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. 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.
- Demos & Media
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Video 1 - ROLAND JUPITER 8 DEMOAudio Clip 1 - A series of demo patches from the Jupiter-8, from the Future Music CD, issue 52.
Manual - Roland has made manuals for most of their products available as free PDF downloads.
- Specifications
- Polyphony - 8 voices
- Oscillators - 2 VCO's per voice (16 oscillators's!) switchable between triangle, sawtooth, pulse, and square waves plus noise on OSC 2
- LFO - 4-waveform (sine, tri, ramp, random) LFO
- Filter - Low pass filter with 2-pole (12 dB/oct) and 4-pole (24 dB/oct) modes, Env Mod, LFO MOd, Key Follow. Separate 6 dB/oct high pass filter.
- VCA - Standard ADSR and mixer to balance oscillator levels
- Memory - 64 patches and 8 patch presets
- Keyboard - 61 note keyboard
- Control - DCB Roland to Roland sync/interface on some models
- Date Produced - 1981 - 1984
- Websites of Interest
Roland Jupiter Users Message Board
Synthwood - wood parts for synthesizers
- Resources & Credits
Images from Perfect Circuit Audio.
Errors or Corrections? Send them here.
No. Comparisons were made with other models, but nobody compared it unfavourably with a Jupiter 4.
The Jupiter 80 is fine, but a 'Jupiter' it isn't - the name is just indicative of Roland selling off the family silver. The JP-8 was a true synthesiser - not a device for reproducing pianos and accordians.
Comparing the JP-8/80 is pointless. They are completely different devices, from different times. I suspect (hope) that even Roland know by now how dumb it was to make the comparison.