Vintage Synth Review Of The Roland Jupiter-6

The latest mylarmelodies video is a vintage synth review of the Roland Jupiter-6.

“Even by today’s standards it’s still amazingly powerful,” he notes, “full of options, with its own unique voice, killer oscillator and filter combo, as we get into in this vid!”

If you’ve used the Jupiter-6, leave a comment and share your thoughts on it!

Topics covered:

00:00 Intro SuperMontage!!
04:00 What is the Jupiter 6 and what is it not?
05:31 Oscillator Section Explained
06:55 The 2 LFOs!
08:00 Oscillator Crossmodulation
09:40 Oscillator Sync
11:17 The Filter!
17:08 Arpeggio
18:22 Unison!
21:00 JAMS BEGIN: 880/Keystep/JP6 Jam ElectroArpz
23:09 ElectroArpz V2
24:53 So Electro Bluegrass is a thing?
27:02 Bi-Chord Aphexy Fatpad
27:53 Righteous Polystuff
28:55 Crossmodpadzing
30:16 Impression of my Arturia Jupiter 8V video from 2008
30:52 Squitty SupaBlerps
31:59 Spacebased Binkletinkles
32:33 Ultrapad Ambient Works
34:04 A Serious Arpeggio
34:36 Two Chord Padberg
35:19 Very Roland Very Emotimes
37:42 The Super Jupiter

14 thoughts on “Vintage Synth Review Of The Roland Jupiter-6

  1. the only synth i regret not buying (at the time i was purchasing my first real synth and i could afford a jx-3p, and didn’t want to wait the couple of months it would have taken me to save up the cost difference at the time). when i realized later what i had settled for vs. what i could’ve had. 🙁

    and the only synth i regret selling (years later i had picked up a used one, but had to sell all my gear to relocate).

    i have _never_ regretted selling the jx-3p lol.

  2. my fav by far over many expensive synths I had, and one of the only I will never ever sell- get the europa mod and it will become a beauty beast

  3. Had one… quite nice synthesizer with multimode filter and Curtis chips. But at the time (00’s) I was on a search for a master polysynth, so I sold it and got a Jupiter-8 instead, which I still own. I’m a player and needed more than 6 voices for a master polysynth, sole reason why I sold it. The Jupiter-6 had MIDI already onboard, although basic but a nice feature for the time.

  4. Considered a legendary keyboard today by a lot of people. But it was not considered a great keyboard in the 80’s. It was a poor mans Jupiter 8. It sounds decent, but for less price you can get a Jupiter X which blows the Jupiter 6 in the dirt in every way. Todays selling price is between $3,700 – $5,800.00. It’s just not worth it.

    1. Yup. With what is available nowadays brand new out of the box with a warranty, none of the decades old synths are worth what people try to get for them.

      Cue the subjective dissent to a subjective comment.

  5. I got to fiddle with both as hardware. The 8 is the bold synth you use for stadium rock & soundtracks. The 6 is the more brash busker’s synth & working band knockabout. You have to work a bit to make the 8 gritty, likewise to make the 6 pretty/ambient. There’s a clear design difference. Solution: get a JP-6 and use it to play an Arturia JP-8V. 😛

    Its interesting that the Roland Cloud is covered up with JP-8, even the ProMars, but at best, the JP-6 only appears as sound data in Xenology. I suppose its DNA is woven in like that of a Juno-2. Superior demo, BTW!

  6. I got to fiddle with both as hardware. The 8 is the bold synth you use for stadium rock & soundtracks. The 6 is the more brash busker’s synth & working band knockabout. You have to work a bit to make the 8 gritty, likewise to make the 6 pretty/ambient. There’s a clear design difference. Solution: get a JP-6 and use it to play an Arturia JP-8V. 😛 Superior demo!

    Its interesting that the Roland Cloud is covered up with JP-8, even the ProMars, but at best, the JP-6 only appears as sound data in Xenology.

  7. I remember this instrument and the Jupiter 8. The 8 came out before the 6. By the time the 6 came out, Roland had added some new and useful features that were not on the 8. The 8 was never updated with the newer features of the 6. Roland and other companies did that kind of stuff all the time back in the Jurassic Analog era. Used to drive me nuts.

    1. Roland and some others still do this today, still waiting for a firmware update for the system 1 and 8 (little annoyances / bugs we could do without , and that useless cowbell osc in the system 1) and I think we can forget about the models getting better or bug free , or even new ..jx8p and others missing legacy synths
      And I’m not even talking about something for jupiter 80 / 50 … by no means , cheap machines and full of things that could be better

  8. just got mine back after years of it being in the “broken and too expensive to repair” pile. Bought it new in 1985. It, a Maxi Korg (still in the broken and too expensive to repair pile) and a mattress were all I owned at the time. I’d forgotten how much I love the sounds on this thing. Too many people get caught up comparing the 6 to the 8. They aren’t the same or even similar electronically. Two completely different animals.

  9. Used the Jupiter 6 for 12 years, .
    I’ve yet to come across a modern day synth that can match it, so hoping Behringer reissue it soon,

  10. Bigger balls and sharper teeth than the Jupiter 8,
    Jupiter 6 is far more versatile and powerful than the 8,
    The above video fails to show the immense X Mod capabilities of this wonderful synth, it’s capable of the most unearthly sound FX and evolving sounds, a truly special machine, why Roland sidestepped it in its cloud reissues is beyond me.

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