The Story of the Roland Jupiter-8 Synthesizer
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- Опубликовано: 13 сен 2022
- A mini-doc about the creation and history of the Roland Jupiter-8 Synthesizer, one of most famous synthesizers of the 80's.
This is a re-upload of my original video with some fixes to the audio mix. 
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These mini synth documentaries give meaning to my life.
Me too 🤗
In 1981 I walked into my local music showroom to buy either a CS-80 or a PPG Wave and there under a spotlight was a brand new Roland Jupiter 8. It was love at first sight and as soon as I started playing this gorgeous machine it was game over. Dual mode, split mode, patch memories, arpeggiator, the best bender/modulator section ever, thinner, lighter and it looked absolutely stunning. I sold mine for £600 a few years later after getting seduced by the DX7/FM dream like everyone else that soon turned sour... the biggest music mistake I ever made. The Roland Jupiter 8... the Ferrari of synths! 😎
How on earth were you able to afford it with a price tag of $15000, adjusted for inflation?? Very nice day job? lol. Sounds like you decided on the spot to buy it, which makes the purchase all the more mind-blowing.
Hi everyone! This is a re-upload with Audio fixes to voice-over. Cheers!
i have come up with the theory that the front panel design of the Jupiter 8
was made as an imitation of the Arp Quadra which was released in 78
what do you think?
@@robinsss I would say definitely inspired by. Did ARP have the orange versions of their 2600 and avatar etc by then?
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams i don't know
you were talking about how the front panel became neater like on the JXP
i prefer the Juno and JUPITER style front panel because though it's not as neat all of the controls are out on top where i can quickly touch them
Great videos, nicely presented technical and historical information. I hope your channel will explode in popularity soon!
Keep them coming! Love this retro synth docs. We have to preserve music history in its best!
Johnny, thank you so much for telling the stories you tell. I know this channel is going to blow up!
Thanks Brandon - got lots of good ideas for more future content as well!
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams I like it when you get technical.
Always wanted one. But had to settle for a JX-3P. Love this content! Keep it up
The JX-3P is great! Check out Espen Kraft's comparison video of the JX-3P and JP-8 - they have a lot in common.
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams I never owned one (JX-3p) - but I almost did when I played one in a store where someone had programmed an extremely good piano sound (of sorts) - some cross-mod going on there I'm sure. It was very very impressive and made me realize what these keyboards could do with some attention to detail. Wish I'd taken the opportunity to own a JP-8 though when E.U. Wurlitzer in Boston was selling off a load of classics dirt cheap!
This is a great documentary...I used to design synths back on the 80's using both Curtis and SSMT ICs...not to mention Z80's and 6502's...brings back great memories...keep them coming!
This video meant a lot to me, thank you. I learned many wonderful things about the history of this instrument. I am going to memorize from @ 2:07 through at least @ 5:52. Apparently, I have one the last Jupiter 8s made just before they were all being made with DCB. The CA 3046 transistor array, TSP 102J, etc...? Fantastic!
My Jupiter 8 is at Rosen Sound as I write, kinda' like going to the spa. It still plays beautifully and in great condition, but at 38+ years old it deserves to have some professional care. I am very lucky to be there - thank you, Rob & Eli! One of the first things Rob Rosen did was open the hood and look to see if mine had the upgraded 14 bit D/A interface board, which it does because he nodded his head and smiled at Eli.
When I pick up the Jupiter 8, I will astound and amaze them with my knowledge of intimate circuitry details, thanks to you, Johnny Morgan!
I purchased mine brand new for $4,800.00 1984 dollars from Guitar Center, back when they were on the south side of Ventura, near Baxter Northrup. So many gigs and recordings with that beauty. I am the only owner.
The only person to ever service it until now, was the great John "JL" Leimseider, when he worked at Music Tek. RIP, John.
When I get my Jupiter 8 back, I'm going to plug it into Dolby Atmos 7.4.1 (at least) and see if I can't actually transcend space and time. Maybe burn one in "Unison" mode. First have to add the SPX90 into the mix, especially #15 - Symphonic!
