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.

drkam6

May 22, 2011 @ 8:48 am

"Patch presets can store keyboard splits, arpeggiator settings, voice assign mode, hold, portamento and modulation settings"

This is not quite correct. The only parameters that can be saved are: LFO, VCO Modulator, VCO-1, VCO-2, Source Mix, HPF, VCF, VCA, ENV-1, ENV-2. Or simply, whatever has an orange label atop. This is why the Write button is also orange, the synth is all colour-coded purposefully. The Performance Control Section (Portamento on/off), Assign modes (solo, unison, poly1/2) cannot be saved into memory. It is written in the manual and doublechecked at the Jupiter forum.

ian

May 10, 2011 @ 6:32 pm

@VintagePeak:
i've been there myself many times so feel your pain! Missed an OSCar buy it now for £400 3 years ago! I was so shocked I hesitated thinking it may be a hoax. Turned out it wasn't and the lucky buyer was over the moon! Bargains do come up now and then but it's getting harder to find them!

VintagePeak

May 9, 2011 @ 7:40 am

I just saw a Roland Jupiter 8 go for $895. I hate that person. I have been stalking the net for months and in the space of a few minutes someone posted it as a buy it now, maybe for 985.

ian

April 26, 2011 @ 6:09 pm

I have to agree with these comments regarding Roland cashing in on the daft collector market with the idiotically named "Jupiter 80". Sod the wanky collectors and keep it fresh and make revolutionary cutting edge music gear like when the first Jupiter 8 came out.

The LAST thing I (a musican) want is yet ANOTHER synth pretending to be an old analogue. Clavia were there with the NORD in 1994 and did a great job. Now I'm sick of it all. Move on. Give me digital..I want something NEW and exciting and different! rant over ;)

sras

April 25, 2011 @ 8:59 am

JP-8 once was a very cool synth to have. Roland JUPITER 80 has just ruined the JP-8
With the help of the geeks who can't play, Buying them thinking it's an investment.
Dyeing breed, Just like the TB-303. SHAME ON YOU ALL, YOU DESERVE TO LOOSE MONEY.

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