Here’s a demo video of the Roland JP-8000, via stuthomson, who notes that the sounds heard in this demo are custom patches, with no external effects.
The JP-8000 is a knob-infested classic of the 90’s. While it’s an analog modeling synth, its synth engine and effects, combined with a deep arpeggiator, made it a powerful keyboard.
If you’ve used the Roland JP-8000, let us know what you think of it!
It seems the super saw and the lovely rich pads are often mentioned in articles about this synth and quite rightly too, but for me it was the Feedback Oscillator that made the JP8000 special.
The only drawbacks where the lack of Midi Thru and the preset responsible for the ‘Vengaboys’ 😉
I remember the fast and easy workflow. I use now the V-synth XT to recreate some JP sounds but I feel the super saw sound on the JP was better and dense. I miss my old JP8000 :/
Have one of these boards and Love It.
I wish me the JP-8000 user interface and design and the AN1x sound engine. 😉
I love my JP8000.
I have had a lot of Roland gear, my jp8080 sort of replaced my 106. I rate this synth above a lot of others. It is a very practical and functional machine. I wrote a track recently and my mate wanted to copy the bass sound, using his Acces Virus. he failed miserably!!
This synth is deep and funky sounding regards bass sounds and the filter/envelopes feels intuitive in the way Roland gear does .
This for me is Rolands last decent synthesizer, I would never part with it. I never use the vocoder or the bizzare motion sequence thing on it, but it is one heavy duty synthesizer.
Roland RIP.
I had one of these ….. Used to zone out with headphones for hours tweaking sounds.
Def a rich sounding synth
This came out around when I started getting deeper into synths. I played with it a lot at the music store, but was a broke high school kid. Years later I finally was able to buy one on eBay, and I love it 🙂
The Roland JP-8000 was a main axe back in 1999 before I replaced it with JP-8080. I sincerely loved that keyboard, but eventually sold it to fund an Access Virus Indigo (which was later sold to help fund the current Andromeda). Every few months I look up JP-8080’s on ebay, and get bummed on their persistently high prices. After all of these years, I still think it was way ahead of its time and sounds great in its own right.
I still Love my jp8080. Nothing quite as warm and deep as it.
I totally agree in the most positive way.
For me the only “true” virtual analog.
No need of anything more. I remember a track of mine called “Animal Farm”, on which i sampled any remarkable noise i did with the JP. You hear elephants and lions like they were sampled in nature.
The most inspiring synth on planet earth.
If i’d be alone on an island……. a JP and a Ensoniq ASR. Nothing more!
To me nothing comes close to any other digital that’s attempting to emulate analog. I swear the majority of the purest analog synth snobs without knowin the sound source could easily be fooled by this synth with the right patch. And comparing it to the AN1X? The interface makes this beast excel by miles! Below is a track with the JP-8000 used for ALL sounds besides speech and drums. At 1:18 you hear the Feedback patch scream and at 2:08 is where you hear a brain melting custom patch ran through a Behringer EFX unit. Listen to the subtle harmonics this demon can make. These sounds are what mothers warn their children not to listen to!
About a month after I got mine I was able to compare it side by side with a Jupiter 6 and from straight facts I easily had made the decision the JP conquered at not only sound but interface, dependability, quality, and cleanliness. This is the last of an elite class. Like the SL-1200, hold onto yours till your dying day because there will never be anything new on the market in this category that will do the JP justice.
http://soundcloud.com/the-clidesdale/worq-it-worth-a-trial/s-ifuua
I tried this when it first came out. Sounded cold harsh and flat compared to Rolands previous analog polys, even the inexpensive Alpha Juno which I owned and still do. The new JD-Xi sounds much much better than the JP8000 in terms of sweetness.