SHOWCASE: Roland JV880 Synthesizer Module

I have always had a keen interest in making music, I started when I was about 12 on a neat little freeware program called LMMS (I will be doing a tutorial on how to use that very very soon!) which is a software music sequencer. I was bought my first keyboard at the age of 8, a casio, and played it almost every single day. I progressed on to buying a CME UF50 MIDI controller keyboard to play directly into LMMS before purchasing FL Studio and using that to make some slightly better sounding beats. A few more years down the line I bought a Roland Juno Di synthesizer, but sold it after a year as it wasn't really my cup of tea. After taking a year or so out of music, walking home from school passing Cash Generator I saw out of the corner of my eye a synthesizer sat on display and I purchased it in a heartbeat. I give to you ladies and gentlemen, the Roland JV880 Multi Timbral Synthesizer Module!

The machine is 22 years of age and in remarkable condition! It's in a 19 inch 1U form factor, so it's a rather compact machine. The device has no build in means of playing it, this is done by hooking it up to an outboard MIDI keyboard via the MIDI input on the rear of the device. 

Lets take a look at what the front of the device has to offer:

At the very top we see the machines name obviously. Below that is the headphone output so you can play in complete silence and a multifunction volume control. Obviously rotating this alters the volume but pushing the knob allows you to quickly preview the selected sound. On the very right we see an LCD display which is a 2 line 23 character LCD display. 

After the display is where the buttons are at. Top right and working across we have: Data rotary encoder which allows you to alter the parameters of any options displayed on the screen, this is mainly used for selecting which sound you are using, it also doubles up as a button. The patch/perform button, this sets the device up for 8 part midi playback through a midi in allowing you to select up to 8 sounds across the 8 midi channels, patch mode allows you to play single sounds. Edit button allows you to change many parameters of the sound you are playing including envelopes and LFO settings. System button enters into the system set up menu to change keyboard tuning etc. Rhythm allows you to set up the drum kit, which sound is triggered on which key. Utility houses functions like loading from SR-JV80 cards and PCM/Data cards. Below we have the cursor buttons which changes the option on screen, there may be several alterable parameters on the screen which you scroll through using the cursor buttons. Tone select, I still have not worked out the usefulness of this button, the manual is huge! The tone switches also double up when in the perform mode to mute, monitor and info, but when in patch mode they allow you to turn off the different timbres of the sound, up to 4 oscillators per sound. 

At the very far right of the machine there are 2 card slots, one for PCM cards and one for data cards. PCM cards hold sounds or 'samples' that can be played back, the corresponding data slot tells the synthesizer how these sounds are to be set up for playback, therefor you must have both the PCM and Data card in the machine to make use of this function. There is a nice chunky power switch and a small light that tells you when there is MIDI activity being sent to and from the machine. 

Around the rear of the machine we have the power cord, which unfortunately is not a kettle lead and is fixed.

The unit is 240 volt AC at 20W, and is produced in Japan!

There are 3 MIDI ports on this device, an input for sending data to the machine, an output for machine to send data from the machine and a thru to allow daisy chaining of devices. 

There are 4 outputs on the device for audio, both boiling down to 2 balanced outputs (main and sub). Each output can however be used as a mono output. 

The sound quality of the device is amazing although the built in patches are in some places a bit miserable there are many classic sounding rich sounds. This device came with a pre-installed SR-JV80-04 card, which is to my liking as it is a classic synth expansion board which has many sounds from older synths on it, really making this a wonderful vintage-ish digital synthesizer. Editing patches on the machine is a bit of a pain due to the small display but with practice can be done fairly quickly.

Thanks for reading

Joseph Wright -SCOTECH

SHOWCASE: Cheapo poundworld SD card reader

I love cheap tech accessories and boy have I got something exciting for you today. BOOM. Poundworld's own brand of technology (doesn't even have a brand on it...) brings for your delectation a 'USB Card Reader'.

The packaging is nice and minimalist, showing the product in all of its glory. If you're wondering, the text at the top reads: "Suitable for use with SD / MMC / RS-MMC". The back of the packaging is a little more wordy however:

The blurb is nice and concise explaining exactly the uses of such a dark and magical piece of technology, detailing how portable it is as well.

Opening the packaging is nice and easy to my surprise, no faffing about with scissors! Once the device is out you can immediately feel the cheapness. Horrible tacky plastic that feels like you could break it just by looking in its direction, but it hasn't done that yet.

And yes, the USB plug is normal shape and size:

DOES IT WORK?

Yes. Yes it does. 

Once again thank you for reading and good night!

contact me at: scotechnology.official@gmail.com or leave a comment

Joseph Wright - SCOTECH

SHOWCASE: My office and personal space!

I like many people out there am a proper gadget man. My bedroom and office (it's one room...) is a place for me to work and relax, so I thought I'd give you a little tour of my room. Starting with the office space:

Directly to the left is my laptop table. On here is a HP Envy Touchsmart laptop with a Core i5 processor, NVidia GeForce GT740M and 8Gb of RAM. On top of that is my Beats By Dre Pro headphones, everybody slates Dre headphones as being overpriced and indeed they are... But I got these at a third of their price second hand so I'm not complaining. My speakers are a set of Logitech 5.1 Surround speakers, but I forget their model number, they are good though. Up on my desk the most prominent thing is my huge 32" TV which is being used as a computer screen at 1080p, giving me plenty of screen space. My keyboard is a 1990's Dell QuietKey and let it be told, I have not found a keyboard ever that has matched how nice it is to type on this keyboard. I have a Roccat Isku gaming keyboard which cost £70 and that doesn't even come close to the satisfaction of typing on this 99p keyboard from the second hand shop. 

Next to my 32" screen I have 2x 15 inch screens. These are auxiliary screens, one of which is connected to my main desktop as a secondary screen for web browsing while I program, it works very nicely. The screen next to that is simply for testing computers when they are up for bench testing and fixing. Next to the white monitor is my lovely little HTC Shift X9500 UMPC. It's a very under powered computer but is lovely for allowing me to test out mobile applications that I develop (I may do a very outdated review on this at some point).  At the very far right of my desk is a small Compaq Presario desktop computer which is used as a PXE server for testing computers and a mini web server for school projects and hosting files I may need in school (I access this through VNC on my main screen). 

Next is the leisure area of my room:

To the very far right is where the majority of my unused crap is, a didgeridoo, some Sanyo speakers and spare shelving (boring stuff..). To the distance is a Tannoy Mercury speaker, I have two of these and they sound IMPECCABLE.  Next are my two game stands, one is full of PS3 games (44 in total) and the one next to it is full of NES and Atari 2600 games, the NES is on top of the taller rack. My TV unit as on it (working from the right): XBOX 360, Nintendo Wii, Sony PS3, 50 Inch Samsung Plasma TV and a Dell Dimension 3100C (of which I did a strip down here: http://scotechnologyofficial.blogspot.co.uk/2014/01/dell-dimension-3100c-strip-down-and.html). 

Connected to the Dell is a 160Gb external hard drive for storing all my media. In the cabinet there is: A HP laptop from days gone by, Technics separates system and all of my XBOX 360 games. 

That's my home office. There are other little things like:

• My office is networked wired not wireless, giving me a small layer of extra security. This is done with the use of a secondary sky hub and power-line adapter. I know this doesn't protect internet traffic, but at least it protects my internal traffic. 
• My phone is a Samsung Galaxy Note 2, a fantastic bit of kit.
• My iPad is hiding somewhere, I use this mostly for watching YouTube in bed and reading.

Thanks for reading,

Joseph Wright - SCOTech