ID of old Roland expansion board?

[Mighty Motif Max]

Hi,

I recently bought a JV-1000. In one of the two compartments on the bottom, there appears to be an expansion board. I don’t if I should take it out or not since it has probably been in there for twenty years. I have attached a picture of what it looks like when you open the compartment up. From looking at the VE-GS1 and VE-JV1 owners manuals, I think it might be the VE-GS1 board. What do you think?

The board in question

The other slot, which I think is empty.

The board I am wondering about is in the left slot (not open in the picture).

Thanks!

 

[happyrat1]

Assuming that the keyboard powers up there should be some way to identify if a particular expansion board has been installed from somewhere in the menus.

If nothing else there should at least be an additional bank installed with voices that aren't normally accessible without the expansion.

I'd suggest asking over on the Roland Clan forums to see what they say.

http://forums.rolandclan.com/

Usually when you open these things up there's a part number either etched into the PC board or sometimes there's a sticker with the part number. Given the age of the board, the sticker, if there was one has probably detached and is flying loose inside the casing now.

I think Roland Clan is your best bet for solid answers.

Gary

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

Assuming that the keyboard powers up there should be some way to identify if a particular expansion board has been installed from somewhere in the menus.

If nothing else there should at least be an additional bank installed with voices that aren't normally accessible without the expansion.

I'd suggest asking over on the Roland Clan forums to see what they say.

http://forums.rolandclan.com/

Usually when you open these things up there's a part number either etched into the PC board or sometimes there's a sticker with the part number. Given the age of the board, the sticker, if there was one has probably detached and is flying loose inside the casing now.

I think Roland Clan is your best bet for solid answers.

Gary

The keyboard works great, actually. I haven't been able to find such a function in the menus. The owners manual shows you what one screen looks like with no board installed, that's it from what I can see. I am a member over at Roland Clan also, I just posted here thinking that perhaps someone here would know too.


Thanks.

 

[happyrat1]

Never fear. 12 years from now someone will stumble on this thread and give you a definitive answer

Gary

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

I know, right? Like that other thread...

I actually just got an answer from a user on another forum who owned a JV-90 and kept all the expansion boards when he sold it. And from another user who found a really old grainy picture of the backside of the board. According to them, it's a GS1 (GS) board. That's great in that case. If I wanted to buy one it would be around USD $150 or so. Hoping to get another confirmation somewhere else, but their answers match what I thought it is from the diagrams.

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

Here's the info from Roland's website:


VE-GS1 Voice Expansion Board

Roland's VE-GS1-01 offers the industry standard sounds and features of Roland's
GS instruments on a user-installable board for the JV-Series Synths, A-70 and
A-90.

- 226 GS sounds; 28-voice polyphony; 16-part multitimbral
- Compatible with JV-1000, JV-90, JV-50 and JV-35
- Adds an additional reverb/chorus effects processor
- User installable


A nice addition I think.

 

[happyrat1]

I own a vintage Roland SC-88VL sound canvas that is GS compatible. To be honest it's a pretty unspectacular sound set compared to even a modern Casio WK-3200

Still. whatever floats your boat. I know I'd never shell out $150 smackeroos for that vintage of ROMpler. Especially not a daughterboard.

Gary

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

I would be more likely to go for the VE-JV1. The idea of these boards is that when you layer sounds or make sequences, you get double the polyphony of the base keyboard. The nice thing about the GS board (I've been trying to go through some of the sounds) is that it rounds out the soundset filling in the gaps, and makes the keyboard GS/GM compatible, ie 16-part multitimbral vs 8-part in the stock model. But I agree that $150 is too much for one of those. Making money off of the few users of those old boards I guess. As you can see, I have more modern stuff fairly covered. I actually think that some of the sounds on the GS board and the JV-1000 are better than the newer Casio lower-end stuff. PX5S etc are something else entirely.

 

[Mighty Motif Max]

I was able to successfully and safely remove the board a few minutes ago. And yes, indeed, it is a Roland VE-GS1 board.

Thanks!




-Max