I needed a new synth for my WX5 Wind Controller and keyboards, for recording and live performance. Like most people, I wanted the most for my money. I got it.

Well over a thousand patches, most of which are extremely usable. Excellent piano patches (especially on the included Session board...my favorite is patch 001, check it out). As someone else mentioned, there is a lot of variety to the sounds beyond the mandatory "techno/dance" stuff. Some good strings (although way better if you add the Orchestral expansion board...more on that later), horn sections, decent saxophones (although I play sax and have an aversion to sax synths, these are better than most), and...well, there are simply too many great patches to list.

Honestly, I can't imagine shelling out the bucks for a JV-1080 when all the same sounds are right here, even considering the better features of the 1080. Most of those extras are cosmetic and the 1010 does everything I need (and does it well). Look at it like you're getting twice the synth in half the space. It's not far from the truth.

As others have noted, the software for editing patches for the JV-1010 is no picnic. From my limited experience, however, it is very powerful. I created a couple new patches of my own design in the "user" bank and did rather well with them. BIG learning curve, especially if you're not familiar with both computers and the intricacies of sound. Nevertheless, for the patient and determined, there is a lot of power there to be had. Practically every little nuance of every waveform can be adjusted, tweaked, and generally twisted to your desire.

Someone had mentioned they'd wished it was possible to control some of the more subtle nuances of the 1010 with foot controllers. Well...it IS "possible." Perhaps not as easy as we'd like, but very possible. I use a great foot controller from Yamaha, the MFC10, which can be programmed to do just about anything with MIDI you can think of.

With the JV-1010 manual in one hand and the MFC10 manual in the other, it is possible to set the pedals up to control just about everything on the synth. Like I said, maybe it's not the easiest solution, but it's a solution and again...for the patient...anything is possible.

I've found when controlling the JV-1010 with Cakewalk Sonar, the default reverb and chorus controls within Sonar (usually) work just great at controlling the corresponding FX on the synth. Also, there are instrument definitions available for the JV-1010 and most of the expansion boards which make browsing and selecting patches a breeze.

I added the Orchestral expansion board to my JV-1010. Why did I pick orchestral? One of the most often-used sounds in practically any style of music is strings. You can hear them in pop, jazz, rock, country, blues, R&B, and yes...occassionally even in a metal or rap tune. I will tell you, I've never heard sweeter, silkier, smoother strings come out of any synth I've heard.

Not just strings, either...brass, woodwinds, choral groups, flutes, trumpets, french horns...all the essential orchestral instruments are there, and most (if not all) or high-quality and infinitely usable. If I could have only one expansion board (and that's more-or-less true considering the 1010 has just one slot)...I'd pick the Orchestral board every time.

That aside...what's already packed into the 1010 is extremely usable in itself, with or without an extra expansion board. For the price, you cannot beat this synth. Heck, for TWICE the price you might have a hard time finding sounds this good.

Roland, in a nutshell, kicks serious hiney in the sound department.

- Heather Haze

I just got started with the JV-1010 and I couldn't be more pleased. The session patches are awesome and I can't believe the price on this thing. It was pretty easy to get started with it even knowing next to nothing about midi. Many patches sound like a CD. I got the house expansion board and it's great, too. So if you're just getting started with midi or want to add a good general library of patches with high sound quality, I would definitely recommend the JV-1010. The only drawback I have encountered so far is that it won't save settings for a performance (i.e. which patch with which channel) so you have to re-enter the patch numbers (which is easy) until you convert to audio. I have only been working with it for about a week but generally I have been blown away, especially by the value. There are almost no other synth modules in this price range that I have seen.

i have just got one...although i already have other Roland staff this sound really very good...i play trance but i can also realise that the acoustic instruments sound great as well...the synth sounds are very nice and with a little tweaking and effects processing they sound huge...a real winner at it's price...i feel almost proud to own one...absolutelly recomended !!!

Yeah baby, this is really a great module! I own it a year now, and I really looooooove it.
The SESSION-board sounds are great of course (you've got to play that stereo piano(!), the great strings and the Tenor Sax....WoW!!), and of course the possibility to build a exp. board in the JV1010. I bought the 60 & 70's board, for the Rhodes and Hammond sounds, and now this module is complete.

this is a good module with a ton of sounds. I was also happy to find about 85 percent of them are not techno/dance sounds. nothing against that music, but it just isnt what i make and it seems tough to find sounds these days not geared towards that. it does have some of these sounds, just enough for my personal use and the occasional bit of them i may put into a song. some great acoustic guitar sounds, nice pianos perhaps a little bright, drum sounds are not the best ive heard, but this isnt a drum machine so all in all not bad. the software that comes with this module was very tough for me to figure out...and at first would crash alot on me, its seemed to smooth out a bit. the manual is no help for anything except a list of sounds. I wouldve liked more from that especially since im fairly new to the world of "electronic" music making and what one may call a "midiot." It took me a while to get this routed to my cpu with my keyboard and Cakewalk. For the money this is definately worth the buy, lots of useable stuff and about as low as youre gonna pay for a good sound module.

It has good sounds, though the volume is kind of low, need some balls up amplification to cut thru the mix in a live sit. The dials are hard to see as well, if limited time wise to find a particular patch, however plenty of good sounds, easy to access,can't beat the price for what you get, the manual is not very useful, its very basic, overall I'm very pleased, this is my first synth module, and it turned an old outdated DX7 synth (using it as a controller keyboard)into a functional board with lots of great sounds.

The JV1010 is amazing. It takes up almost no space, has a great guilty and features, and it's one of the cheapest modules out there!

Just the thing I needed. I own a Korg Triton proX & Kurzweil K2500XS which I use on stage & in the studio. I was still missing that sound we all want called ROLAND. This little bugger has the best sounds I could ask for. The only downside is the manual, but thats roland for yah. If you need to add some Bite & Depth to your sound, here is your ticket.

The computer based editing software is the best I've ever seen. Unfortunately, you have to do all modifications before the gig. Using the synth is extremely easy! The sounds onboard give you a rich bank of sound to draw from. I've been able to create wonderful sounding sequences without any post effect processing! This is a must have for any keyboard setup!

Superb, portable, classic Roland sounds. With the 'Keyboards of the 60s & 70s' card, there are some good organ and elec' piano patches, although some can be a bit thin. I would like to be able to control effects easily with a foot-switch during live performances. But for the price, it's excellent.