Now, after having bought my Synthesizer XP-30 including the "Keyboards
of the 60s and 70s" Expansion Board, I decided to create
website around this fantastic Keyboard (and the whole XP/JV series).
The main goal was to put together some information and helpful
documents including software and patches and on the basis of my own
experience. Since many other pages are dead or outdated (as is this
keyboard definitely NOT!), I also tried to combine the most important
and relevant stuff to make it available also in the future. Check here for instance for a review in
Sound-on-Sound.
So, here you find important downloads, a expanding
section of patches and music,
useful general information
and guidelines, an updated link
collection, etc.
If you have any questions, comments or
suggestions or you want to share some experiences, patches etc, just
write me into the Guestbook.
So what if you are looking currently for
a decent keyboard and considering the XP-30?
To get an idea of the user experience of the
XP-30, I highly recommend to read through the tons of reviews at
harmonycentral.com
here. The closest competitor at the moment (IMHO) is the Korg
TritonLE 61 (Black Edition), which has quite good sounds but the keys
are said to be worse than the XP. Unfortunately, Roland has not yet
released a "true" successor of the XP series, so for the moment the
XP-30 is still a good bargain.
Prices:
Released
in 1999, it was produced until 2002 and the recommended retail price
was in Germany 2795 DM (1433 EURO), in the UK 999 GBP, and
USD
999 in the US. Nowadays, you find them frequently on ebay or
on
craigslist with a great variance of ask prices. Prices are generally
rather stable while in general it can be considered a good bang for the
buck synth. Here some average prices on ebay over the last years:
- 600 $ / 500 EUR (2006)
- 500 $ / 350 EUR (2007)
- 450 $ / 350 EUR (2008)
- 400 $ / 320 EUR (2009)
- 600 $ / 350 EUR (2010)
My Music: I have been and am
still playing in various formations. (recently with the
MightyGrinDepartment in Berlin and currently with the band Chrysalid in
Toulouse.
My gear history:
- Yamaha PSR400 (1993-1996)
- Roland RD-100 (2000-2010)
- Yamaha CS2x (2001-2003)
- Roland XP-30 (2004-2008)
- Yamaha CBX-K1XG (2005)
- Alesis Micron (2006)
- Nord Stage Compact EX (2008-2012)
- Yamaha QY-70 (2009-2010) (see also the QY-70 FAQ on this site!)
- Nord Stage 2 SW73 (2012- (see also the Nord User Forum)
- Casio PRIVIA PX-330 (2012- )
- Tools: Roland CM-30(2005-2010), Yamaha StagePas 250M(2009-, AKG K-240 MkII
(2010-, Korg NANOKontrol 2 (2011-, Behringer UCA 202 (2011-, Yamaha FC-7 & FC-5, K&M 18953 Table Top Stand
Update history:
Sep 14, 2011: Added some links and downloads for the Sounddiver!!
Aug 11, 2011: Finally found the MAC Version of the CD-ROM, check it out if it
works!
Jul 15, 2011: Added PDF version of the QY-70 Faq, long-run hosting solved.
Feb 21, 2011: Broken Links updated
Jun 02, 2010: Links updated and minor corrections
Feb 17, 2010: Updated the How-tos and QY-70 FAQ, added French XP-30 Manual
Dec 10, 2009: Added Yamaha QY70 FAQ as it is no longer available elsewhere
Nov 27, 2009: Finally got a stable server, plus some updates made
Jan 22, 2009: Due to the heavily increased traffic
I had to move to another server
Oct 25, 2008: Gave SoundDiver JV-XP another look and it seems quite
intuitive (uploaded!)
Mar 22, 2008: Finally I got a hold of a pdf version of the XP-30 Manual!
Mar 10, 2007: Minor corrections and extensions
Nov 10, 2004: 3 new articles in the "how-to" section added.
Oct 27, 2004: Errors corrected, Voting and some new FAQs added
Oct 09, 2004: It's done. The first version is online!
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