AudioPilz is being disingenuous with this video IMO.., and is using popular gear in his vids as clickbait to generate ad revenue. He knows people will see the title and watch the vid because a popular piece of gear is on his list. I made a comparison in my comment about the Korg Triton Classic, which is an icon era defining synth workstation, and he basically says “thanks for the future vid suggestion”. If he’s going to clickbait with gear vids like this, I’ll unsub because it’s really shady of him.
Confession Time (but don't tell anybody) - when I was doing the voicing on the Wavestation (I was into making expansion cards probably for the WSSR by this time) , I was approached by Roland and hired to make a bunch of the drum loops found on the Roland SR-JV80-12 Hip Hop Expansion Board. I believe I was credited as "Underground Mic" on the project. Not long after that they hired me to do voicing on the original V-Synth. Korg didn't know at the time or they would not have been happy, but when a fun project like this comes along, you have to say yes. Again, don't tell anybody... I wasn't here. Really. I mean it.
wow I"m jealous, that's the gig I"ve always wanted. Wish I could hear what your loops sounded like (when I was younger I learned a lot from studying the presets of my Roland D2 groovbox)
@@kcat80 Getting deeper, is it bad dance music if it got enough exposure for us to hear it? Since starting to produce music I have learned that even the worst sounding record that makes waves in the public takes a lot of skill to make sound professional enough for release.
I love my JV-1010. It gives me quick access to thousands of (mostly) very usable bread and butter sounds and uses half of 1u rack space! The circa 1994 new age goodness is icing on the cake. I wouldn't dare try to program the thing, but still find myself using it almost every day.
Yep, it's my swiss army knife for whenever the synth I'm working on is missing that one sound. I personally even like its sound a bit better than the "better" JV.
Also adds the Session board, great sounds. Need an external device (iPad, Computer) for editing though. The XV-2020 is very similar, but updated and SRX expansion.
@@darwiniandude what do you use for editing the jv-1010? I think it is unfortunate that you can't set the midi tempo/clock (for LFO for example) to follow/slave without diving into a software editor.
Honestly, it's been kind of a thing I've noticed lately on these youtube videos is to call all the old popular things bad or awful in the titles to get clicks. It's getting old and pretty lame in my opinion.
Incredible how flexible gear of that era was. Manufacturers today call a stereo pair and a headphone jack multiple outputs. Don't even get me started about voices.
not even midi out through a USB dongle? I find that hard to believe but do believe it at the same time LOL That said, I think it has to do more with lack of real standards so they tried to cover all bases.
Multitimbral was a must-have in the pre-DAW days. Now it's not even on my nice-to-have list. If I had to go back to the 90s I'd give MIDI sequencing a miss!
I had a 1080 and it made me a ton of money. Great piece of gear, solid construction and never failed to provide a lot of good preset options. Roland did good on this one.
That's kind of the blessing and the curse of the JV1080... it sounds cliche/familiar but it is still a great powerful synth. It's a time machine for 90s sound design... I love it! I wish Roland would make a boutique version with knobs to edit the sounds faster...
The JV1080 is one of the greatest synths ever made. The 1080 is insanely easy to program too, its just a giant grid when you hit the parameter and palette button.
@@Electrodefender I actually preferred the display of the JV1080 because it was easier for me to read from a distance. I did want a JV2080 but I couldn't justify the much higher price at the time for not much more functionality.
It is STILL a fantastic bread and butter synth. I have fully expanded 1080, and i’ve multi sampled each and every sound into Logics sampler, so i have them at hand when doing sessions. It took a whole week 😂 My expansions are Dance, Vintage Synths, World and Techno. I still use 1 or two 1080 samples on every session, even in these days of Omnisphere, Alchemy etc….
I'm surprised there was no mention of how this synth was an integral part of the UK Jungle/Drum&Bass scene in the '90s. The JV1080 was used heavily by Photek, LTJ Bukem, PFM, Goldie etc.
at this point I don't even give a shit about bad gear. I'm watch every wideo because it's got better humor, wit and content than most streaming shows. Every composition is ear candy. Seriously this guy puts a smile on my face more reliably than any other subscriptions.
I have a JD-990 which is very similar, even have a couple SRX cards. Also I've messed around with the Cloud 1080 vst a fair bit. The JD and JV series are probably my favorite synths. The architecture is complex at first but all makes perfect sense to me, intuitive limitations in just the right places and endless inspiring possibilities when you start getting creative. And the crisp cold "cheesy" 90's digital sound is my favorite. Nothing bad about this synth at all imo.
I was waiting for someone to talk about the 990. I used to have a stack of three of them, all with the Vintage Synth card installed. It was awesome but total overkill and it never ended up seeing any use.
