Roland= no the rack is not dead! integra 7

[padking]

Well many of us thought that the rack was ''out''but take a look at this

http://www.rolandconnect.com/product.ph ... -7&l=en-CA

the integra 7 from Roland, I am not a Roland
fan but that thing look's awesome.
Don't know the price yet but..........

Now I think that the possibility of a Kronos
rack on the 4 th of september is not that crazy,

what say you ?

Padking

[Dniss]

Now I think that the possibility of a Kronos
rack on the 4 th of september is not that crazy

Howdy neighbour,

Very nice unit!

No it's not crazy at all.

cya

[GregC]

it reminds me of the XR rack . Sort of Rolands greatest SRX hits, Latest supernatural sounds from the NX and possibly the Jup 80.

So its not anything I haven't heard, more of a current repackage in a rack

[jimknopf]

I thought it would be the best thing they could do after the problem of the weird JP80/JP50 concept, which - as far as I hear - has sold extremely poor. A "best of Roland" rack with everything from JV5080 times to the 12 SRX boards plus JP80 sounds could have had very good chances on the market - if sold at an interesting price point and being built in a way attracting buyers.

At second view it was there again: the incredible mixture of great and terribly halfbaked with has become the Roland trademark after the departure of Eric Persing.

The integra has 22 banks of interesting sounds on board. So far so fine.
But now comes the bad part:
"4 Slots * The following titles are loaded from the internal memory into the virtual slots. SRX Series (12 titles) SRX-01 Dynamic Drum Kits SRX-02 Concert Piano SRX-03 Studio SRX SRX-04 Symphonique Strings SRX-05 Supreme Dance SRX-06 Complete Orchestra SRX-07 Ultimate Keys SRX-08 Platinum Trax SRX-09 World Collection SRX-10 Big Brass Ensemble SRX-11 Complete Piano SRX-12 Classic EPs Expansion SuperNATURAL Sounds (6 titles) ExSN1 Ethnic ExSN2 Wood Winds ExSN3 Session ExSN4 A.Guitar ExSN5 Brass ExSN6 SFX Expansion Hi-Quality PCM Sounds (1 title) ExPCM HQ GM2 + HQ PCM Sound Collection * The SRX Series and the Expansion SuperNATURAL Sounds use one virtual slot per title. * The Expansion Hi-Quality PCM Sounds use all four virtual slots.

- as far as I understand this means that form the 22 Banks you can only have a choice of 4 banks of choice active at a time! To me that means that this rack is completely useless for live use. And in the studio that means constant loading and unloading of banks and bouncing, to make any use of all the sound possibilities. Who at Roland has planned this mess of a concept????

- as far as I read, they changed the FX, so that SRX sounds will not sound like they were programmed originally, and you can't import 5080 patches (which would have been really important for 5080 users)

- polyphony is 128. That seems ok for some simple sounds, but how about the layering, which is essential for many JP80 synth sounds. Not funny soon as you would try that, I guess.

- effect structure is still the extremely unflexible pre-JP-80 structure with one IFX per patch

Everybody can judge for themselves. From my view the funny present Roland Japan management has produced one more ridiculous thing, which has been constructed in the "weird up to absurd" category they seem so familiar with in the last years. The only exception I see is the VPiano - at an incredible price point. The integra rack does not make ANY sense to me as it is.

Or - wait a minute...
Perhaps it was built exclusively with Kronos users in mind. They can load bank by bank into the 4 virtual slots, resample what they like, import it into the Kronos, and use it there with bigger polyphy and great effect routing, and using all the sounds you like at the same time, instead of being bound to the silly Roland bank structure. What an irony: the only good use for this rack might be Kronos user import ...
Was that the Roland master plan?

[cello]

Don't know the price yet but..........

Digital Village have it priced at £1,199

( http://www.dv247.com/keyboards-and-midi ... -7--101543 )

The whole Integra thing seems a strange mix (as jimknopf suggests above in better detail than I could explain) but ultimately I don't like racks, so this isn't for me...

[brimoore]

The wireless connectivity would be SOOOOOOOOOOO nice in the Kronos!