Who thinks I should get the Kenton MIDI kit installed?
Wow, I enjoyed that history very much. It's an astonishing creation.
Alright I needed to watch this again, great video! More of these we love them!
I simply love your “The story of” synth videos. I am longing for what’s up next! Well done!
Thanks Johnny , another trip down memory lane .. what a beautiful machine
As a junior high school student living in rural Japan at the time, I looked forward to looking at the catalogs I received at music stores, and on the cover of the 1980 Roland catalog was a synthesizer with the coolest modern design I had ever seen, and above the picture was the question "What is next?" was written above the picture. That synthesizer was featured only on the cover and not in the body of the catalog.
That was my first encounter with Jupiter8. Roland had put a pre-release notice of this revolutionary keyboard on the cover of their catalog.
Some time later, this synthesizer with its colorful buttons began to appear frequently in video clips by famous artists.
I'm currently enjoying it in a software emulation available from Arturia, but if I had the money and the bedroom space, I'd love to own a real Jupiter-8.
Thanks for that story Pumochan! I hope you find a Jupiter-8 one day!
Chris Franke (from Tangerine Dream), interviewed Jan 1985: “The Prophet 5 was the biggest help, and the Jupiter 8 after that. I went to see the development in Japan at the stage where they still thought they build it with one oscillator per voice, and I told them they had to have facilities such as cross mod and ring modulation - when it came out it had most of those functions."
So cool. Thats a really fresh take on a classic story. Love the explanation of the circuitsand their progression. Once again johnny, Nailed it! Cheers for your great work!!!👍
Great video! I live in Olympia. I wish I would've bought a Jupiter 8 back in the 90's too. I bought mine in 2016 for $6750. What an amazing machine! Thanks for the Jupiter 8 history. It's my favorite synthesizer. Take care, Sam.
Didn't know you were in washington too!
This channel deserves so many more subscribers! Such great content. 🎹
With the Yamaha CS-80, one of the most beautiful sounding synths on earth. 😍
Wonderful Video!
I own a Roland FANTOM-06, D-50 and D-70 Keyboard 🎹
It also appears in the music video of Separate Ways - Journey
ok after seeing three of these documentaries ... subbed....just great stuff 👌🏻
blessed to be able to touch one of these from time to time!
Excellent as always!
If only Roland had a nostalgia minded CEO like Sequential and Oberheim. A brand new Jupiter 8 would sound mighty fine building the perfect poly-trifecta with the new Prophet 10s and OB-X8s.
Nostalgia is overrated. A new Roland 16voice DCO w/ full analog signal path and dual VCA/VCF with 4 key splits and 76 keys
This is more reasonable.
Roland unlike Sequential and Oberheim didn’t recently receive the IP/ company name rights returned to them. So their legacy is 100% intact.
Nostalgia is unnecessary.
New Analogs are.
@@universalvibe72 Nostagia's not what it used to be.
VERY well done!! ❤
Thanks Johnny, pleasure to listen to.
Love these stories
Love synths ever since I brought my first in about .86
Great video! Love those 80s synths. I could only imagine having a Jupiter 8, a Matrix 12, or a CS80 these days. So much history.
Im absolutely blown away by your knowledge. !!! ,
Fantastic documentary, thank You!
Great little doc - thank you!!
Great video on this classic synth.
What a great story. Loved it.
SUPER video!! Brought me back to my Electrical Engineering days 🤪
Love it! Thanks so much for making this!
Had an 8 and got the Encore installed...it was just brilliant...paid $2k, sold for $10k...have the boutique now to save space... Great vid, thank you. You should do a sequel piece, and explore the impact on the music in more depth from 81-84 and again from 2000-. No one but you, would be better suited to such an homage of past and present.
Why jump to 2000? Tons of great music was made with it in the '90s, too.
I've owned a Jupiter 8, it was a great bit of kit without a doubt, it's sonic capabilities were astounding, incredibly low notes and incredibly high notes were all possible to the point where my local bats were complaining!