These sounds are so damn iconic. Almost every single one brings back a childhood memory of a favorite videogame or two from that era. Big one is Hotwheels: Stunt Track Driver, that game's entire soundtrack could practically pass for a roland JV-1080 demo track.
Incredible synth. Probably one of the best sounding instruments of the 90s. But programming is hard and those shiny presents call to you like beautiful sirens on the rocks. It takes A LOT of work to come up with your own sounds but SO worth it. It also tends to make any track it touches sound like a million dollars, so if that’s not what yr going for you’ll either need to make it sound more lofi using effects/EQ or choose another synth…
Being born in the year 2000, today's jams reminded me of the free games and demos I found online back in the day, with tracks made by hobbyist virtuosos who either had too much time on their hands, or someone was actually willing to pay them for their music.
I love this thing, as a 90s/00s kid this thing is a box full of nostalgic sounds to me. Other than pure 90s nostalgia, I wouldn't really say it's anything amazing these days. It has some nice pad sounds and is pretty easy to tweak compared to other romplers/PCM synths... I have a fully expanded one that I still occassionally use if I wanna make some oldschool jungle.
Yep, I still have mine too, with all four expansion slots filled, too. It was absolutely a workhorse for me back then, and I still have a fondness for it even though it very seldom gets used now.
@David Sandberg One of my collabs always tells me my studio is a museum, lol, but it all works and serves its place when needed. I pulled up a piano patch and told him it was the one EMF used in Unbelievable. I don't know if it's true, but it worked
I actually own the Jv-1080 that was actually used on "who wants to be a millionaire" soundtrack. Bought it for £300 and it sounds like the perfect synth for 90's vaporwave game show music.
I bought one of these a few months ago, amazing bit of kit for the price. Surprisingly usable actually, I've been having fun with it in combination with the Sherman filterbank 2
I paid about £160 for mine a couple of years ago and I've used it on at least one track so far. I haven't gone past the presets, but it's a nice bit of kit to have and I don't see myself selling it. Unfortunately, I am getting a lot of noise from mine, which I don't think I did about a year ago.
I bought the successor JV 2080 and absolutely love it. So much so, I got the XV5080 which has all of the sounds of the JV and more at a higher sample rate. I think it still sounds great and for £2-300 gives you a really useful demoing tool.
Ha, last year I went to an otherwise fairly modern and well-kept studio that had 4 recording rooms, and every single one had a 1080 in its rack. The thing just won't die!
My bet is they have them just for the show. This thing has its time, and OK, most of them still work, but f*%#ing why we keep cycling them from rack to rack?? You buy one for the nostalgia, get a couple of afternoons getting frustrated by its interface, or 2 weeks implementing its MIDI, then sell it, or forget you have one at the bottom of the rack.
I bought a brand new one about 3 years ago from a guy that bought it for a project that never happened when it was for sale new, it was kept in a heated storage since new ,still in the box. The plug was still tied. It was never even turned on ! So i think i have the best example in the world. Don`t worry its still in perfect conditon.! Thanks for the upload !
I love this dang box with my whole heart. I love that it sounds just a little bad but also great at the same time. I love that it would've been top of the line 30 years ago, and that now you have to really work to get it to sound interesting and useable by today's standards. I love that the capacitors on the expansion cards are so cheap that they're prone to exploding by now if you don't replace them. Adds an element of excitement and danger. And I love boomer shooters. Thank you for paying tribute to the object of my heart. It is sitting next to me on my studio desk smiling. Everything is alright.
Incoming pedantry alert: I think you mean the capacitors, not the transistors. The electrolytic capacitors on the expansion boards do go bad but then again, most electrolytic caps have a lifespan of around 25 years.
absolute hell to program without using external software (i write patches via an iPad interface for mine) but a super rewarding synth to deep dive into!!! having some expansion cards to pull sounds from really elevates it. obviously hard to recommend when software alternatives exist and said expansion cards are increasingly expensive, but one of my fave synths. great jams this episode!
hence JV-2080 is always the better option with very nice dot matrix display and shortcut buttons. It's the exact same layout as in JD-990. Besides that you can expand JV-2080 with up to 8 expansion boards.
@@panutalus at this point, for the price, sure - neither are probably truly Good Options with so many pieces of software filling the voids in 2023, but the 1080 was a much better option price-wise when i picked it up a few years ago vs the 2080, especially knowing i could just control it via software on a touchscreen.
