|
We were using the jw-50 in our band as a rhtythm section and special things like brass kicks or violin lines. The sounds are quite natural, thats great for orchestral sounds, like "strings" and "warm strings". I think this thing is great for all kinds of Jazz music. We were using it in our rock band though ;) The orchestral drums sound very realistic! Add some reverb and only specialists could hear its digital made!! They sound so deep and crystal clear at one time - amazing! The seuqencer is truly esay to use. The big display helps a lot. What I dislike? The JW-50 lacks real bass sounds. It has good sounding basses, but when it comes to low pitches - the ones that make you think Yeah thats a bass - the tone gets very weak and doesnt bring the warmth and depth we all know from natural basses. The sounds have a smooth character, which is good. You can make soft bar jazz with this device, but dont think of pressing techno sounds. You should then better choose Yamaha for such sounds. Next thing: When your arrangement gets really complex, the JW-50's CPU takes longer and longer to process a new recorded track or copy/paste actions. Then it displays "Now working..." and if it does so for 10 seconds or more you begin to hope that is has not crashed.. The thing is quite safe, but regular disk saves are a MUST, because the operaing system can freeze in some conditions!! Also: Dont rely on one disk. If you have composed some great tune - which is by any means possible because once you know the functions the JW 50 is a great composing and arrangement tool - save it once and the save it again onto another disk. These standard 3,5" disks are so easy to corrupt that you please do this, because believe my I have lost several good compositions due to the fact that the JW-50 just doesnt accept the disks that I saved them on.
Features: 16-Track sequencer. The thing has after touch, I think 16-times multitimbral and 32 polyphonic, has a combinated pitch bend-vibrato wheel, a big display, a disk drive for standard 3,5" floppies, faders for volume/fx (changeable via selectbutton), 2 FX ways (i.e. Reverb & Chorus), stereo out, headphone out, MIDI in/out/thru, Pedal in. You can save songs as standard MIDI or JW-50 fromat (which keeps all the special sounds that u have created). You can alter the sounds, there are I think 128 User fields for storing them. U can modify them by resonance and cutoff I think. The sysnthesizer qualities are not so giant ;)
In the end: This thing is great. If you buy one second hand, then make sure to try every button, because, as some other reviewer said I think, these buttons are used a lot because when composing or arranging you keep pushing them in a feverish manner. Also check the disk drive: Load a song. Record a melody and save it to disk. Then try to load it again.
Price: I paid 1700 DM for a second hand one ca 1995. New price was 3990 DM. If you get one in good condition you can pay about 400 US$ and you've made a good deal.
|
