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pauly,

a-station has 8 voice polyphony but is monotimbral - this means that you can produce 8 notes at once (in a chord or something) but you can only have 1 type of sound at once coming out of the synth - so good for basslines and leads and maybe pads as well as single drum hits - basically it's a bigger, badder bassstation - i use 2 of those...good all around synth for not a lot.

the JV series of Roland synths (now the XV series) has 64 voice polyphony and is 16 part multitimbral - i.e. you can have 64 notes playing at the same time and 16 different instruments making different types of sounds (so bass, strings, drums, whatver) - JV has built in effects as well and has large library of expansions to build on.

Other differences - a-station is much more knobs-on hands-on programming...JV series is deep menubased numbers/waveforms/algorithms which is really quite intimidating to the beginner.

If you want stock sounds of real instruments and the ability to play a lot of sounds at once without having to record to your HD all the time or create a patch and sample it, the JV may be your best bet.

If you want hands on control and better synthesis (well, more USABLE synthesis) the a-station may suit your needs. You'll just have to deal with the one sound at a time issue - which, given today's HD recording systems and soft samplers, isn't that big a deal.

Have you looked at any of the soft synths? or is your heart set on owning hardware?

BTW, how do you plan to get the sounds onto tape/cd/etc. etc. and into your computer?

16-01-2002, 03:33 PM	#2
Sen Da Elda Moderata Join Date: Jun 2001 Posts: 4,513	pauly, a-station has 8 voice polyphony but is monotimbral - this means that you can produce 8 notes at once (in a chord or something) but you can only have 1 type of sound at once coming out of the synth - so good for basslines and leads and maybe pads as well as single drum hits - basically it's a bigger, badder bassstation - i use 2 of those...good all around synth for not a lot. the JV series of Roland synths (now the XV series) has 64 voice polyphony and is 16 part multitimbral - i.e. you can have 64 notes playing at the same time and 16 different instruments making different types of sounds (so bass, strings, drums, whatver) - JV has built in effects as well and has large library of expansions to build on. Other differences - a-station is much more knobs-on hands-on programming...JV series is deep menubased numbers/waveforms/algorithms which is really quite intimidating to the beginner. If you want stock sounds of real instruments and the ability to play a lot of sounds at once without having to record to your HD all the time or create a patch and sample it, the JV may be your best bet. If you want hands on control and better synthesis (well, more USABLE synthesis) the a-station may suit your needs. You'll just have to deal with the one sound at a time issue - which, given today's HD recording systems and soft samplers, isn't that big a deal. Have you looked at any of the soft synths? or is your heart set on owning hardware? BTW, how do you plan to get the sounds onto tape/cd/etc. etc. and into your computer?