Roland JP-8000

A very nice user interface. Big easily controllable knobs and buttons with a really nice ribbon slider. The manual is quite clear about what everything does. Certainly the best feature is its ability to store data changes as midi info, so I can flip all sorts of knobs and switches and the data will store directly to my midi file. The only downside was it took me a little while to figure out how do get the patches to work w/ the "performances" (multi-patch storage and playback).

You are just not going to find an analog synth to sound as nice as this. It also has some really nice built in delay and chorus effects which challenge my Lexicon MPX 100. The presets are pretty nice. I'd prefer more than 8 voices (since it's l998), but I'll live. If this was a multitimbral machine it'd be a dream box.

No problems yet

They've got a web site for the jp-8000 so you can download patches. What more can I say.

I write sort of a cross between Crystal Meth/ Beck / U2 and I love this thing. I've been playing for about (wow... has it been)12 years and this makes me happier than the first keyboard I ever bought. (Juno-60). If I had mo' money, I'd probably get two or three more of these puppys. If it were stolen or lost... well I'd weep openly, fall to my knees and scream "Why oh why keyboard gods do you taunt me!!".

The presets cover a lot of what I would loosely term 'turbo analog' sounds. I doubt anyone will like every one. But they are intended to be used as templates to make your own sounds. The ones that catch your ear. Damn! Stand back and take a breath! I suggest you try performance 14 (feedback lead) and lay into the ribbon controller and mod/pitch bende. Then, hop up to performance 24 (1979!) and feel the fat, then grab the cutoff freq and resonance sliders in the filter section. When you've diddled with that a while, keep doing it, but reach over to the osc 1 section and push the waveform button to cycle through the waveforms. Then, jump to performance 45 (Euroneuro) and turn the arpeggiator on. Play a few chords and click the octave button to two, push the arp hold button, and use the mode button and tempo to get wierd. That's the five minute intro to the machine, IMHO. I find something interesting about every patch, and I just fiddle with the knobs until I figure out what it was that made it sound so interesting... I used to tear into 'the keyboardist's' synths all the time (I'm a guitar player turned know twiddler. I have pretty solid keyboard technique, though...) Anyway, I learned how to program on his old alpha-Juno-2 and JX-3. If I hadn't, the manual takes you through everything, with examples using the 'board, modifying sounds. It was well-written and I feel comfortable with all the new stuff, and I think even new programmers would feel comfortable with it. All those knobs and sliders just >beg< to be grabbed!

The unit is 8-note polyphonic, with two oscillators per note (no stealing or running out playing complex voices). On the other hand, it can only play two different sounds at once. It has tone, chorus, and reverb/delay knobs at the lower right side of the panel. They are solid and quiet. The expansion options consist of two pedal jacks and, presumably, a editor/librarian via MIDI. Speaking of MIDI, virtually every single knob and slider is or can be assigned to a continuous controller (and the manual has a thorough appendix of the MIDI implementation and addresses). Talk about turning the sequencer filters off and eating up lots of memory! Besides the arpeggiator (which is cool, but is mostly cool because of the drop dead sounds...), the JP8000 sports a function they call the Realtime Phrase Sequence. It plays back musical patterns that are mapped across the keys. The sequences are not mapped to specific sounds, but you can modify them on the fly and record new ones pretty easily. Played with the left hand while doing a keyboard split, it's pretty wild, since you can have two distinctly different sounds doing lots of wierd stuff! Between the Arpeggiator and the RPS system, jamming live, especially in a dance setting, is no problem for even a lackluster keyboardist. And once again, the lead sounds wail... This is not a be all, end all workstation. It's an analog modeling synth that is trying to do analog one better while offering the same level of control that many of those classic boards did. And in this role, this machine performs its job and then a lot...

Some of the sounds are the synth world's version of digitally remastered audio. You listen and go, "Wow, call me an analog man, but was it ever really >this< good?' This isn't a sample playback machine, so you won't hear those types of sounds, but the pads and basses are all equal to or better than any analog synth I've played that produces a similar sound--and that's Korg, Roland, Oberheim, and Moog, boys and girls. This thing lends itself well to rock, dance, techno, and industrial type sounds very easily. I also have a Yamaha SY99, which I feel has some of the most realistic brass and string sounds I've heard, and despite being analog, a few of the brass and string sounds would sit comfortably in an orchestral piece. I think a great, expressive cello sound will be one of my first programming goals. Whack the keys and the sounds go crazy, grab a knob and the filters go crazy, puch a button and the machine jumps, but it is all easy to control. Some synths make you want to perform, some just play back sounds, this is definitely the former.

I've seen Roland gear kicked, dropped, get hit by power surges and brownouts and come right back up, ready to play. This machine is even more solid than the old JXs, and I would (almost) feel comfortable throwing it in the back of my Montero (without a case) and going four-wheeling with it. No joke. I haven't had a bad experience with Roland gear, whether keyboards or guitar gear. It comes on ready to play, and I'd play without a backup (probably with another keyboard for bread and butter sounds, so I could use this one for the really tripped out stuff).

I've only had it a little while, but I've dealt with them in the past, and they know their stuff. Everything was always handled with complete professionalism. It might take you a week to actually reach someone, but they will get you squared away in no time, after that... A second to air a big peeve of mine: I tried to email them, and I searched their whole website. Guess where their email address is? NOT THERE! GEEZ!

I got a great deal on this board on the Harmony Central used classifieds pages. I want to play 'til I'm wiped out every time I turn it on, because I love the sounds and all the controls. I looked at the Korg Prophecy board in a Trinity, the Waldorf Pulse and Nord Lead. The Trinity just wasn't quite the sound I wanted. Maybe too clean, mabe a bit too weedy, but I wasn't going to pay a thousand or more for a mono synth. The Waldorf had the low end but lacked some punch (except for the price). The Nord sounded a bit thin or gritty at times. I laid into a JP8000 for the first time and thought,'I'm glad I didn't buy anything else. This is it.' If you could get a JV-2080 with a JP-8000 board, like the Trinity with a Prophecy board, well, then you'd have something.