8 thoughts on “Roland Teases Jupiter Legacy Collection

  1. Given that the Jupiter-80 is a DIGITAL synth, there is no reason why his couldnt be released as a VST!

    It will be interesting to see if Roland (and Korg etc) will ever catch up with the sound quality and flexibility of synths like Omnisphere, Diva, Zebra etc, in the studio- but I guess this board is realy aimed at live players..

    1. even for live use though laptops are well reliable enough so soft-synths and a good controller setup are a worthy alternative. Guess some people just don’t want to tangle with taking a computer on stage but personally I don’t see the attraction in any digital synth nowadays, especially a module with minimal physical controls.
      Each to their own though, it’d be an awfully dull world if everyone thought the same way about everything.

    2. With the case of Roland it’s somewhat a matter of what their programmers know how to program for. It’s not a matter of just flipping a switch and turning it into a VST. Plus there are all the incidental things they’d have to start managing too like piracy, VSTs that stop working on different operating systems etc.

      As for Korg, the synths in the Kronos are deep and powerful if you spend time with them. You might not like the interface, but sound quality and flexibility aren’t issues with it. Diva does have special filters in that they’re modeled after some classics, no doubt.

      I mean added up all those pluggins are what $900? Plus a computer powerful enough to run them, plus an audio interface, plus a keyboard, plus a DAW/pluggin host. That doesn’t include a sampler, but most DAWs have some thing built in.

      Don’t get me wrong I love (some) pluggins, but let’s not overstate their value. Digital hardware is sweet because you can be maxing out your CPU with some plugins and still working without having to go though the hassle of bouncing, freezing, etc. Record DIVA into the Kronos for more poly, run it though the MOD-7 engine for waveshaping, wavesequencing, arpeggiate it and then record it back into your DAW! Life is good for electronic musicians!

  2. a few years ago, i emailed someone at roland in japan and asked why they hand’t released an equivalent of the korg legacy collection – given that other companies were making money from x0x knockoffs, and clones of jupiters and junos.

    the depressing answer was that they were more interested in embedded systems (gm soundset synths in phones for ringtones, third party soundcards) and the education market, as well as the “home keyboard” sector – things with auto arrangers on, etc.

    maybe this has changed and maybe i’m a hopeless nostalgic, but i’d buy a well-modelled “official” vst/au/rtas/aax version of a juno 6/60/106, jupiter 6/8, sh101, mc202, tb303, tr606,626,808,909, and, just to annoy analogue purists, the JD800/990.

    1. Doesn’t arturia pay for the use of the name for their software?

      On the other hand they stayed in business while other manufactures closed up shop. Hey, at least we’ve gotten some cool things like vsynth, yeah?

  3. Roland used to be notoriously anal about licensing its name… or anything remotely resembling their brand. Anyone remember the original D16 Group Nepheton GUI incident? Roland hammered down hard on them for essentially creating a near identical gui of the TR808 for their Nepheton plugin

    Original D16 Nepheton GUI:
    http://futuremusic.com/news/images/d16_nepheton.jpg

    Whats interesting to me is that around that time, Roland was dabbling with some virtual instruments of their own which where accessed virtually through their VariOS rack module. They even had their own TB303 and Jupiter8 plugin versions for that system. Which led me to assume that they would eventually continue that pushing DSP programming since VariOS was a pretty robust system (dedicated effects processor, variphrase sampling technology, multitrack sequencer… for all intents and purposes a Roland DAW if you want to call it that). Development eventually stopped for their VariOS system and that was around the time that they started licensing their name out to companies like UAD and Arturia.

    I never had a chance to use VariOs but it begs the question why Roland never continued pursuing the development of their own vst instruments when they at one point did so and from what Ive read a decent job at it? And even if they kept it in a closed system similar to VariOs or in the same way Access has done with the VirusTI, I can only assume that many Roland enthusiasts would jump at the chance to own something that can uniquely replicate the same sounds of past, present and future Roland gear with room for development growth. Now that would be fucking amazeballs.

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