ARX Diss Continued?

piaknowguy wrote:

The ARX cards ONLY work with the FG and V-studio wich are both pricey, will only hold 2 each and to that extend they're to niche...

Just a quick correction, Python - The Roland V-Studio only has one ARX expansion slot.

Correct! So there you go, Piaknowguy.
You "just" need to add a V-Studio 700 or a Fantom VS to your studio, and voila! ;-p

Well, the place that I ordered the ARX-01 from said that they are backordered. When I talked to the guy, he said that he had no idea when they'll get it back in stock. He cancelled the order, and refunded me.

However, this just meant that I was able to go to ebay, and get it new for even less than what I originally paid for! I can't wait to start playing with these!

mr jones wrote:

Hi folks!

My first post here. I stumbled across this website when I was doing a search for ARX modules. Because of this thread, I ended up purchasing ARX-01 and ARX-03 for 180 bucks. I'm hoping it was a good purchase!

absolutely a good purchase....I spend over $700 bugs for those two. Even 180 is cheaper than a nice pair of good studio headphones too. plus those are the one will mostly used anyways respectfully in its category of tones.

Has anyone actually confirmed with Roland that the ARX expansion series is discontinued?

Maybe they just wanted to do a promotion to trumpet their ARX technology, electrify the masses, and drum up sales... or maybe Roland just made too many of these things and wanted to have a yard sale...

gmonkey wrote:

Maybe they just wanted to do a promotion to trumpet their ARX technology, electrify the masses, and drum up sales... or maybe Roland just made too many of these things and wanted to have a yard sale...

Trumpet? Electrify? Drum?

You thought this wombat would not notice; but I see everything! Everything!!!

Unless, of course, it is far away. I am quite nearsighted.

And I really should wear reading glasses. Things are blurry if they are too close, as well.

Anyway… Do not monkey around!

Has anyone actually confirmed with Roland that the ARX expansion series is discontinued?

There has been NO direct confirmation from Roland Japan that ARX has actually been dis-continued. But I can find no other logical explanation as to why Roland is selling existing cards at rock bottom prices than to assume they are indeed kaput. Hey, how do you like my Russian Artemiy? :) Therefore, since there hasn't been any "new" ARX cards in two years it is further evidence that Roland's experiment has turned sour i.e. too expensive, not very intuitive, only one part, etc., and since technology is progressing at such a rapid pace... now basically obsolete as well. What I think Roland will do in the future is put the SuperNatural sounds inside the keyboard like they're doing with the new JP-80 and because of it ARX "cards" (at least in its current form) will be unnecessary. Roland will probably jump on the bandwagon with their next workstation and will include an SSD hard drive which will be able to send, and stream, additional data to and from the keyboard like the Kronos.

The sixty four thousand dollar (44,196.37 EURO) ;) question is when will Roland's new workstation beast be announced and/or released? I'm assuming since the Jupiter-80 is categorically a "synth" keyboard that a new "workstation" is hopefully in the works as well and will include what the JP-80 doesn't have e.g. Sequencer, Sampler, Expansion capability, SSD, etc. And instead of what was once ARX expansion cards the expansion option could be something along the lines to what Korg is doing with the Kronos expansion concept perhaps.

We can only guess and speculate obviously though because Roland's astute poker face and tightly sealed lips have left their customers, and potential customers, "out of the loop." Our only glimmer of hope is that the JP-80 is a small glimpse at Roland's astute poker hand after having already laid down their JP-80 wild card on the table for all the players to see. ;) In other words, exclusively SuperNatural sounds "inside", Adaptive Modeling breakthrough, etc... transfered over into their next Workstation keyboard which will hopefully include a Sampler, Sequencer, Expansion?? capability and which could perhaps be announced at Winter NAMM '12 or perhaps even sooner. :) At least we can dream right? :D

keysme wrote:

At least we can dream right? :D

You got that one right. But trust me. Even though a LOT of people in here dream of that exact keyboard you describe, it won't happen. I have yet to see Roland make a "perfect" instrument. The JP-80 is close - but they just had to exclude the sampler and sequencer part... And of cause they'll make a monster of a workstation within the next year or two, and they might even say that it has only SuperNatural sounds in it - but it WONT have the articulations and sculping parameters of the JP-80 - cause they won't put all they got in one package!
It sucks! Big time! But it's reality.... :(