Juno DS88 (Advanced Live Use)

[HKC]

Hi everybody and thanks for having me onboard

I play in a band that have a fairly advanced keyboard setup based around the ancient JV2080 and it's performance presets.
Although it's an ancient machine, it is also quite advanced in the terms of live use and we use it to the max. We have many presets with up to all 15 channels (10 is locked for drums) in use, not simultaneously but during a song so it's not a polyphonic problem. It is however an old machine now and we are starting to worry about life after the 2080

I hope there are some users here who use the DS88 in a similar way and, if so, I have a few questions I would like to ask.

Question 1: I have read the manual of the DS88 and as far as I understand it has 128 performance presets (as opposed to 32 in the 2080). I assume that it is also possible to place different sounds all over the keyboard in the same way as with the 2080 incl volume, pan, fx etc. I also assume that it is possible to apply the faders on the DS88 to certain sounds so I can i.e. turn up the the part that is placed in the middle of the keyboard while leaving everything else unaffected. Is that true.....

Question 2: The DS88 comes with a huge amount of sounds, are these sounds based on the classic Roland library (in other words, will I be able to reproduce the JV2080 sounds on the DS88).

Question 3: Can our own samples be added fairly effortlessly to the machine. We have a Roland SPDS but sometimes it would be better if the note could be triggered from a key instead of a pad. We are not talking multisampled piano, it is mostly just sound FX that we consider to be important enough to use in the live set.

Question 4: Can the arpeggio (and vocoder) be used on just a part of the keyboard.

Question 5: Can the DS88 be backed fully up through the USB dongle. We travel quite a bit and sometimes it would make sense to rent a DS88 instead of bringing it (international flights for instance). It's one of the reasons for being interested in the machine, it seems to be very common.

Question 6: Is it fragile, usually Roland stuff is very well built but what about this one.....


PS we are not interested in having computers on stage. We play a lot of gigs where the time we have to get ready before a gig is very limited and even 2 minutes matters a lot.

All the best
Henrik Krogh

 

[happyrat1]

I own a DS61, the little brother of the 88, but I can't begin to answer half of your questions.

I will say that it's very well built and know of no QC issues out of the box.

For the rest of your questions I'd advise contacting Roland and talking to or emailing a product specialist.

For the most part I have to say that my demands are nowhere near as stringent as yours.

Sorry

Gary

 

[AaronPDX]

Hi Henrik,

First off, I think your post should have gone into the Roland-specific forum:
https://www.keyboardforums.com/forums/roland-keyboards.73/

In general, I think the answer is yes to your questions, but to be sure you should read the JUNO-DS user guide (a google search away) and the related 'parameter guide'. And I'm completely ignorant about q's 4 and 5 -- though I know the free Roland Librarian software is supported, so you can easily back up in that way -- though you would probably need to load any custom Axial sounds in each new keyboard...?

Roland Axial sounds can be imported; not sure this includes your JV2080.

Sampled sound effects are supported and can be triggered from keys. Haven't tried this, myself.

Also would refer you to:
rolandclan.com which has dedicated DS forum (albeit woefully underattended, I wonder where the user base of this keyboard is hiding).

It seems sturdy enough. Been moving it back and forth to rehearsals, but have not yet gigged with it.


http://forums.rolandclan.com/viewforum.php?f=60&sid=b667be9f9a957a243f9be9f12fc48f3c

 

[AaronPDX]

Hi Henrik,

First off, I think your post should have gone into the Roland-specific forum:
https://www.keyboardforums.com/forums/roland-keyboards.73/

In general, I think the answer is yes to your questions, but to be sure you should read the JUNO-DS user guide (a google search away) and the related 'parameter guide'. And I'm completely ignorant about q's 4 and 5 -- though I know the free Roland Librarian software is supported, so you can easily back up in that way -- though you would probably need to load any custom Axial sounds in each new keyboard...?

Roland Axial sounds can be imported; not sure this includes your JV2080.

Sampled sound effects are supported and can be triggered from keys. Haven't tried this, myself.

