It's about time that Roland had a new top-of-the-month synth, and you won't find any conventional keyboard more powerful than this twelve-voice analog synth with programmable split and a stack of unusual performance features.

The JX-10's individual voice is identical to the JX-8P's with two oscillators, two envelope generators and one filter per voice plus white noise. You can layer or split two six-note polyphonic sounds and there are four audio outputs so you can record both sounds (under the control of two different MIDI channels if you like) with stereo chorus.

A six-and-a-half octave semi-weighted velocity and pressure sensitive keyboard makes the JX-10 a good bet as a mother keyboard; you can control Volume and Brilliance with velocity, and Cross-Fade in Dual Mode. There are 64 Patch memories which store one or two sounds, a split point, the keyboard mode and all the performance settings such as pitch bend depth; you have 64 presets and 64 programmable sounds to choose from, with more on an M64C cartridge.

The very weird Chase Play facility records up to 32 notes for between ten milliseconds and three seconds, then repeats them with programmable Level, Dynamics Time Follow and Keyboard Mode (Lower, Upper or Upper/Lower Alternation). Chase Play allows Dual Mode sounds to be echoed by the synth with the same sound or with a different sound, so the JX-10 can make like it has a built-in digital delay, ADT or "cascade generator".

There's a built-in realtime sequencer (650 steps on the M16C cartridge provided, 2,600 on an M64C cartridge) with Single and Loop Play functions, Overdub and Punch In and internal or external MIDI clock.

As on the Alpha Juno 1 and 2 and the MC500 MicroComposer, the JX-10 has an Alpha Dial for access to and editing of all its parameters.

A nice big illuminated 32-character LCD allows you to name programs and shows the current keyboard mode and parameter values. Options; a DP-2 footswitch starts and stops the sequencer, shifts patches or switches Portamento and Hold on and off, and an EV-5 pedal controls volume, portamento time and sequencer speed. There's even a stereo headphone socket.

The JX-10 sounds fat and powerful and its keyboard action is good. But at around £1,500 it's going to have a hard time competing with the Prophet VS, Oberheim Matrix 6, Ensoniq Synthesizer/Sequencer and even Roland's own velocity and pressure-sensitive Alpha Juno.

Roland UK, (Contact Details)