Roland Jupiter 4

You don't a manual. The preset are rubbish. But in the 70's who else had a polsynth with presets which you could overwrite anyway? Anybody who knows anything about subtractive analog synthesis could program this without thinking (though you may need patch sheets to get the same sound twice, outside of the limited storage). It has obvious functions which do obvious things. Compared with modern synths this a no-brainer. You could work out how to use it about as easily as you could a flute.

MIDI, no. Expansion, no. Sequencer (errr... what's a sequencer).

Polyphony is 4 but you can stack oscillators to get amazingly fat leads (in one case without sacrificing poyphony).

Keyboard action is average. What you'd expect from late 70's.

Features: fantastic chorus effect, mouth-watering arpeggiator, octave transposition, and joystick which can be applied to numerous functions at the same time.

Forget about realism and aftertouch. This thing is an analog synth and sounds like one. Has pathetic presets which you can simply override with groovy sounds. Great at noises. Overall would describe range of sounds as warm, gritty, pulsing, sensuous, but never thin or abrasive.

I would never gig this thing. Partly because it weighs nearly as much as my car, and partly because it takes about 10 mins for the oscillators to get in tune after you've turned it on (this is not a sign of a dud J4: it's normal)

It's built like a tank, and partly for those reasons I'd keep in the studio.

Never dealt directly with Roland about this synth.

You would have to prise this from my cold, dead feet.

Very easy to use. One control=one function. You can also "see" the sound as all controls are just there. 8 presets were quite good in '78, but this is a synth you have to create sounds with! It doesn't take too long to record you creations on a patch-sheet.

Plenty of info around about the features. Not as deep as a P5, but a lot cheaper! Love the arpeggiator - with external trigger, you can really go wild! No MIDI (easy to add CV, but why bother) - these days you can put anything together note-by-note. The chorus is a classic.

They don't build 'em to sound like this any more. It has it's own personality, and the sounds traverse all the gamuts of emotion - cold and harsh, warm, screaming, edgy, soft etc. Pristine it is not, but isn't that what modern synths are criticized for? Got to record it with really good A/D converters (even at high-res) as the overtones are so rich.

Mine ain't going on the road, but it is built like a tank. Looks cool as well (in a Dr Who kind of way!)

Lots of bits still around. I had to get a voice fixed when it arrived, and the chips were still at Roland! Just luck perhaps.

I really was after a Jupiter 8, but when this one came up on Ebay for a good price, I went out on a limb an bought it. I couldn't be happier - this is such a nice little beastie!

The Jupiter-4 is a very easy synth to use. Everything is right there in front of you just waiting to be tweaked. The only thing that can be a little confusing is the programming system which does not allow editing of saved sounds and the 10 presets. You have to create all your sounds from scratch in manual mode. Because of this you may find yourself writting your sounds down on patch sheets.

First things first, the Jupiter-4 is a simple single oscillator polysynth. But its no ordinary single oscillator polysynth...its got some special feature that put it miles above most other single oscillator polysynths like the Juno-60 and Polysix. First of all its got something that the Juno's are missing: Voice assignment modes. The Jupiter-4 has 2 four voice poly modes - Poly I and Poly II. The difference between these two modes is that Poly II does not let notes sustain and Poly 1 does. Poly II is therefor similar to a monosynth with notes being cut out when you play another key. As well as these 2 Poly modes the Jupiter-4 has 2 Unison modes. This is where the Jupiter-4 shines. Let me just say, i have played many synths in Unison: Prophet-5, CS-40M, Jupiter-8 and the Jupiter-4 is up there with the P5 when it comes to fat sounds. The Jupiter-4 is simply one of the best.

There is loads of info on the net. Get researching!
The Jupiter-4 has many features.

I have used many other polysynths like the Jupiter-8, CS-80 and Prophet-5 and in my opinion the Jupiter-4 is up there with the P5. Of course its no where near as flexible but the basic sound makes up for that. I would describe the Jupiter-4 sound as fat, warm and raw. Its a huge sound, even in poly mode, but at the same time its very raw and organic. The Jupiter-8 sounds more smooth and gentle. This is mainly due to the filter. My Jupiter-4 is an early 1978 model and has the SH filter in it. The Jupiter-4's made before and during 1980 have the SH filter which is a lot more raw and dry sounding. The resonance is the finest resonence i have ever heard but it can be a bit uncontrollable at times. This SH filter is not as well-behaved as the Jupiter-8 filter, which is the one also used in the Juno-60. The Jupiter-4 uses the same VCO's as later model Minimoogs so it does sound a tad bit fatter than most Jupiter-8's.In a way the Jupiter-4 is like a Polyphonic Monosynth. Its very snappy and agressive and is not the best choice for pads. If you want soft pads take a Jupiter-8 or Juno-60 over a Jupiter-4. The strings are very good on the Jupiter-4 but like most of its sounds arte still rather agressive. One of the secrets behind the Jupiter-4's agressive sound is the envelopes. They are the snappiest envelopes i have ever heard.

I don't think the Jupiter-4 is an all-rounder. What it does really well are strings, basses,leads and FX.

Its a reliable synth but mine beeds 15 minuits to warm up. The Jupiter-4 is a machine you have to look after.

Probebly crap.

Just buy one. Its one of the best Roland synths ever made. I love mine.

The Jupiter-4 is a breeze to use; all the parameters are laid out nicely and there's a button, knob or slider for every function. As for presets, don't bother. The bass and "synth" presets are good, but the rest are too thin and weedy to be useable.

The Jupiter-4 has 4-voice polyphony, which was decent for 1978 but not so good now. The keyboard action is OK, although the keys are really clunky. However, the chorus effect is nice and it also has a simple arpeggiator, which is probably the Jupiter-4's most famous feature by far. Since this was made about 28 years ago, there's no MIDI, but strangely there's no CV/Gate, which isn't good if you plan to control it with a sequencer.

