The first Jupiter synth. It was among one of the first poly synthesizers (4 individual voices which could be synced together for one fat monophonic lead), it had a pitch wheel that could be assigned to the VCA, VCF, VCO or all together, there are 8 memory locations and a cool arpeggiator - the arpeggiator can be heard in the Duran Duran classic, "Rio". It also has a very slow LFO for those ever-so-long filter sweeps. Pretty good for 1978!

Not so cool however, are the 10 preset sounds which sound nothing like the piano, brass or strings they claim to be. The placement of all the preset buttons below the keyboard can be inconvenient, especially while playing it. And as with most old analog synths, the Jupiter-4's tuning can go out often. Still it is a nice analog synth for creating weird trippy analog sounds. It's used by Meat Beat Manifesto, Gary Numan, Thomas Dolby, Saint Etienne, the Cars, BT, Simple Minds, Moog Cookbook, Vangelis, The Human League, Duran Duran, Spandau Ballet, Heaven 17, and film-maker Satyajit Ray.

John

September 28, 2012 @ 4:32 am

The Fattest Sounding Polyphone Analog Synthesizer i've ever had!!!
I also had a Jupiter 8, but it couldn't make fatter sounds than my JP4!!

idiot

September 21, 2012 @ 4:22 pm

This synth really is crappy. So all go and sell it on ebay... (pointless comment)

Phil

September 13, 2012 @ 1:01 am

All of you idiots continue to make pointless comments here about a crappy keyboard you no nothing about.

casavettes

September 4, 2012 @ 4:42 am

@"The placement of all the preset buttons below the keyboard can be inconvenient, especially while playing it."

I highly doubt anyone with the head properly attached to the neck will even consider using the presets on a JP4. the whole point of this thing is to put it in "manual" and lay the hands on 20kg of knobs and sliders.

very musical synthesizer. on top of whats been said already, its worth mentioning that the low end is particularly staggering - add a good sub to your monitor speakers. there is solid, powerful output available even at the low limits of human ear audible range.

Big Chris

August 2, 2012 @ 5:36 pm

nigel: No wonder you were in a covers band - if you wanted a keyboard for playing piano and brass back in the 80s, then you should have got a cheap Casio. The Jupiter 4 is not some pale imitation of an acoustic instrument, it's a synthesiser that's capable of sounds unique to the world of subtractive synthesis. Go listen to the first two Human League albums, or "Empires and Dance", "Sons and Fascinations" and "Sister Feelings Call" by Simple Minds. These showcase what sounds people could produce when using a Jupiter 4 and their imagination.

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