXi while at work today !! The legend delivers

the type o negative bit caught me off guard lmaoo

I am not sure what sort of stimulants promotes the genius idea of combining the predator arm shake meme and an 80’s advertisement of milk but that was something

Always a great video!

Loved the sonicstate shoutout!!

this was my first synth ever I still love that thing

I like this channel 😍 It always makes me feel great to be reminded of the $1000's that I've wasted on B-Grade Audio & Music Gear 😂

originally came for the info- keep coming back for the JAMS! oh and yer pretty funny too... love this show!

Brilliant review that was very funny, thanks a lot!

I love the "arranger"-function ❣️

"Jack off all trades" Had one of these myself. I liked it and the digital synth engine is actually quite good sounding but at the end of the day, it didn't cover any new ground or do anything better than what I had already so I sold it to someone who could use it more than me. Not bad gear but not stellar either. And I've always thought they cost about $150 more than they should but I often think that about any Roland product.

Sir this is one of my favorite channels good shit 💯🔥

Always a pleasure to watch bad gear. Cant wait for the next one :D

I love my JD-Xi, super versatile especially if you dive deep with the editor software. It basically replaced a Gaia, R-8 and D-10 I'd been using for years, the only complaint is the FX chain being awkward to use (and the gloss surface, get the overlays!). Great episode as usual! :)

It’s fantastic and Roland will send you high contrast overlays to remedy the impossible to read red on black. If you only need (or could have) one synth, this a a great candidate. Thanks for sharing! Rock on!

Amazing episode like always. I used to own one and I really liked it. Sold it for roland integra. I still miss it some times because it was such a great sketchpad.

I still have one JD-Xi, I had two. I used it to create near "live" psytrance music, playing multiple tracks, having different patches set for different parts of songs, and transition between them, using one part for playing live or for the vocoder. I used my KMI SoftStep2 to help control what was playing, turning parts on/off and switching between patches. Running both into a small mixer Great small, lightweight set-up. Cheers!

I love my JD-Xi. Wish I could make it sound this good! I think you hit the nail on the head with your evaluation... except you forgot to call it out for not being able to save individual voice patches! (The editor goes a long way to mitigating that though, and you can of course save voices as part of the four voice plus sequence patches the JD-Xi does let you save.) I badly wish we could get the same keyboard with the same synth engine but a proper full featured sequencer... and maybe even FOUR envelope knobs for direct ADSR settings. (I will say though that this seems to be a pretty decent implementation of a single envelope knob, and you can of course get at proper ADSR settings through menu diving or the editor.)

nick batt cameo got a genuine cackle out of me

Nice Magpie cameo! Another great one!

10/10 again mate. Once again I have thoroughly enjoyed the video! Oh and those mini keys.. 😖

I remember testing one out and thought I blew out a speaker in the store...

the jdxi, plus a looper and guitar is a sick combo. the drums on it are awesome

Great stuff and excellent video! The Roland JD-Xi was my first synth and i love it, lots of sounds, 1 analog synth and very good drum kits. The sound is really good too. Hey i saw when you mention youtube comunity channels i saw 2 of my videos, thank you for that!

I have one of these and love it! Awesome to see it make it to bad gear!

My first synth!!

I've had my JDXi for years now and it's my go to keyboard. I think it'll be a future 'cult classic'. The vocoder is great and use it on the last 5 songs to great effect to supplement my lack of vocal abilities.

Great review great synth!!

I'm blown away every time I watch one of your videos. The quality of the reviews is excellent, but it's the amount of talent and hard work stuffed into the non-essential extras that is extraordinary. Humor, intelligence, cultural reference cutaways worthy of "Family Guy", insane amount of editing, and well-produced music all elevate the entertainment value of relatively dry core content to a ridiculous level. Much respect, but just imagine for a moment all you could achieve if you turned all this talent, inspiration and energy toward more noble purposes. . .Nah. . .. .keep doing what you're doing.

The JD-Xi is a great composition sketch pad when combined with a decent keyboard, it is really easy to quickly get some ideas that can form the backbone of advanced compositions and the sounds are good enough for it to stay in the mix of the final product.

Your videos really tick all of the boxes for me

another crave video, Wunderbar sir, i'm in!

Different conclusion as i thought. Thanks again for the great video.