Roland JP-8

[DIGITAL SCREAMS]

With the Andromeda I felt it could/should have sounded better. In the case of the Virus I know it cant sound better....not within the constraints of digital electronics.

I grant you this...it's weird that I think the Virus sounds better. Maybe its because I've begun to see the merits of the virus. JP8 will be my bread and butter....the Virus my polyfiller. Nice and simple....like me

DS

[Guzzy]

Just purchase a another vintage unit, a Roland MSQ-700:
.
Sadly my JP-8 don't have DCB or MIDI, but with this box I can sync the JP-8 Arpeggio from Cubase ( I hope). It's Rolands first Midi sequencer.

[Guzzy]

Roland MSQ-700 arrived, funny box

Test setup:
JP-6 midi-out ---midi-in> MSQ-700---midi-out--midi-in> JP-6
JP-6 Sync-out ---midi in>MSQ-700--sync out--sync-in> JP-8
JP-6 arpeggio ON, JP-8 arpeggio ON
Now the three units is in sync, cool to play!.

[-X-]

Personally, I am not much impressed by the JP8. I know, people will think that I do not know what I am talking about. However, I had a lot of synths in my studio and all had their goods and their bads. What I did not like with the JP8 was the modulation depth or better the lack of it.

I got the JP8 for a good deal and at that time I let go of my JP6 to finance part of the 8. The overall sound is beautiful. I especially like the PWM with the sinus LFO. The filters are great too. But there it stops. I did not like that the env amount of the filter cutoff is only covering 1/2 of the overall cutoff range, if at all. Forget about agressive brass!! I did not like how sync and cross modulation was implemented, e.g. when using both the pitch went to hell (even the virus does sync and crossmodulation from Osc1 to Osc2 for both). At the end, I did not like that everything out of this synth sounded nice, almost as I have a preset synth with some subtle changes.

Another thing is, that most of the time the JP8 was resting in the clothed due to failure. I fixed it all myself for pennies in parts, but it took time to trace down problems and so on. But I guess, that is part of having older gear (maybe it is the charme of having older gear). But since I am no Windows user, my stuff has to run and should not give me grief most of the time.

Needless to say, off it went and I bought the JP6 from my friend. Now, the JP6 is a much different beast. Thinner sounding for sure. But the modulation depth is incredible. The sync/xmod works perfectly to make these agressive kind of sounds. The multimode filter is a very nice addition too. At the end, I just got more out of the 6 than the 8. But that is just me, it doesn't mean anything.

Nowadays, I am much more into VA because you have much more control over the sound from your keyboard and controllers. The only analog that can match the control is the Xpander/Matrix-12.

[DIGITAL SCREAMS]

-X-

The JP8 is not a perfect synth by any means. But its sweet spot is pretty large and at times it can make the perfect synth sound. Shimmery PWM pads, sawtooth drones, unison bass and beautiful arpegios are its strong points. Alot of money for simple sounds......but useful nonetheless.

All your observations are correct and a matter of taste. Personally I prefer the tone of the 12 bit. I now have a 14 bit and its a bit more clinical. But still....its a good analog poly to use.

It fills in the gaps where VA sound less convincing.

Im interested to know what your favourite sounding analog poly is. Prophet 5 by any chance?

DS

[-X-]

Originally Posted by DIGITAL SCREAMS

Im interested to know what your favourite sounding analog poly is. Prophet 5 by any chance?

DS

My favourite analog poly has digitial oscillators: PPG Wave 2.3. Nothing compares to this one, not even the uWave or uWaveII/XT. But when you ask me about the most favourite analog poly, it would be the M12. Not that it is perfect (slower EGs, slower LFOs, curtis components), but it gives you so much control over the sound, it is just sickening. It also sounds pretty nice even the guts are made by Curtis. With a little work it can sound like the older OB series, just creamy.

I wanted a P5 badly but when I had one I could care less. The curtis components have a tendency to sound blahh. I personally prefer the JP6 over the P5 because of the xmod/sync setup (osc1 modulates osc2 for both) and the nice sounding multimode filter. Also, you can split and put the JP6 into different modes, what makes it more versatile. BTW, I also had the P5 Rev2 (SSM version) but that was a nightmare in itself and I ended up selling it broken to a guy in the netherlands.

But everybody finds something particular about their favourite synth. Maybe it is the first one you bought, maybe it is the one you could not afford (like me) or it is the one that sounds sweet or cut the mix. You can make music with almost every synth, but it helps to get aligned with your instrument when you really like it.

[Tomer=Trance]

Whats exacly do you like about the ppg?

I had a chance to play the ob matrix 6 several times and just loved the sound of it all tho programing it might be a pain in the ass im sure you can essemble a nifty diy midi controler for it for 100-150 bucks.

[-X-]

I think what is special about the PPG is:

The sound: always has this high end buzz when open the filters that makes the sound expensive. Together with the 2044 filter that thins out the sound when the resonance is cranked up (actully, it is the Q on the PPG, not resonance) and the wavetable synthesis with these stepping Wavetables the sound is very difficult to create with anything else. And for a digital synthesizer it is amazing warm sounding and heavy on bass if you want it to.

The GUI: is pretty nice, even you have to get used to the cryptic 40x2 character display. Also the resolution of parameters is very course, but therefore instanlty accessable via the numberpad and knobs.

The Looks: this is just the most beautiful synth in my studio. You feel like a little boy with the big knobs and buttons.

There is a slight difference between the Matrix-6 and the Matrix-12. Whereas the sound is different and the featureset is slightly different (especially the Filter section and VCOs instead of DCOs), the GUI is so much better on the Xpander/M12. You choose a section (OSC1, Filter, etc.) and go from there with maximum of two pages total (there is a seperate page two button for that). It is like turning to your Modular and work on the Oscillator, Filter, Amplifier and connect everything together via your virtual patchcables (by pressing the button under your destination and assign a source with amount). I really like that interface and in part, it is better than the PPG approach, stuffing certain material (switches and low resolution parameters) in the display and the rest with you control by designated knobs (Access is doing the same with the Virus but I think that there is a little too much stuff cramped into the Menue structure).

We should not forget, that the Virus can do alot of the Oberheim sounds, even the filter is tuned more in soundwise in the direction of Roland, IMHO.

[F5D]

I had a dream a couple of days ago that a spanish woman would sell me her jp8 for 100 euros!! The only problem which I had in the dream was that the JP8 was huge, alot bigger than it actually is and it had a steel frame which weighted at least 50kg alone.

It was a sad moment when I woke up and realized that it was just a dream.

[RobPhoboS]

Man, I owned a Jupiter 8 about 5 years ago (I think), cost me £900.
The prices on them now is stupid !!!
And yes, I was totally stupid to sell the bloody thing