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.

greg nishimura parke

June 22, 2009 @ 5:59 pm

Had my jv 80 nearly 17 years.
It's has > new lcd screen & keyboard,roland showed some mercy and installed 1 of 2 left in Australia at good price also patch buttons but last night at a gig the transformer spat the dummy.
It's in the shop now we'll see how we go.
in truth
This little synth has done thousands of shows and travelled million kilometers in planes,trucks and vans.
It's light weight really works in it's favor.
The horn section stabs and orchestral feel strings/ pads good live.
Organs a bit naff but when run through guitar fx pedal =fun.
It's also performed well in the studio did a lot of recording for tv music in the late 90s, drums and pec ep presets =fine i,now use as control key via usb .
Its paid for itself many times over.
Reminds me of Clint Eastwood in Gran Torino.
That little synth has got balls.

Allister

May 24, 2009 @ 2:50 am

Had mine for a couple of years now,using it daily at home.These are under-rated in my view, please dont judge this by the presets.There are heaps of patches online(some are really cool analog moogy ones) that really breathe life into this.I also have the Rich Sound 4 data card installed which is awesome too.Got the odd sticky button,but thats JV keyboards for you.Does great as a controller keyboard too, with 1 assignable slider.

Bob Weigel

May 18, 2009 @ 4:58 pm

It's interesting to note that vse lists jv90 keys as semi-weighted and doesn't say anything on jv80. But in reality the JV-80 has the key weights and JV-90 does not. Only the JV60 abnd 80 and 1000 have weighs in the keys in this series.

Khai

May 7, 2009 @ 6:59 am

@desmuska. Look at the right hand side of this page. Can you see "JV-80 Manual" link. Yes, you can download the PDF from here.

I too have a JV80 and some expansion card. Great synth, but had the same prob with George Keys, ie melting keyboard...

George Keys

May 1, 2009 @ 8:53 pm

I bought a JV80 when they first came out... used it alot... then had left it in the flight case in the closet for a few years. Well, the "melting" key problem came up. I pulled it apart and tried to clean it up but never really got it right again. So... I finally cut the keyboard off! Folded up the metal bottom to make it look decent and now it works as a module (of sorts) by just MIDI. I still like alot of the E.P.s and the guitar patches... horns ain't too bad either. It's a good allrounder for me. And, I do have all the GForce synths but I'm keeping the good half of my JV80! It really works well with a TMK88 I have... did some mods on that too!

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