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.

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Bon Ton

Posted 12 hours ago

A pretty synth aswell as a great sounding one, aesthetically its almost bontempi but somehow they managed to pull it off as looking great. Absolutely lovely sound, but a rather limited range of programming options that still allow you to conjour up a wide palette of sounds. That said there are a lot of synths out there available nowadays that can give you the same sounds so paying thousands for them is for collectors rather than musicians in my opinion.

David

Posted 3 days ago

I bought a Jupiter 8 very cheaply when I was 19 at a time when analogue was out and digital was in. I was forced to sell it when at University, then once I finally got a well paid job, I bought another one, then was forced to sell that due to more hardships later in life. Here I am now at 40, and I still stare at Roland equipment manuals and the cover of Howard Jones (1982 ish?) single 'New Song' (with him and his Jupiter 8). Despite all the years and all the synths released in between, it is still one of my favourite instruments. Absolutely gorgeous to look at and listen to. Wish I had the money to get another one. Well worth £2-£3k

Jonathan David

Posted 7 days ago

Also used by Micheal Jackson for The big synth blasts that begin “Thriller.” Jupiter-8 in double four-voice mode.

The Dark Knight

Posted 9 days ago

Owned two of these on the past decade, it really is a great sounding synth, due to the discrete component oscillators etc.. it doesnt sound like a CEM synth thats for sure, prophet 5 doesnt come close.
However the current second hand prices are way way over the top, and its not worth 4 and 5 thousand for its sound, as a collectors item maybe worth it, afterall there were only a couple of thousand made.
Its a bit of a legend, but if you want most of the jupiter sounds for a tenth of the price sniff out a korg EX-8000 or DW-8000, it has the same kind of warmth and storming unison sounds.
Ive had two, i wouldnt buy another.

Nick Esposito

Posted 10 days ago

It's about time you told someone about that Jupiter vid of yours!!!
I think it would make a great replacement for our current Jupiter sound demo . . .

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