Integra-7 Review Part 5: So Many Sounds...

The Integra-7 is a sonic smorgasbord, offering all kinds of sounds, some old, many new, in several different formats. Let’s take an overview of these kinds of sounds getting into a much longer evaluation of their sonic merits. Feel free to skip ahead if you want.

SuperNatural (SN) Sounds

Most users will want to begin their exploration with the 364 acoustic sounds,  1109 synth sounds  and 33 drum kits that comprise the Integra’s SuperNatural (SN) sound set. These are split among two preset banks and six virtual ‘expansion’ banks. While many of these are ported over from the Jupiter 80, a significant number are introduced here for the first time.

The ‘hype’ behind SuperNatural sounds is their realism and expressiveness, and much of this hype is justified. They respond more realistically to a player’s playing style and dynamics. “Harder” playing creates more complex harmonics and noise characteristics. Sustained notes offer more realistic decays. Holding a key down may produce vibrato effects or resonance. Of course, a lot of this depends on what you’re using for a controller source. A weighted or semi-weighted keyboard with after-touch and one or more switch or continuous pedals at your feet will maximize the kinds of dynamics you get out of the Integra. Connecting it to a cheap 24-key controller is like pairing a Les Paul with a $100 guitar amp: Why bother?

SN sounds are divided into three categories: SN-A (Acoustic) and SN-S (Synth) and SN-D (Drum Kits).

Like most legacy Roland patches, the ‘building blocks’ of SN sounds are waveforms. In the SN-A sounds they’re called ‘instruments;’ in the SN-S they’re called ‘partials.’ SN-S sounds can combine up three partials; SN-A sounds have only one. SN-S sounds also offer a deeper level of traditional synth-based programming options. However, most of the SN-A sounds offer ways to customize their acoustic characteristics, including selectable, MIDI-triggered ‘performance variations,’ such as staccato or ‘falls’ for trumpets and finger picking and octave modes for guitars.

           

Preset PCM Sounds

Not ready to give up the ‘West Coast Piano,’ ‘Gluey Pad’ or the ‘XV Bully Kit’? No problem. 896 legacy XV preset sounds and 14 drum kits are included along with their underlying waveforms. You can edit these sounds and create new sounds mixing preset and SRX waveforms using most of the same programming parameters to which you’ve become accustomed. However, given the breadth and quality of the SN sounds, you may find yourself leaving most of these old school sounds behind.

SRX Expansion Sounds

One of the challenges we XV owners always faced was choosing which of the 12 SRX cards to purchase—an expensive proposition at $200 or more a pop, even on the used market. Then we had to decide which to install in our always limited number expansion slots. The Integra thoughtfully solves the economic issue (potentially saving you up to $2400 or more) by including all waveforms and patches from every SRX card in its expansion memory. Unfortunately, you can only load up to four of these cards at one time; even fewer if you decide to load one of the six virtual SN-A expansion cards.

Loading these ‘cards’ is easy; you simply select “expansion slots” from the menu and choose which card you want to fill each slots. The more you load the longer it will take for the Integra to start up, but generally even with four cards installed it doesn’t take longer than 30 seconds. By default the Integra doesn’t remember which cards (or which Studio Set) you were using before you shut it off. However, you can choose which cards and Studio Set are loaded at every power on. 

Expansion PCM Sounds

In case you’re not happy with the XV presets, you can use 512 new expansion PCM sounds and 19 drum kits. Most of these are of much higher quality than their decade-old  XV counterparts. Indeed, some of the acoustic guitars and EP choices give their SN equivalents a run for the money. However, these sounds cannot be edited, and loading them fills all four expansion slots, leaving no room for other cards.

In fact, Roland’s implementation of the expansion sounds is one of the Integra’s biggest flaws. For example: 215 of the 472 SN sounds are split among six expansion cards. Most of these cards offer fewer than 20 sounds. It would have made a lot more sense to combine these into a single expansion bank, which would have allowed users to load more SRX banks. Likewise, splitting the expansion PCM sounds into several separate loadable banks would have provided greater flexibility for users as well. Hopefully, Roland will address this issue in a future OS upgrade.