[GregC]

I thought it would be the best thing they could do after the problem of the weird JP80/JP50 concept, which - as far as I hear - has sold extremely poor. A "best of Roland" rack with everything from JV5080 times to the 12 SRX boards plus JP80 sounds could have had very good chances on the market - if sold at an interesting price point and being built in a way attracting buyers.

At second view it was there again: the incredible mixture of great and terribly halfbaked with has become the Roland trademark after the departure of Eric Persing.

The integra has 22 banks of interesting sounds on board. So far so fine.
But now comes the bad part:
"4 Slots * The following titles are loaded from the internal memory into the virtual slots. SRX Series (12 titles) SRX-01 Dynamic Drum Kits SRX-02 Concert Piano SRX-03 Studio SRX SRX-04 Symphonique Strings SRX-05 Supreme Dance SRX-06 Complete Orchestra SRX-07 Ultimate Keys SRX-08 Platinum Trax SRX-09 World Collection SRX-10 Big Brass Ensemble SRX-11 Complete Piano SRX-12 Classic EPs Expansion SuperNATURAL Sounds (6 titles) ExSN1 Ethnic ExSN2 Wood Winds ExSN3 Session ExSN4 A.Guitar ExSN5 Brass ExSN6 SFX Expansion Hi-Quality PCM Sounds (1 title) ExPCM HQ GM2 + HQ PCM Sound Collection * The SRX Series and the Expansion SuperNATURAL Sounds use one virtual slot per title. * The Expansion Hi-Quality PCM Sounds use all four virtual slots.

- as far as I understand this means that form the 22 Banks you can only have a choice of 4 banks of choice active at a time! To me that means that this rack is completely useless for live use. And in the studio that means constant loading and unloading of banks and bouncing, to make any use of all the sound possibilities. Who at Roland has planned this mess of a concept????

- as far as I read, they changed the FX, so that SRX sounds will not sound like they were programmed originally, and you can't import 5080 patches (which would have been really important for 5080 users)

- polyphony is 128. That seems ok for some simple sounds, but how about the layering, which is essential for many JP80 synth sounds. Not funny soon as you would try that, I guess.

- effect structure is still the extremely unflexible pre-JP-80 structure with one IFX per patch

Everybody can judge for themselves. From my view the funny present Roland Japan management has produced one more ridiculous thing, which has been constructed in the "weird up to absurd" category they seem so familiar with in the last years. The only exception I see is the VPiano - at an incredible price point. The integra rack does not make ANY sense to me as it is.

Or - wait a minute...
Perhaps it was built exclusively with Kronos users in mind. They can load bank by bank into the 4 virtual slots, resmple what they like, import it into the Kronos, and use it there with bigger polyphy and great effect routing, and using all the sounds you like at the same time, instead of being bound to the silly Roland bank structure. What an irony: the only good use for this rack might be Kronos user import ...
Was that the Roland master plan?

great for the Kronos

I bet this rack was cheap or cheaper to produce since its a repackage

I go back to the JV880 days( 3080, Rd pianos, XR rack) so the SRX compilation is sort of a yawn to my ears. Played and heard these sounds for over a decade. For someone who has never had a Roland JV/Xp/Fantom, a rack like this might be useful.

[jimknopf]

cello, the price point is really more than ok like that.

But imagine they had done it right with all sounds on board (or the possibility to load your own mix from all the banks into two supernatural and two pcm/SRX banks) and a better effects structure.

Even at a price point of up to 2000$ this thing would have been extremely attractive
a) for all Roland Fantom users getting JP80-sounds in a rack
b) for all other users getting a "best of Roland sounds" package in one unit.

I can't believe they missed one more huge opportunilty like that. It could have been their return to real user demands.

[Broadwave]

I fear it will be dead in the water if Korg announce a Kronos Rack on Tuesday... but if so, that may drive the price down even further, and then I might consider one

[GregC]

I fear it will be dead in the water if Korg announce a Kronos Rack on Tuesday... but if so, that may drive the price down even further, and then I might consider one

u should have no fear.

Korg announced at 2011 NAMM there were no plans for a rack.

last I knew, no means no

[JuneauUnderground]

I believe I will hang on to my JP80, 1080, 2080, 3080, 5050, 5080, JD990, D550, and XR along with my JV80 and SRX cards for awhile longer.

