Roland CDX-1 Review 2023

An Imagined history

I've seen the CDX-1's electronics described as an SP-808 with a CD-RW drive instead of using ZIP discs. But unlike the SP-808, the CDX-1 is designed to produce a CD recording. It was marketed as a digital recorder with sampling to guitarists, etc.

As best I can figure, the CDX-1 was released in the summer of 2001. Then 911 happened. By the time the dust settled multi-gigabyte hard discs were cheaper and Compact Flash cards were an option.

There was no direct follow-up product line but the CDX-1 got a few firmware updates (but never a 2.0 version) and Roland focused on the Boss BR product line as the solution for guitar players looking to make a demo CD.

MEDIA

  • CDRW media: The CDX-1 uses a fairly early consumer grade CD-RW drive so it only does RW at one speed. It requires quality "4x-12x" CD/RW discs. Discount discs 1x-12x CD-RW discs are unlikely to work.
  • CDR media: Ordinary CDR media works fine and can be used for direct to disc recording or mixdown/mastering.
  • CD media: The CDX-1 can play (and sample) ordinary CD's.

FIRMWARE

  • The last firmware is 1.510.
  • My experience is that it will occasionally corrupt the display. Pressing the |DISPLAY| button will cycle the display and uncorrupt it. Pressing it a few more times gets me back to where I was.
  • The final firmware provides fine grained control over the mastering tool chain.
  • The final firmware provides a mode for graphically viewing waveforms when editing samples and tracks. This allows for fine grained locating.

WORKFLOW

I found the CDX-1 to be very usable but it has limitations.

   Good

  • It's hardware with a well thought out set of buttons and faders and dials that don't require configuring. Sure you have to learn it but you won't have to live with your questionable design decisions.
  • COSM effects
  • Sample anything
  • Resample anything
  • Sequence samples
  • Organize projects by CD-RW disc.
  Bad
  • Slow disc access can be annoying (but I was able to work around it once I got used to it).
  • CD-RW discs have to be formatted before use and formatting a disc takes a while (Formatting some discs while doing something else worked for me).
  • No virtual tracks (the sampler can fill this gap). 
Overall, using the CDX-1 requires an acceptance of its limitations as 2001 technology designed to be accessible to the tall middle of the technical Bell Curve.  However, the CDX-1 has depth because Roland stuffed it with some of the same software technologies they put in higher end recording hardware.

The project per disc workflow doesn't require much space in my brain. I grab the disc for the music I want  on fire the CDX up, do something productive while waiting for it all load up, and can work with zero distraction. No surprise software updates, no email alerts, no I wonder what's on Twitter.