Vintage Synth Explorer

Roland • JUPITER 8

The Jupiter 8 was Roland's first truly professional analog synthesizer. The Jupiter 8 features 16 rich analog oscillators at 2 per voice, eight voice polyphony and easy programming! At eight voices you can get some pretty thick analog sounds. Easy and intuitive programming via front panel sliders, knobs and buttons for all your tweaking needs. The legacy of the Jupiter synthesizers is due to their unique voice architecture and design, creating sounds that were so unreal and amazing that they have to be heard! No other synths in the world can create analog sounds as cool and authentic as these.

The Jupiter 8 was the biggest and fattest of them all (Jupiters and Junos)! It was one of the first synths to allow its keyboard to be split and layered - it's eight voices of trance heaven! Cross-mod, oscillator sync, a great LFO and a classic arpeggiator are also on-board. (The arpeggiator can be heard all over the Duran Duran classic, "Rio".) There's also two killer resonant analog 24dB/oct filters with 2-pole and 4-pole settings as well as low- and high-pass filtering methods. Unfortunately for the earlier models, tuning was very unstable but that seemed to be resolved in later models. Unlike its smaller counterpart, the Jupiter 6, the Jup 8 does not feature MIDI, only Roland's DCB sync can be found on some models. However, MIDI retro-kit's are available from various companies. Patch presets can store keyboard splits, arpeggiator settings, voice assign mode, hold, portamento and modulation settings.

The Jupiter 8 has been used by Tangerine Dream, Orbital, Future Sound of London, Moby, Duran Duran, Underworld, Vince Clarke, Überzone, Jean Michel Jarre, Roxy Music, OMD, A Flock Of Seagulls, Depeche Mode, Rush, Meat Beat Manifesto, Banco De Gaia, Josh Wink, Thomas Dolby, Howard Jones, The Cars, Prince, Gary Wright, Jan Hammer, BT, Adrian Lee, Heaven 17, Kitaro, Elvis Costello, Tears for Fears, Huey Lewis and the News, Journey, Moog Cookbook, Toto, Yes, Devo, Freddy Fresh, George Duke, Greg Phillanganes, Jonathan Cain of Journey, Greg Johnson & Kevin Kendrick of Cameo, Stevie Wonder and Simple Minds.

VISITOR COMMENTS (44)

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Heather

Posted 32 days ago

VAC (Velvet Acid Christ) used this too!

Stu

Posted 36 days ago

I agree with what pretty much everyone here is indicating. The Jupiter 8 sounds explosively brilliant, unlike anything else out there. BUT @ $5,000 it's not THAT great. Perhaps if you find a spanking new, never been played condition one with original manual, case and whatever else comes with, and you are a rich collector MAYBE. But for mere mortal men like me who enjoy making unique sounding music and playing synths, there are other much less expensive options out there to get cool sounds. The prices need to come down quite a lot if anyone expects ME, Mr Average Joe to pay more than what my motorcycle that gets me to 100MPH in 6 seconds cost me. Theres a LOT of good stuff out there you can get with that much money.

MJK

Posted 50 days ago

In Roman mythology, Jupiter or Jove was the king of the gods, and the god of sky and thunder.
("Father God the Best and Greatest")

The Designer (s) of the Jupiter 8 were not messing around.
Pound for pound, sound for sound the greatest keyboard on planet earth....

shaft9000

Posted 57 days ago

Expensive as sin, on account of it's rare and iconic status - plus the fact that it makes some if the most lush and naturally beautiful sounds that any electronic instrument is capable of, indeed.
The JP-8 is without a doubt an all-time classic. Along with the Minimoog model-D, VCS3, ARP2600&Odyssey, CS-80, Prophet-5 and OB-ies, this is the definitive instrument from the pinnacle glory-days of analog synthesizers.
Sounds are extremely rich in detail, warmth and well-mannered. Ready to record in glorious stereo, yet absolutely alive, and organic; LUSH is the operative adjective here. Much more stable than just about any other synthesizer of similar vintage. I've never even touched the tune button on mine...yet. :) A Keeper.

joel

Posted 73 days ago

Still can't believe I past on one of these beasts for £900 in a music store in Chelmsford a few years back.... and it was because I thought it was far too expensive for a non midi version! they never had midi! doh!!!! anyways I'm making do with my Juno's wonderful arp for now....

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