Anyone used SR-JV80-03 Piano Board? Opinions Please...

I own a Roland XP-50 which has served me well in the 12 years that i've owned it. The stock piano patches are reasonable, but technology has come a long way in the last decade, and i'm now revisiting my options to acquire a better piano sound.

I may simply end up buying a second keyboard used that has a decent piano sound; i've been toying with the Roland RD range and the Yamaha S90ES. Budget concerns will prevent me making that purchase for a while though. The RDs sound great, but lack the variety of other synth sounds (I know they take expansion boards, but that's more cash I don't have), and the S90ES piano is almost a little too "round and bouncy" for my liking (i.e. lacking on the attack transients that are clearer on the RD range).

A second option is for me to purchase and install the SR-JV80-03 Piano board; these seem to go on eBay for $100-130 range. I am reluctant though to buy the board without knowing how good the patches are and how much better (if at all) they will be than the pre-existing piano patches in my XP-50.

My use of piano will be anything from solo classical type recordings, to jazz and funk where it needs to sit in the mix, to live performance where it will need to cut through. Do any of you own this board, or have you used it? If so, what are your opinions a) on its own merits, and b) as an a/b comparison with the existing piano patches in the XP-50.

As always, any feedback is welcome, encouraged, and appreciated. And yes, I realize that I will be sacrificing 88 weighted keys if I stick with the XP-50. Also, i'm not interested in any software piano solutions before anyone points me in that direction - take a look at my sig - my PC would blow up and burn my house to the ground if I even contemplated installing a decent piano soft-synth!

Stay away from the SRX-3 -- this is older stuff.

The best Roland piano for Fantom and prior is the SRX-11 Complete Piano. It contains, among other things, the Superior Grand sample from the RD-700SX. It's a 4-layer sample, and rivals the quality of the S700 sample in the Yamaha S90ES, which is imho, the best available. I like the Superior Grand sample for a more intimate sound.

There's another couple of piano samples on the card, as well as a few patches with strings, etc. You'll like it, and if you watch E-bay, you can catch one for under $200 (be patient).

The other SRX card to get, imho, is the SRX-7. No acoustic pianos, but plenty of synth keyboards -- these are the best Roland samples available, until they get the new format cards out for the GX, I guess, although this is a wait and see -- I'm skeptical, as I feel the creative heart of Roland's sound design group was Eric Pershing, and he's doing his own thing now. Plenty of Eric's work in the SRX-7 card, by the way.

Can you even find the JV series expansion cards anymore? They sound okay, but not exactly up to the standards of modern software based samples.

ORIGINAL: bezonline

Thanks Dan and Kurt for the feedback. To clarify, the XP-50 that I own will only take SR-JV80 series boards, and not the SRX series. These boards would go into the XP-50/60/80 and JV 1080/2080. The other kicker is that the XP-50 being the older model doesn't have the ability to snych loops to midi clock like the XP-80 and the JV2080 do. Having said that, it does have some great sounds and I like the RPS phrase triggering feature. It has also stood up well to 12 years of solid playing - kudos to Roland for making a solid product.

Oops, sorry. I misread your post.

I also have an XV3080 and own the SR-JV symphonic card, but frankly, these sounds don't come up to par with even those available on Dimension Pro's Garritan package. But, I still keep the XV around because of it's great Roland synth samples. It also has some great sounding electric pianos, as well as other goodies not available in the FantomX.

If you're looking for piano and you have a DAW that can handle a large sample library, take a look at Ivory from Synthology. It's still the best product available, and rivals the best pianos available on Yamaha and Roland hardware. With a good keyboard controller, close your eyes and you'd swear that playing a 9' Bluthner or Bosie.