Over the years we’ve had many people write in asking what Roland’s plans were to replace their S760 sampler that was discontinued a few years ago. Finally they have begun to ship the XV-5080, which is intended as the 760’s replacement, though it is quite a different beast. The 5080 sports 128 voices, has tons of great sounds built in, and is built around a powerful synthesis engine. Load it up with RAM and it will read your old Roland sample CD’s, plus a bunch of new ones that are coming out.
Initial users have noticed that both the analog and digital outputs of the XV-5080 are lower in level than the old 760 was. The reason is with 128 voices, Roland needed a good deal of headroom in case all 128 voices kick in at the same time. The S-760, with only 24 voices, was able to have a hotter output because it did not need as much headroom as the XV-5080 requires. There is already a sample boost function that can turn the output of an individual sample up or down in 1db increments up to 12db. On top of that, with the new OS coming out this month there will be an overall XV-5080 boost function. With this you can turn the analog and digital outputs up by up to 12db. Problem solved.
This new OS will also increase the current 2 gig hard drive size limit up to a 2 terabyte limit! If you need more than that we’d like to know what you are doing.