Before I sold it it needed some work and so I bravely opened it up.. As stated here, the architecture was all proper engineering, totally robust and well thought-out. It was similar to military-grade electronics that I had worked on, impressive!
I'd previously owned an MKS80, and although it was great, now knowing thanks to this video that it was based on a Jupiter 6 explains much, great, but not an 8!
Good video Johnny. Yeah, you and I found our Jupiters back in the day when nobody wanted them and were all but giving them away. It was 1998 for $300 USD in and anvil road case and had been stored in a closet for years too. Everybody wanted a workstation with good piano sounds back then and you know the story. I still have mine with no plans to sell. Going by what I found online it's a January 1984 model and in very good condition. I also got a Juno 60 about the same time for $200. Still have it too and it's October 1983 model in excellent shape. No scratches or chips on the wood sides. When I got them I never dreamed they would commend the prices they do. I just always liked the sound of them. I'm glad to see analog synths back in vogue. Yes, calibrating and tuning a Jupiter 8 is an all day job. There are 48 tuning trim pots for the 16 oscillators. Just the oscillators. Then add in tuning the filters. When I get my studio I been working on redoing set back up I'm going to start posting some videos. I'm going to so a multi part series on calibrating my Jupiter 8 and some of my other vintage synths too. But only the Jupiter 8 will have to be multi parts. Now if we could only go back to about 1995 with $10K or so we could score a van full of classic axes!!
Thanks for sharing and the info Patrick - I'd love to learn how to properly calibrate a JP-8 - can't wait for your video. Cheers.
Really well put together.
I found a Jupiter 8 is Tokyo's FiveG store in 2009 (their price was already hitting 4-5k mark back then) so I knew it was NOW or never. It was around 2.2 grand, but I was awaiting for payment that was a bit late so I asked it is possible to reserver the unit. Not only it was not possible, but they told me they don't ship outside Japan. So I called a friend Ko Okatake (known synth dealer in Japan with whom I'm friends) if he can convince them to reserve the unit until my payment arrives. Little did I know he was working there in the past and knew all the staff! Of course now they allowed it to be reserved, a week later money sat, and I got my JP8. To put it in graphical perspective it was literally boarding the last door, of the last wagon of the last train that was already leaving the station. A train that nowadays I would never be able to board at these insane prices. I've heard one recently sold for $35k. Crazy...
Thanks for the story Don! Glad you found one when you did.
superb was a joy to watch goodwork:)
Really excellent overview of an intensely featured synth..! I particularly liked to hear the designer's (Takahashi?) perspective..
Love this video, great work.
Yes!
That is true, my opnion as well Johnny and greetings from Flanders.
$400. Man. That's an unbelievable price. What A bargain. Even Elan couldn't beat that when he found his.
Great to hear from you Lace! Let's get together soon - would love to hang.
I want to subscribe to your channel but you're at 303 subs, so I'd ruin it.. lol. I'll let someome else be 304.
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams lol. nice. i'm at 302 now. you can join. :P
@@lacedj51 Ok back to 303 my friend! Look forward to a hang out and talk music gear and old-times soon. How did those eurorack designs work you for you?
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams I was getting some good progress and almost ready to start my boutique eurorack company. But then out of the blue, Intellijel designs offered me this awesome job as their head repair technician and I went for it. So while I am working for them I have to put my own eurorack stuff on hold (non compete clause). No biggie, the gig is really cool and I shifted own side work to lasers and dmx lighting. What you up to?
Take my breath away...
LOL....it was 1987 when I walked into my local music store and saw an Oberheim OB8 on sale for $400 bucks. And that included a custom Flight Case.
I know - I love those stories! I passed on an OB-8 for 600 in the early 90's.
i did NOT pass up mine, I found that 400 and took it home :)
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams
Great video, thank you!
I had to watch it again
I was here when he had 6k subscribers. See you at 60k lads!
i think the JP8 will hit 60k earlier 🤣🤣
the most goated synth EVER🔥🔥🔥🔥🔥
I keep my goats as far away from my synths as possible 🐐 🎹
Great vid. Thanks.
