Roland Js-30 (1994)

Desktop sampler dj-oriented, the poor's man AKAI MPC with 12 pads and a sequencer.

Some features anticipating the DJ-70 concept, in fact both were designed by Roland Italy.

LAPTOP Bulky looking sampling workstation with laptop format with a lot of plastic for a total weight of 4 Kg.
The Display is alpha numeric and the main panel features 47 push buttons, 3 sliders and 12 trigger pads that transmit Midi out.
Behind there are these connectors: stereo LINE input RCA, Output RCA, a 25 sub SCSI connector, a Midi I/O (no Thru) and a VDE AC power.
Headphones out and MIC input are Strategically frontal with own gain adjustment.

VOICE featuring the "SOUND SOURCE SP" Chip, the DSP generates eight voices of polyphony at 8 or 16 bits resolution with a sampling rate fixed at 22 / 44 kHz - for a total sampling time of 22.5 seconds at 44.1 KHz for each Megabyte of installed RAM. Sampling is a pretty easy task: just plug a source into "GAIN" select Line or Microphone impedance - a nice CUE mode allows headphones preview for live set. Each sample has a user defined BMP tempo and can be assigned to individual pad or split by notes or triggered by Midi keyboard.

ROM SOUND 36 burnt-in PCM waves are ready to use but these are mainly outdated techno stuff (mostly from Roland Mdc-1) and not-so good Tr-909 samples.
There's no way to edit ROM contents.

RAM factory machine comes with 1 Mb of volatile memory expandable up to 4 Mb with standard 30 pins Simms. The whole Ram bank is split into DUAL mode for "Load while playing" or "sample while playing". Memory is Volatile but settings and option are saved on a EPROM with Cr-2032 battery.

EDITING classical array of sampler functions like Loop /Truncate /Normalize /Reverse all quite difficult to edit and also some not so obvious key combo functions.

FX-LFO-FILTER no, you can't really edit your sample.

ENVELOPE just one EG four segments A-D-S-R for the amplitude control.

SEQUENCER a very simple and intuitive four RPS tracks.
Two notes entry modes: real time or step IN.

STORAGE strangely no Floppy disk but a SCSI interface that handles Iomega Zip or external HD with custom file system up to 600mb.
SCSI imports Samples (but not whole program) library from Roland S7XX / S550 / S330 or Akai S1000, but Js-30 can't display the file names... this could be a cause of nervous state!
Other storage ways is standard Midi SDS to dump your samples to a computer working at few bauds painful slow or also to tape interface (even worst).

Factory demo 1 Factory demo 2

- cheap
- good pads
-scsi

- display
-edit
-Useless internal waves

PERSONAL OPINION:

The big problem is the display and not THAT intuitive. The pads are fun and SCSI option can open a vast door to the Roland SXX world.

Suggest second hand price -100 euro.