I so love your appreciation for these mid-90's romplers. Especially in rack or module form. It's hard to beat them for bang-for-the-buck, variety of usable sounds, simplicity of use, and probably most importantly: massive fun factor! I recently picked up a Korg X5DR, which is fairly similar in concept to the JV-1080, and I'm having a ton of fun with it. Awesome video! And the accompanying meme's sprinkled throughout really make me laugh.
i used this rack exclusively for dance and hip hop tracks and composed decent sounding film scores with my fully expanded 1080 and loved the sounds i was able to create on my own after tweaking the presets and yes I still have this unit in my array of sound kits
I still like the JV1080 - not as a rompler or preset player (you´re absolutely right about the stock sound of this synth being beaten to death by countless uses) - but as a full blown programmable synth, that I´ve come to know as my own pocket over the years (I use an editor though). Only thing that´s a bit annoying is the reverb tail ringing. I´ve made a commercial soundbank to the JV (evolving ambiences and soundscapes), to bring in in to the new era 🙂
Thank you for the fantastic bowling alley 3D and nostalgic sounds. You tricked my brain into forgetting how alienating and horrible the world has become in the past 20 years!
I used to have one of these before I knew anything about synths and I sold it because I never used it. Now I know what a powerhouse I sold lol. Cool to see the 1080 on bad gear. Cheers my friend!
Awesome as always!. I have my 1080 since almost 20 years with 4 srjv80 expansions and it's still the base of all my projects. It aged very well imo. My besr regards!.
I've got the 2080 and one thing I really like about it is that it's multitimbral. I really wish more modern synths were at least bitimbral. It can be fun to sequence a whole track using just the 2080.
workstations like roland fantom or fantom 0 or the korg krome/kross/kronos yamaha modx etc all have 16 parts that can be set up with different key ranges, internal or external sound control, effects etc. I have a JV-2080 but since i have a korg KromeEX, i just use the korg and its touch screen and set external channels to the jv-2080 if i want some sounds from it, and other external channels to other synths, or choose from the thousands of internal sounds and really cool endless selection of drum patterns and kits. the krome even has a mixer section where you mute parts and change volume or pan etc, like a mixer. the korg wavestate and roland JD-XM i believe are both 4 layer mini-workstations sort of. so fighting with the JV setting up 16 parts is a pain vs doing it on the workstation touch screen.
It figuratively kills me that nobody makes multi-timbral synths anymore. They just figure that the synths are cheap enough that you'll buy ten of them or stack a bunch of VSTs. It seems like there are more analog multi-timbral synths coming out than digital, despite tons of great digital synths coming out and surely that would be easier than multi-timbral analog.
With all due respect to AudioPilz.., how in the world does something as iconic as the JV-1080 make it on a “Bad Gear” video.., and more disturbing is how Bad Gear would actually preface the JV-1080 in a video title. This module is by far one of the most popular sound modules ever created. The 1080 was used in major studios across the globe. The VST version is one of Roland’s most popular on RolandCloud today. I was a young adult when this was released back in 1994.., and in 1994 this module was no joke. Hell, if I remember correctly production ran all the way up to 2001. Seriously AudioPilz.., think back to 1994 and what was available then. Every studio I stepped foot in back in the day had one of these. Putting the 1080 in a Bad Gear video is like putting the Korg Triton Classic in one. Both literally defined an era.
As JV/XV/JD lover i never get tired of these sounds. It can do synth sounds very good if you know how to program and tweak the synth, it has some very outdates sounds, but pads, strings and leads are top notch to this day. Nothing to be ashamed of, bread and butter tones that are pleasant and suits better then most romplers of its era, and this era too.
I know some people are going to hate it because its sound is everywhere but I still love it, it just needs some love and ingenuity to be used in new and creative ways. Also I could 100% see this being for phonk, it has that spacey kind of sound that works really well for phonk.
The meme about the expansion cards sounding better than a room full of vintage analogs is not entirely a joke. The 'Vintage Keys' card is still the best-sounding set of ROMs of electric pianos, organs and, especially, Mellotrons than anything I've ever heard outside of maybe a Kurzweil.
There's something so magical about this synth. I make synthpunk with chiptune and industrial leanings, and other than 4-op FM, there's nothing like its ring modulation structures for noisy patches for that kind of music, except maybe the Kawai K1 and K4. I just wish there was an editor with an easy mode so that the finer points (bias, scaling, etc) were abstracted away.
These have been staples in my studio for over the last 25+ years, JV1080/JD990/JV880 - If you ever get a chance to look a the motherboard inside these machines they are a total work of art. Solid construction all around. No issues with dials or push buttons. The LCDs on the JD990 and JV880 were recently replaced with the new LCD technology and they look killer. I wish they had constructed the MC series of groove boxes with the same care of build quality. Great review and music !!! Thanks :) es ist immer Wunderschön !!!
I'm always happy when a new episode features a bad gear I own, because you always give a new perspective to everything. I've been using my Super JV for around two years now, and I've never realised how 90s it sounds until you started playing some of the patches 😁
The JV-1080 is very good and reasonable easy to operate. Remember that this is a now 30 year old tool with that 30 yo tech that comes with it. It has a today a very modern retro sound that is very usable
I still use a JV2080 as one of the centrepieces of my studio. Even as the OG sound of the 90s these things are still classics. (And the bigger screen on the 2080 makes programming it way easier!)