The world wouldn't be so colorful without these toys ;)
Good stuff! The RUclips synthesizer bubble needs more well-made history content such as this
L O V E !!!! Thanks for a great piece, Roland!
Helllooooo Jupey you beauty!
Nice. Got the Ministry cameo in there.
Excellent..!!
Good stuff.
I loved mine, raw emotion and power.
Nice job. Only wish you would've snuck Orbital in there as one of the heavy hitters the next decade or so that was featured in so many of their hits.
Great documentary. Has it really been 40 years?
Excellent documentary as usual my friend and I am loving the original music.
Have you got any of your tunes or Soundcloud etc ?
Hey Mike - yes - here's a soundcloud page soundcloud.com/powerplant-music
Great video! I am also in the Seattle area! $400 - wow!!!! Where do you get it serviced?
Possible to design an ADSR generator around the very cheap 555 timer, but they were not quite into cheap.
I just love my JP-8 🙂
The JP-8 seemed to have one foot in the 70s, one in the 80s from a design, engineering and visual standpoint IMO.
I think really the JP-8 was a response to the Prophet 5, took them a few years to match it to, which speaks of the engineering and design brilliance of the Prophet 5.
The JP-8 stole a few things I think in terms of design from the P5, especially the idea of having red LED patch numbers.
Roland was a little late to the polysynth party, so they thought they'd one-up the P5 with 8 voice polyphony, dual and spilt modes and the arpegiator.
The JP-4 was probably in development when the P5 came out, so has a lot of early 70s design elements, such as the preset buttons located down low (for organ players). These weren't presets as we know them, there was no user patch memory at all.
Well done!
I can't imagine finding a J8 in a yard sale.
I would so buy one and the first thing I'd do, is to replace every capacitor in the thing.
Of course, THAT would be expensive to buy caps that are ACTUALLY good quality form a real manufacturer.
So much garbage, cheap caps out there these days.
But it would be worth the word to do so.
Hey Blondie - yeah it costs $$ every few years and you need to know a good local tech if you own a JP-8
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams ähm, not really, i had no service in the last 10 years, its rock solid
One of the grandest! Yes. The best ever, no. Overrated and over inflated, yes!… still a personal top-10 analog. Mt.Rushmore of analogs with keys, for sure.
A very simple synth overall. However with a sound engine that takes you to the sweet spots right away and both ‘lush’ and ‘thin’ capabilities in sound design give a great amount of versatility.
Very clean video. Basic facts right on point, as you would expect.
❤️
Thanks Universal Vibe 🙂
I was senior service engineer at Roland UK from 1988 to 1996, I repaired and set up a lot of these, very warm and silky sound and took a few hours to adjust properly. The Jupiter 6 that followed was more diverse in sound quality IMHO and stated in tune, but was much harder to fault find despite having less components.
Thanks for that recount Delatronics. I had my JP-8 in for service several times here at Roland Canada by a fantastic technician Peter who sadly passed away a few years ago.
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams Do you know what his sir name was? I think he worked with me at Roland UK in the early days, he had a French wife and spoke French too.
@@delatronics3257 Peter Walker - a fantastic technician of vintage Roland instruments.
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams Not the same guy, I think the Roland Uk Peter went to Apple computer.
@@delatronics3257 Ok well thanks for the info. I'd love to chat more about JP-8 voice boards one day - they are really something else.
When synths mattered
I was in Seattle in the early nineties and thought I scored a deal on a Juno 106 for$200....Screw you Johnny Morgan! ;)
I know - right there in Lynnwood!
wow you came up on one for that price amazing feeling i bet
An all-time classic. I have owned two and used dozens of others. Solid, reliable and a stunning sound.
What's not to like?
repairing
great
Still have my 8' with the Encore Midi Kit.
Happily avoiding every gimpy' HoJo cliche with it.
