History and File Format
Roland didn't release a sampler for a long time after the release of the S-7x series. Finally, though, they mounted the S-7x sampler platform on top of the XV-series of samplers, that is the XV-5080.

THe XV-5080 boasts 128mb of available of RAM, and actually isn't a sampler, but a sample-playback machine. It can read/translate Akai S-1000/3000 CD-ROMs and Roland S-700 disks.

Architecture Description
The XV-5080 uses the identical Performance-Patch-Partial-Sample setup that the S-7x Series used. The Performances and Patches are part of the synth engine, but a Patch can also be a "Multi-Partial" type of sound, which means it accesses the Partials which contains the Samples, just like the S-7x Series. This enables a multisample-multilayer setup within the XV. Interestingly, a Patch can also be a "4-Tones" type, which means you can assign 4 samples to a Patch (fully across the keyboard), and you can mix samples with ROM sounds.

Roland XV-5080 Performances hold Patches, just like the S-7x Series. The XV-5080 has a great improvement over the S-700 Series - effects! They are great and sound great.

The big problem with the 5080 is the amount of button pushing you have to do to program and load functions. Since the sampler engine was literally placed on top of the original XV architecture, the design is unwieldly. For example, you have to to do two save operations in order to save a Patch to disk - one save to write the Edit Buffer to main memory (like a typical synth), and another to write to disk itself.

Format
The Roland uses a .svd file in DOS format to store the Performance and Patch data. The samples are stored as .wav files (no stereo files, all mono) in a separate directory that exists in the same directory as the .svd file. Finally, the Partial and Sample header information is stored in a single file along with the .wav files, always called Smpl_prm.svp.

Translation Comments
Translator uses a complex algorithm that figures out how the destination object should be translated. Since a Patch only can hold 4 (or sometimes less) layers of sound, Translator calculates whether it will fit in one Patch (preferred), or if several Patches will have to be made and put together as one Performance. If the latter is the case, the Patches will be named " ->Perf 01 A", then " ->Perf 01 B", etc.

Since the XV-5080 has effects, a simple non-instrusive Reverb is automatically programmed in. Future versions of Translator will allow programming of effects, ability to program the translated settings, and translation of incoming objects that have effects attached to them.

Since it is usually not practical to analyze what Sound Category the source object falls into, The Sound Category prefixes are initialed according to the table at the right:

Comments
The XV was never intended to be a sampler per se, but we like it for some strange reason.