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. There's also a killer resonant analog low pass filter, same as the Juno-6 / 60, with the added option of choosing 2-pole (12 dB/oct) or 4-pole (24 dB/oct) modes as well as a separate high-pass filter. 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.

david

May 27, 2013 @ 10:54 am

i have a Jupiter 8, it weighs about 43 lbs, kinda heavy if you ask me. a little hard to find someone to be able to fix them though. , great sound like no other syth out there.

Cleophatra

May 20, 2013 @ 2:18 pm

The keyboard action is not weighted or semiweighted, rather light, at least on my late version one. I wish it were semiweighted.

The oscillators are analog. The digital components are mostly for tuning stability, not for generating the sounds.

Julius - Cesarsound

May 2, 2013 @ 11:43 am

Well, if it had a 14bit DA converter then it was not a trully analog synth. Do you agree?

Patrick

March 27, 2013 @ 3:09 pm

I just bought one, Im so happy Ive wanted one for years. Amazing synth, sounds fantastic!

James

February 14, 2013 @ 12:07 am

What is the key action like? Are they similar to the JP-80, or SH-201 or are they plastic, synthy, cheap feel of the Juno D,G, Stage?

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