Here’s a sneak preview of the upcoming Roland Jupiter-50 keyboard synthesizer, via sonicstate.
The Roland Jupiter-50 inherits the sounds and Live Set architecture of the Jupiter-80, but packs them into a relatively lightweight keyboard.
Roland synth specialist Gareth Bowen talks about the synth engine of the Jupiter-50 and demonstrates what it can do, responds to the controversy over using the ‘Jupiter’ name and looks at how the keyboard can work in a DAW setup.
Wow, what a yawnfest…
And it’s not a Jupiter, it’s not even analogue.
Yeah, totally boring. The Sonicstate guy tries very hard to sound interested but you can tell even he is thinking “who gives a fuck?”.
That synth, with it’s addmittedely excellent trumpet and Spanish guitar emulations is clearly only of interest to wedding bands etc.
No serious producer would purchase that or use it for those sounds.
And no synthesist should dismiss a keyboard based on its presets.
lol
No synthesist would seriously consider this keyboard with its sample based sounds as an alternative to even modern synths like the Prophet 08. I know it has a synth section, but it VA, so can it even be as good as a computer based soft synth?
A proper producer, if he wanted guitar sounds etc would hire a guitarist.
This and the JP 80 are posh wedding band keyboards. No doubt you can pull some good sounds from them, but why bother? They are designed to add backing to a covers band. Profitable for Roland I’m sure, and probably pretty good if you’re into more mainstream pop/rock but not really something that would inspire the ‘synthesist’.
That trumpet sounds exactly like a Korg Z1’s… a 15 year old synth that probably out performs this one, yet they claim it’s new technology.
The Z1 WAS really good at that sorta stuff… It lacked the realism of sample playback, but made up for it in playability. I miss its brass model in particular..
When I see synths like this it’s clear to me that hardware synths have now pretty much fully evolved. Anything new in terms of electronic music sound creation will probably come via the likes of the iPad (Animoog for one) and synths like this are just the same thing repackaged over and over.
Analogue synths, old and new, for me now represent the only truly surprising and inspiring form of hardware synthesis. The likes of the Mopho takes old technology concepts and turns it into something contemporary. Arguably Dave Smith is no different to Roland, taking existing and established synth technology and repackaging it with new features but what he produces is truly inspiring. I own a JP8 (original, not the 80) and a Mopho, and if Dave Smith were to package the Mopho sound into a polyphonic 8 voice synth it would give the JP8 a run for its money.
Even the Prophet 08 doesn’t sound as good as the Mopho so this analogue technology can stull be improved and made sound fresh.
But the JP50/80? Yawn.
It’d be cool to poly chain two Tetras together.. That would get you there, minus the audio input…
Never played the Mopho, but I rather like the P ’08 – you can do wonderful things with it. I will probably augment it with a Tetra when I save up some bucks because it will handle four 2-oscillator mono patches with the same voice architecture. I actually think the greatest weakness of the P ’08 is that it’s only bi-timbral rather than 8-voice multitimbral. Still a fantastic instrument.
I wouldn’t mind a rebooted Andromeda or a 16-voice Evolver though. 😉
Actually, isn’t the tetra a 4 voice Mopho and vice versa? Forgot about that. I prefer the Mopho/tetra sound to the prophet 08 sound. More organic and less refined which to my ears is more pleasing and more exciting. But the P08 is a far more desirable synth than these new and utterly uninspiring Jupiters.
yawn:0
Just saw Foreigner in concert last night and their keyboardist used a Jupiter 50. Have to say I was super disappointed in the sound. I was listening to their tracks leading up to the concert hoping for that great synth sound. The performance was great, but the sound of the synth was a huge let down. Did not have the presence and warmth I had heard from their recordings. Sue me, but I heard an amazing band not using presets for all I know and the sound was still crap. Defend the Jupiter 50 all you want. It is still a let down to me.