I agree I have a 2080 in my set up blown out with expansions and it is a usable piece of gear. I use it for small ear candy in the background. I also will sample many of the sounds, slap a few new age effects and filters on them, layer it , and Boom!!! I'll keep mine and maybe one day it will make a vintage list 👍👍👍
The 2080 has 8 expansion slots, and 3 insert effects - nearly all others in the range (except XV-5080, the 2080's successor) have only one insert effect plus reverb and chorus. 3 insert effects gives way more flexibility while keeping things in the midi domain. Super useful in the 90's. These days though it's trivial to record a track to audio then repeat with other tracks so three inserts isn't as essential. But yeah, JV-2080 is a beast. Was always jealous when I saw pics of people's racks with two JV-2080's both full of cards.
@@MeneTekelUpharsin Yes. An unexpanded JV-2080 has the same exact rom waveforms as the JV-1080. However, it has an extra bank of presets. A B C & D banks each have 128 sounds, the same on both. JV-2080, and later JV-1010 etc, have an E bank too. But it uses the same rom anyway. JV-2080 has better screen, 8 expansion slots vs 4, three insert effects vs one.
The fact that Roland can still sell subscriptions to these sound nearly 30 years later clearly tells you something about how good they really are. (and dot get ME started on the polyphony and multi-timbrality 🤣)
The black metal band Summoning used this for the drum and orchestral parts on their first few albums. Absolutely iconic if you’re a fan of that 90s Dungeon Synth sound
The JV-1080 will always hold a special place in my heart because it's keyboard version, the XP-50, was my first real keyboard and I learned so much about synthesis and sequencing with it. If you deep dive into it's capabilities it can produce some fantastic atmospheric pads and ambient sounds. For what it's worth, the expansion cards really open up the capabilities of it. When I got the Techno card installed in mine it made a massive difference. Lots of great classic synth samples and some very trendy 90s loops and samples to boot.
This was used in Powerslave/Exhumed. I have a soft spot for cheesy 90s romplers and this has some pretty nice sounds for ambient. I especially like the patch "Pure Tibet"
Hilarious episode ! I particularly like the way you use the LFO to make it sound totally ridiculous 😂 It reminds me when we listen to our old demos with a friend of mine and a totally absurd snare roll triggers our uncontrollable laughters 😂
It's all over Savage Garden's 'To the Moon and Back' and the album it was taken from. I've had two JV1080s; I expanded my second one with the SR-JV80 Orchestral and Vintage Synth cards or whatever they were called. It had to go when I bought a Fantom X8 and added the equivalent SRX cards.
I had the JV-2080 and I was very happy with it, it's a library of Roland's sounds and you can create an entire song with it. I had the Proteus 1, but I really prefer the JV-2080.
The JV-1080 was my first synth with, what seemed like, unlimited patches, alpha display and was capable of making any sound on enough get the swing of it. This synth set the bar.
These 90s Rolands are also staples of R&B and gospel vibes. If you can find the later 5080 that's probably the one to get. I've just ordered a Fantom 07 for throw and go gigs and to basically function as a mini Kronos with 76 keys. I look forward to revisiting the 90s tones that are lurking just under its surface.
Personally, I really love the sounds from the 1080 and the whole JV series. I mainly make indie pop and the sounds of the 80's and 90's are very "in" in that genre right now. Also, if you enjoy making Boards of Canada/808 state covers, the 1080 is unbeatable coupled with a capable sampler.
Still One of My favs synths for deep pads and ambient sounds, Hard to program but if you know what you are doing once you dive deep in its sounddesign is so Worth it. A beast
One of the best rompers ever made, and the expansions for them were amazing, I’m using roland cloud and those SRX expansion VSTs are really good even today
Audio 'Florian' Pilz in 2035: At the first glance the Prophet 10 is ticking all the boxes. I wanna know if it can keep up with the TB-3 in this Americore Soda Pop Uptempo Downstream Synth Sneeze
Did I hear a sax sample in that first jam at the end? There's something about these ROMpler sounds that make them perfect nostalgia fuel for me. Great video as always!
Dude, you are killing me. I have one, wanted to sell it, and now I just can't. Did anyone ever read the manual? It's such a monster beyond the presets.
One of the best synths ever! So deep- endless sounds. I like it better than most of the Roland synths that have come after. Something special about the sound.
Completely agree with everything said in the video. Yet, somehow this still managed to remain one of my fav piece of hardware gear ever :D I just can't get bored of those sounds.
I mean, not gonna lie, that thing sounds great and I feel that I could spend an entire day, or week, just spinning up cheese from it and soaking up that 90s vibe. Your demo made me feel like it was about to sell me a VHS or amplifier (it was great lol).
