Roland JV-80

The JV-80 was an excellent mid-nineties digital synthesizer in its time. It helped lay the foundation for the later JV-1080, JV-2080 and XP-series synths. It featured a full 61-note keyboard and several sliders above the keyboard with assignable parameters for fast hands-on editing. Though its stock sounds are nothing great, it can take any of the SR-JV80 expansion boards for 8MB of great new sounds from any of the Orchestral, Vintage Synths, Techno, etc. sets.

Unfortunately, the JV-80 is no workstation like the XP-synths that followed it. With only 28 voice polyphony and no built-in sequencer, its likely that this won't be your ONLY synth. The JV-90 is basically the same as this, except that it has an excellent 76-note semi-weighted keyboard for a great feel, more memory and sounds. The JV-80 also came in a 1-space rack-mount form as the JV-880. The JV-80 has been used by Eat Static and Vangelis.
Specifications
Polyphony - 28 voices
Oscillators - 4 per voice; Digital 4 MB of ROM sampled sounds
Arpeg/Seq - None
Filter - Digital TVF filters
LFO - 2 LFOs routable to pitch, TVA amps, or TVF filters
Effects - 2 Effects units
Memory - 192 Patches (64 user), 48 Performances (16 user) - expandable via 8mb expansion boards
Keyboard - 61 keys (responds to velocity and aftertouch)
Control - MIDI IN/OUT/THRU (8-parts)
Date Produced - 1992 - 1994
Est. Value - $750

Roland TR-909 Rhythm Composer

The TR-909 is an awesome analog drum machine! THE standard House and Techno beatbox. Sounds include kick, snare, hand clap, open and closed hi hats, low mid and hi toms, rim shot, ride and crash cymbals. Sounds are tweakable - attack, tone, tuning, decay, snap and accent. This machine does not sound like true acoustic drums, and we don't want it to. It has a unique and very loveable analog sound that's all its own!

Extremely popular today, especially for dance, it is used by 808 State, Air, Bushflange, Future Sound of London, Moby, Norman Cook (Fatboy Slim), Orbital, Hardfloor, Überzone, Underworld, The Prodigy, Faithless, ATB, Eat Static, Jimmy Edgar, Sense Datum, Richie Hawtin, A Guy Called Gerald, Astral Projection, Josh Wink, Freddy Fresh, Jean-Michel Jarre, Luke Vibert, the Chemical Brothers, and many more! It is armed with Roland's DIN Sync and MIDI, individual outputs, external memory cartridges, and an essential shuffle & flam for great grooves. Use it as a sound module or program patterns, songs and beats into it...either way you'll be in analog drum heaven with the 909!