Hi everyone. Time for my three week review. Being impatient waiting for the release, a few months ago I used my Jupiter 80 savings to buy a Nord Stage EX 76. I really liked the Nord, it was very playable, cut through the mix well with the rock band I play with, but did not sound very good as a solo instrument. Well, when the Jupiter 80 started shipping, I sold the Nord and bought the Roland. It’s been three weeks and I am really digging it and can’t stop playing it. At a concert last weekend I overheard my wife complaining that she hadn’t seen me in weeks. That’s been rectified. Ha ha.
The architecture on the Jupiter 80 is very flexible, and I’ve found multiple ways to switch sounds, layer, split etc. and it’s pretty easy to map out song sets or grab sounds on the fly. The pianos and EPs are lovely. The keybed has a good feel for a non-hammer action, and gives a nice response on soft passages and snappy dynamics. I’m able to do my two finger single note trills that I was not able to do on the Nord due to slow key returns. The layering of pads and strings are fat and crisp sounding at the same time with lots of tweaking options for changing the attack and release on live sets.
One thing I was not pleased with is the organ rotary effect. It pretty much sucks. I compare this to the Nord, where I thought the rotary was passable, but not great. I have a Neo Ventilator pedal that I had purchased to use with my old Roland VK-8M module, and as a newbie organ player, I really enjoy the sound. Roland please take note here!!! I was able to use the “Vent” on the Nord with the genius routing that allows taking any main section (pianos/organs/synth) and routing to stereo 1 and 2, stereo 3 and 4, or mono 3 or mono 4. The alternate outputs also respond to expression, so it was a simple task to route all the organs to mono output 3, and send through the Neo Ventilator. Using the Vent with the Jupiter 80 was not so easy. If you switch either the upper or lower layer to the sub outputs and turn off the mains, this is at the global level, and you’re stuck with everything on the layer going to sub outs and you also lose expression capability. I ended up setting up the organ patches to the lower layer, routed to play through the mains and the subs, ran the left through the volume control of my FV-500L pedal (which also controls expression), through an A/B pedal switch (to turn audio feed on and off) and then to the Ventilator. The Vent outputs go to separate stereo inputs on the mixer. I keep the organ patch levels low so there is some output through the mains, but I boost the Vent circuit to bring levels to match the other sounds on the main output. I can get a nice balanced piano/organ layer, with a nice Leslie like sound on organ. This is quite the ridiculous setup just to have the Ventilator on organ sounds, but I’m hooked and can’t give it up.
Ok, enough of the Ventilator ordeal. I really like the Jupiter 80’s synth sounds, and they are very expressive and playable. I used to have a Moog Voyager, some SC/Dave Smith stuff and despite all the arguments for real vs. VA, at the end of the day, after you run a synth through some reverb and delay, and layer with guitar, drums and bass, they all sound pretty similar. One gripe I have is that in synthesizer patches, aftertouch cannot be routed to control vibrato. This is something I’ve been using for years, and I’ve never used aftertouch to control filter cutoff or volume, but that’s what Roland gave us here. There may be some deeper level routing of aftertouch to system control to whatever to make this happen, but despite years of synth programming, I haven’t been able to figure a way to get this to happen. Please Roland or someone give me back my aftertouch vibrato!
The Supernatural acoustic sounds are cool, and I will use them some of the time for horns or for effect, and will probably layer with synth sounds for solos because many of the solo brass and woodwind sounds actually have the vibrato with aftertouch.
My overall impression of the Jupiter 80 is that is an expressive, very playable instrument that covers everything that I need as a keyboard player in one box. I foresee using this for many years, and the possibilities for combining sounds to create new ones are endless. My only complaints are the output routing, the lack of synth aftertouch vibrato, and one small bug I discovered. On Supernatural Acoustic electric pianos, if you use an expression pedal and have it set to less than 100%, there is no sound except the sampled key noise at velocity 127. I play pretty hard so this happens frequently. The temporary workaround for this is to keep the pedal fully depressed using the EPs and use the volume knob. Roland customer support verified this bug, and said that it would be fixed in an update. I asked if I got a prize for discovering the bug, like a t-shirt or something and the tech laughed pretty hard.
I don’t view myself as an expert, but as a music lover and player who tries to get the most out of my equipment. Some here may want to dissect the 256-note polyphony or whatever, but I’ve found nothing but pleasure in playing the Jupiter 80, and workarounds for the few shortcomings I’ve found. So, I’d suggest instead of getting all anal about the Jupiter 80 specs, or the name, just play it. Play the hell out of it. It gives back.
That’s my opinion, opinions are like a**holes and mine stinks sometimes. Any experts out there who have found solutions to my little niggles, please share.
Peace,
Jobo
P.S. Kudos to cello for helping Crazyfoo. You have the patience of a saint! I would have been all like “READ THE F’IN MANUAL!!!!!!!” Haha
"grammar police" please be kind...
Last edited by jobo on 24 Oct 2011, 16:31, edited 3 times in total.