Also would refer you to:
rolandclan.com which has dedicated DS forum (albeit woefully underattended, I wonder where the user base of this keyboard is hiding).

It seems sturdy enough. Been moving it back and forth to rehearsals, but have not yet gigged with it.

Hope this helps.
Aaron

 

[HKC]

Hi and thanks for the replies
I went to a store today where I knew there is a guy who knows his MIDI. It turns out that you can't spread sounds out all over the keyboard. It's max two sounds at the time.
The big brother FA-08 has all the features I'm after it seems......

Using these keyboards to the max has strangely gone out of fashion so very few actually knows what is hidden under the surface and help is hard to find. It's funny because 30 years ago it was kind of hip to know your way around these things. There is still no better way to do this live (and backtracks isn't playing live).

All the best
Henrik

 

[AaronPDX]

Hi Henrik,

You can definitely spread sounds around. It requires a little bit of parameter adjustment but I've done it, creating a 3-point split. See: http://forums.rolandclan.com/viewtopic.php?f=60&t=53713

Now, if you mean you can't layer more than 2 at a time, I'm not sure on that. Though with the immense polyphony of this beast, I am guessing you can.

 

[HKC]

Aha
I think the man in the shop thought I meant if I could set up the DS88 spreading midichannels across the keyboard. It is only possible to do with two channels but the other thing that you refer to is actually what I'm looking for. My needs is exactly like the ones in the thread that you guided me to.
It is also exactly like the JV2080 is used in the band at the moment so I guess the DS88 is back in the game again.

Thank you very much

 

[HKC]

Hi again

AaaronPDX, can you assign volume-control (by one of the sliders) to just one of the sounds in the preset you described you made with three different sounds spread out across the keyboard.

HKC

 

[happyrat1]

Actually the DS has something called "Superlayer" or something like that that allows you to put up to 5 sounds into a layer, at least if I recall correctly.

There's a whole slew of tutorials on the beast which delve pretty deeply into every feature on Youtube.

https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=roland juno ds tutorial

You may want to spend a little time scoping those out.

I'm still finding myself referring back to those every now and again as time permits.

Gary

 

[AaronPDX]

@gary: Thanks for reminding me of this feature which I haven't explored yet.

'Super Layer' has its own button next to the Split and Dual buttons. Its screen is shown on p 5 of Owner's Manual, and discussed on p. 6:

"You can overlay a patch several times, slightly shifting the pitches of each layer. This is called 'detuning.' Using the “Super Layer” function, you can easily set the detuning and the number of times you overlay the patch (number of parts), to create more spacious or thicker tones."

So if I understand correctly, it allows only layering but no splitting.

However, "Within Performance mode, the state in which neither split, dual, nor super layer is selected is called '16-part mode'; this allows you to make more detailed settings. For details, refer to 'Parameter Guide (English)' (PDF)."


@Henrik, you asked about the sliders. Of the 4, one is for Mic level, another for rhythm and phrase pad level, and the other 2 are for the lower and upper parts of a split. The Parameter Guide PDF discusses how to reassign these (and the 4 control knobs above them) when using the unit as a DAW software controller (p 37), but I didn't see any mention of reassigning them for other parts of a '16 part mode' split. If your research turns up anything will you let us know?

 

[AaronPDX]

@gary, that was the magic YouTube search term!

This tutorial is quite useful to learn how to start working with 16-part Mode:

The next part walks you through splitting in 16-part mode:

This one shows Super Layer:

Note that it has to be the same patch. For layering different patches you'd use Dual or 16-part mode.

 

[happyrat1]

You're very welcome guys. I've been noticing a lot of times lately that companies tend to put out really skimpy manuals then support the keyboard mainly with series of kickass video tutorials on good old youtube.

Roland did this with my JD-Xi as well as my Juno DS. Studiologic did it with the Sledge. All recent keyboards out in the past few years. Kurzweil was doing it years ago with the PC3* series.

The trick is knowing when and where to search for them all.

Like I said, the trend is for manuals to become less useful with most of the handholding in video format instead these days.

Gary