The Oberheims and the CS-80 is the only ones that compare in sound to the Jupiter-8, and the Jupiter-8 is much prettier. I dreamed of it even since I played one in a music store in 1982 or so. But it has always been outside of my budget. The cheapest I ever saw was $1000 in Stockholm 1991, and I didn't have that then.
Some day Behringer will finally release their clone, and I can finally be happy. :-)
I'd add the Rhodes (ARP) CHROMA to the top tier. That one sounds truly amazing.
(And Jomox Sunsyn... when it feels like working, anyhow :)
$5295 US release price for JP8. Oberheim Matrix 12 was over $6,000 USD ! Today the JP8 is worth 20-40K while Matrix 12 is around 15k
Klasse Grüße aus Berlin
Nice tribute to a legendary synth. Got a Jup 50 so I can pretend 😊
Great video, but Im curious why it was reposted
Hi Luna - I had numerous complaints about the VO not being clear enough over the music. I ran it through some more compression and side-chaining, and turned down the music quite a bit to make it more clear for people.
@8:58 awesome!
I've never played one. I don't remember ever seeing one in the store How does the Jup-8 really stack up against the JX-10 flagship? Great story about finding one for $400!
I've got a JP-8 and had an MKS-70 (essentially a racked JX-10) for about ten years.
- JX sound is squarely in the mid-80s: totally stable or "stiff" due to the DCOs keeping the tuning locked on. It sounds more like a 2-oscillator Juno-106 (x2 layer/timbre) due to this generation of Roland components. It also was meant to compete against the DX7.
The sound of it is all over The Cure 'disintegration' album and the Twin Peaks soundtrack, and more.
- JP-8 still has some of the early-poly 70s vibe, though it still isn't as wild as the JP-4. The VCOs are some of the best sounding in any synth. The EGs bring a lively character to mallet and plucked sounds that no other poly does as well, imho.
Roland swung for the fences and R&D was given a cost-no-object-just make-it-the-best directive.
The sound of it is all over The Cars 'Heartbeat City' album, Journey 'Escape' album, Depeche Mode's 3rd-5th albums, early Howard Jones, Duran Duran's 2nd-4th albums, Tangerine Dream from '81-86 and many more.
I owned a Super JX (JX-10) years ago. I paid $1,200 for it used, from a music producer. I bought it because of a single stock patch it had... "Soundtrack". I had never heard anything so beautiful in my life. Beyond that, it only had a couple more stock patches that we used regularly. I made custom ones and saved them to the memory cartridge.
It was pain to program without the optional PG-800? I think it was called. It was a shame really because you knew it had this amazing sound engine, but no way to easily manipulate it. Just a tiny LED screen and lots of menu diving. I sold it for next to nothing after neglecting it for many years.
So, in my opinion the JX-10 shouldn't even be mentioned in the same sentence as a 1980's Jupiter 8. The JP8 was a true analog, fully programmable masterpiece. The Super JX was that awkward in between phase synth companies went through when they wrongly thought we wanted sleek synths with no knobs. Few will remember those machines.
Everyone will remember the Jupiter 8.
Hey, Johnny. I know we can hear your work in video games and on Unit:187 albums, but would you ever consider putting out an orchestrated album kind of like Tubular Bells or Six Wives of Henry VIII? I like the jams you do in these videos and would love to hear the product of a concentrated project.
Of course, I also realize that album-writing is very time-consuming and not really that lucrative. But I think it would be a real boon hearing this kind of work from a professional synth veteran.
Hey Zero Grav - great idea - I never really considered it but you've totally got me thinking about this. Check out as some of the deep house / techno stuff I did on my label Powerplant Music - soundcloud.com/powerplant-music
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams Thanks for the lead. I’ll be checking that out, too.
I’d also like to extend my condolences for the passing of Tod Law. I know you guys worked together for a long time and it must have been very difficult. He will be sorely missed.
@@ZeroGrav1984 Thanks Zero - not a day goes by when I don't think about Tod. Chris and I are working new material though and I'm really excited about some of the recent songs we're written.
