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.

garry

December 20, 2011 @ 3:25 pm

the Jupiter 8 is an amazing synthesizer I bought one new in the 80s
had it for years with my Roland tr909 as time went on I also bought a Roland jp8000
to see what everyone was raving on about with its 7 super saw waves and it was strange at first using it as I couldn't workout the osc,s very well but once I got used to the jp8000 it was just amazing I made sounds just as good and better then my
Jupiter 8) you can make every sound possible on a Roland jp8000 with will replicate exact as the Jupiter 8) in the end I sold my Jupiter 8 and keep my Roland jp8000
and never did look back

W. J. Brookes

December 17, 2011 @ 6:45 pm

Testris, if you can, save the defunct JP8. Whatever you do, don't throw it out. They're totally fixable from the ground-up. If you find a competent tech, it can be restored to mint condition. After all, there were apparently only 2000 built. Sure, there are newer boards, but nothing sounds quite the same or has the same interface. MIDI retrofits are easy and available. But why use a JP8 for MIDI anyway. It's more of a live player's board. Aftertouch is a rarity on analogs. Finally, 8-poly is pretty good for a real analog synth. Look what people are paying for the re-releases of mono-synths....

Brento

December 10, 2011 @ 3:16 am

Furthermore, people here seem to be up-in-arms about the s/h price, but they average at $6000 or something, which is what they cost in the first place back in the early eighties, at least here in Australia. All the guitars I own have appreciated much more than that over the years...
The Jupiter 8 was always considered a pricey synth. It was the flagship of the Roland fleet. I also seem to remember the Yamaha DX1 costing a small fortune...

Brento

December 10, 2011 @ 3:13 am

The JP80 is a great modern synth, but it WAS marketed as a modern revamp of a JP8, and it just ain't. Not even close. I'm not buying into the argument here about whether or not the JP8 is a classic or not, but in response to certain comments here, Roland sold HEAPS of them, lots of very influential artists used it, and it sounds great. This is one of those synths that seems to defy modelling - the Arturia model comes close, but it's not quite right.
Incidentally, I reckon the JP6 sounds just a bit better...

alex

December 8, 2011 @ 2:13 pm

you mean you are comparing the Jupiter 8 with the Jupiter 80? you have to be kidding!!!
JP8 is an analog synth and JP80 is a crappy digital Workstation/Rompler. At least is good to know that marketing strategies are capable to fool some people.

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