Now if they want to come out with a rack unit that looks akin to the XV-5080 or V-synth XT, with a large touch screen, that has all this legacy and JP80 stuff in it, organized in a highly logical and usable form, then I would be very very interested. I could trade 150 pounds of gear for 20.

[apex]

I thought it would be the best thing they could do after the problem of the weird JP80/JP50 concept, which - as far as I hear - has sold extremely poor. A "best of Roland" rack with everything from JV5080 times to the 12 SRX boards plus JP80 sounds could have had very good chances on the market - if sold at an interesting price point and being built in a way attracting buyers.

At second view it was there again: the incredible mixture of great and terribly halfbaked with has become the Roland trademark after the departure of Eric Persing.

The integra has 22 banks of interesting sounds on board. So far so fine.
But now comes the bad part:
"4 Slots * The following titles are loaded from the internal memory into the virtual slots. SRX Series (12 titles) SRX-01 Dynamic Drum Kits SRX-02 Concert Piano SRX-03 Studio SRX SRX-04 Symphonique Strings SRX-05 Supreme Dance SRX-06 Complete Orchestra SRX-07 Ultimate Keys SRX-08 Platinum Trax SRX-09 World Collection SRX-10 Big Brass Ensemble SRX-11 Complete Piano SRX-12 Classic EPs Expansion SuperNATURAL Sounds (6 titles) ExSN1 Ethnic ExSN2 Wood Winds ExSN3 Session ExSN4 A.Guitar ExSN5 Brass ExSN6 SFX Expansion Hi-Quality PCM Sounds (1 title) ExPCM HQ GM2 + HQ PCM Sound Collection * The SRX Series and the Expansion SuperNATURAL Sounds use one virtual slot per title. * The Expansion Hi-Quality PCM Sounds use all four virtual slots.

- as far as I understand this means that form the 22 Banks you can only have a choice of 4 banks of choice active at a time! To me that means that this rack is completely useless for live use. And in the studio that means constant loading and unloading of banks and bouncing, to make any use of all the sound possibilities. Who at Roland has planned this mess of a concept????

- as far as I read, they changed the FX, so that SRX sounds will not sound like they were programmed originally, and you can't import 5080 patches (which would have been really important for 5080 users)

- polyphony is 128. That seems ok for some simple sounds, but how about the layering, which is essential for many JP80 synth sounds. Not funny soon as you would try that, I guess.

- effect structure is still the extremely unflexible pre-JP-80 structure with one IFX per patch

Everybody can judge for themselves. From my view the funny present Roland Japan management has produced one more ridiculous thing, which has been constructed in the "weird up to absurd" category they seem so familiar with in the last years. The only exception I see is the VPiano - at an incredible price point. The integra rack does not make ANY sense to me as it is.

Or - wait a minute...
Perhaps it was built exclusively with Kronos users in mind. They can load bank by bank into the 4 virtual slots, resample what they like, import it into the Kronos, and use it there with bigger polyphy and great effect routing, and using all the sounds you like at the same time, instead of being bound to the silly Roland bank structure. What an irony: the only good use for this rack might be Kronos user import ...
Was that the Roland master plan?

I don't think it's 22. I think it's only 16 and 4 came be loaded... some of the stuff is in the internal ROM. and from my understanding the stuff that is "always" loaded is the 5080 stuff, the jp80 synth stuff, and the jp80 supernatural acoustic stuff...

then you have to choose (for the 4 slots) between the 12 SRX boards and the 4 "new" supernatural expansions that are now available.

[jimknopf]

The text cited above is Roland information and names 22 sound banks
- 12 SRX
- 6 JP80 (sn-sounds)
- 4 slots filled with pcm sounds
It excludes no group from having to be loaded into the 4 virtual slots, and it names no other behavior for any of them.

Would be fine if I'm wrong.

[apex]

The text cited above is Roland information and names 22 sound banks
- 12 SRX
- 6 JP80 (sn-sounds)
- 4 slots filled with pcm sounds
It excludes no group from having to be loaded into the 4 virtual slots, and it names no other behavior for any of them.

Would be fine if I'm wrong.

Right but I think the jp80 stuff is loaded in standard rom....

[Chriskk]

I don't see why "4 slots for SRX cards" is a problem. No other Roland synths offer more than 4 SRX slots anyway.