@@johnnymorgansynthdreams Wow! That’s fantastic news! I was sort of hoping in the back of my mind there would be something like that, but being as Chris has OHM and Living Room Project going on (the latter of which I heard recently and oh my god is it good), I didn’t think there would be a possibility. Such great news!
You can call me Ian, by the way. Gotta update that.
1:30 "Relatively compact OB-X?" It's far bigger than the other synths mentioned!
whats trhe track at 15 seconds?
Would that it twere so simple for someone to recreate/reissue this....
I believe even Roland associate the Jupiter 8 with Howard Jones. 😁
what is the name of the song played 8:57 sec?
Hey Patricio - that's just something I made up.
For those of us that can't afford a vintage real one, and don't want to go the clone route, I have a question: Do any of you guys have an opinion on which software has the best Jupiter 8 sound re-creations? I'm a pianist about to get into synthesis, and for economic and portability reasons I'm going to have to go the route of using a Mac Mini or Windows laptop with either Mainstage or Cantabile w/sound library software. I'm most interested in getting the most accurate re-creations of the golden age of keyboards/synths: Prophet 5, OBX-A, ARP String Ensemble, Mini Moog, Fairlight CMI, PPG Wave, Jupiter 8, Fender Rhodes, Hammond B3/C3, Wurlitzer and such. I've heard of Pianoteq and Vintage Keys, but don't know a lot about them. Any suggestions?
With VSTs we're in Arturia and/or Roland ACT/Zen territory regardless. Some prefer DIVA, the ole' OP-X, or even the older-than--old Lounge Lizard.
'More accurate' doesn't always mean better sound. I'd drop the worry about how well a VST can sound like something else, and just focus on getting music made to as satisfied as you can with whatever you can currently afford. Good luck.
Have a look at LMMS. It’s like an everything-in-one music-production platform, with support for loads of add-on sound and effects modules.
@@shaft9000 Okay. Thanks for the info.
@@lawrencedoliveiro9104 I'll do that. Thanks for the reply/suggestion.
The recent 4th version of the Arturia JP8 is amazing.
What is the song at 5:00 ?
Pseudo Echo - A Beat for You
It seems, today, the rate at which Roland designs the future, we the people can't quite follow anymore...
please do one about the emu emulator 2 or the whole emulator family
They are definitely on my list. Still kicking myself for not buying an Emu-1 I found in 1999 for $400
If I win the lottery I'd spend it all on synths samplers and drum machines
I've thought about doing the same so many times.
Please, help! What band is playing from 5:01 ... 5:03 ? And maybe you know what song it is? Thanks in advance!
ruclips.net/video/2HfGu2dUX-0/видео.html
Psuedo Echo 'A Beat for You'
Does it play ZX spectrum games on it?
Jet Set Willy only
What's the song at 5:00?
ruclips.net/video/2HfGu2dUX-0/видео.html
Psuedo Echo 'A Beat for You'
Dude, what you re doin … now the prices go up to 50k :)
I also had a JP-8 in the eighties ... i was too Young, with no experience in programming synthesizers and it was really TOO MUCH for me 😀! Just a couple of questions : i don't remember, what's the meaning of having 2 (of 4, in the case of splitted keyboard) horizontal red bars on the central display instead of preset numbers ? I Also noticed, looking at MANY videos of live performances of the 80s, (Depeche Mode, the Twins, etc) that even in close-up shot of the instrument, that central display seems to be absolutely turned off 😒!!! No numbers, no bars, no leds indeed !!! How can it be possible ? Maybe the Jp8s had often failures in the display OR, as i suspect, bands often used live PLAYBACK on stage at the time ? 😑
maybe only eyes in the 80s could see it.
@@TheDddkkk 🤣🤣🤣
I have the impression that you are right !!!
If you saw it on TOTP, Solid Gold or some awards show then it was probably mimed.
Might not have even been plugged in (!)
@@shaft9000 of course TV Shows, etc always use playback/lip syncing with artists/bands and no one is really playing instruments BUT i'm talking about REAL live shows, where musicians are supposed to play ...
the horizontal bars were blank presets that remained like that (default) until you made sound which you then saved to a number