Integra-7 Review Part 2: Not Just a Pretty Interface

The front panel of the Integra borrows many of its features from the Roland Sonic Cell, which is a good thing, because this approach expends more real estate for the display and keeps the buttons to the bare essentials. Moving from left to right, there’s a front-side USB flash memory slot, a volume pot; a headphone jack and two ¼” input jacks that allow you to integrate external audio sources into the mix (more on his later); the display, and one nine button bank and one six button bank for use in selecting and editing sounds and sound sets, playing demo songs, and saving changes to USER memory. Oh, you can also select the “Motional Sound” feature from here, which we’ll discuss later

In back, the Integra offers 8 ¼” outputs (five of which can be used in 5.1 channel mode),  an S/P DIF digital output, two XLR outputs, two additional ¼: inputs; MIDI IN/OUT/THRU ports, and a USB jack for connecting to a computer or using Roland’s proprietary optional wireless connector. At this writing, there’s no PC-based editor, but Roland does offers a free iPad app that gives you full graphical control of the Integra’s features.  Fortunately, if you’re iPad-deprived like me, programming it manually is a lot easier than tweaking your old XV 5080. Part of the reason for this is because Roland has finally eliminated the distinctions between "Patch" and "Performance" modes, which will be discussed in the next entry.