The Jupiter-4's keyboard is not velocity-sensitive and doesn't have aftertouch, but I think the sounds this synth puts out makes up for those shortcomings. You can do pretty much any sound you want on it, and the synth also has 2 unison modes so you can make your bass sounds even fatter.

This synth is built like a tank, and it sure weighs like one too (we're talking 40 pounds here). Like most analog synths with VCOs, you have to let it warm up for a minute or two so that it stays in tune. However, I've never taken it out of my studio so I don't know how it'll react onstage. I might take it out, but I'll definetly bring a backup just in case. Also, the VCOs need to be tuned every so often, like with most analog synths of this vintage.

The closest I got to dealing with Roland was downloading the original manual from their website. I highly doubt Roland would support the Jupiter-4 beyond that anyway.

Overall, the Jupiter-4 is a nice little synth (if you can call it little), despite some shortcomings. It doesn't have any form of external control whatsoever, it's heavy and the tuning is a bit questionable. But still, it's pretty neat for an old 1 VCO-per-voice polysynth. It doesn't compare to the other Jupiter-series synths, but I think it has a character all of its own.

Takes a bit to learn with no manual, but once you learn it's language you can get some amazing sounds from it.

It's pre-MIDI so wysiwyg. However there's not much you can't get from it if you know how to use it. Keyboard action is pretty good. The 'Ensemble' button basically adds stereo phasing to the signal and allows a left/right out. For it's vintage I'd say it's packed with features.

Every sound this keyboard makes is absolutely freakin' awesome. Even if you're just messing about randomly it's the kind of instrument that inexplicably makes people turn their heads and say 'what the hell is that!?' I've played it in all sorts of situations but mostly in a rock band and I have to be careful because its sound can completely take the focus away from the guitars, especially if running through a Marshall or something similar. A few crackles and stuff but otherwise AOK

It died on me once a few years ago when one of the 8-pin DIP OP-AMP IC's in the oscillator section went short circuit and there were only 8 notes available over the entire keyboard. Wierd fault but the chip was a generically available unit and apart from some minor tuning drift it always sounds awesome.

Get one!

Dead easy to get your head around!!!!
Just select the Pre-Sets using the buttons under the Keys and use all the controls on the front Pannel for editing them!!!!

The Arpeggiator is very good and you can get some classic sequences like Duran Durans 'Hungry like the Wolf' out of it!!!!
There is no MIDI but never mind!!!!
It has a Hold switch under the Keys!!!!
It only has 8 spaces of Memory for User Patch Storage!!!!
Very Good Polyphony!!!!
Pre-Sets Sound Awsome!!!!

I have to say the Jupiter 4 sounds really good and has that classic early 80s sound in it!!!!
The effects are okay!!!!

Not bad, but not too Good either.

Don't even go there!!!!
Roland Sucks when it comes to Servicing Analogue Synths!!!!
Roland Don't have spare Analogue Parts anymore so Get a Synth Shop to do it or a dedicated Analogue Synth Freak!!!!

Unfortunatly the Jupiter 4 was released the same year as the superior Prophet 5 so it is a very underated Analogue Synth and is a bit Rare. The Jupiter 4 is a fantastic Polyphonic Synthesizer and if you see one get one, they are a great sounding Analogue Synth and a great investment!!!!

i am using an early version that has well stood the test of time and hasn't ever crapped out on me. it's easy to use as such, but requires familiarity to get sweet, original tones from it. soundwise, it is very distinct, different from other jupiters, junos or any korg for that matter. very oldschool sounding synth, in fact my most ancient sounding synth

it can be retrofitted diy style to hold 64 memories, but i personally think what's great about it is that it is so moody - like other reviewers mentioned - it always sounds different and sometimes it is so hard to get anything useful from it, then, on a good day, the most beautiful ambient pads and arp lines flow out effortlessly....

it's got a mind of its own and can create some really weird drones that people can't put their finger on when i play them. it most definitly isn't only capable of simple arpeggios and strings like a juno.

i use it alongside a jupiter-6, yamaha cs-60, korg z1, micromoog and dx7 and it has its niche. in fact it finds a way into most of my recordings somehow... do not compare it to the other jupiters, this one has the sound of experimental electronics and psychedelia ca.1970 written all over it. sounds older than it is...

Very easy to use with the controls logically laid out on the front panel. The sounds are easy to edit, the problem is that you have to record your edits somehow if you want to tweak them later - once they're saved, they cannot be recalled for editing. The manual looks great, it's printed in brown ink and it actually explains some of the less obvious features. It also includes a few further "presets" in the form of patch sheets, patch sheets that show how the presets are programmed (which is handy, because you'll definitely want to improve upon them) and blank patch sheets to record your edits.

Depending on the setting, it can be 4-voice or 2-voice polyphonic, or monophonic. Due to its bland sound in 4-voice mode, you're likely to use it as a monosynth most of the time. The keyboard action is clunky and it was hard for me to play it properly (I prefer soft plasticky keyboards). Unfortunately, it doesn't have CV/Gate inputs (forget about MIDI) so you'll basically have to live with the keyboard.

Jupiter's ten presets aren't very good. I never could understand how Roland could burn a ROM with such mediocre patches - I'm certain that they could've programmed killer analogue sounds that would still resemble "Piano" or "Trumpet" more than the current ones do. Oh well.

At any rate, Jupiter-4 is only useful for retro-analogue sounds, retro in the thin and mellow 70's kind of way. There's no really fat basses or lush pads, everything is too brash with the filter open and too muted with the filter closed. What you can do to breath some life into the sounds is use the modulation section, which is very flexible and easy to use. You can use the Roland sideways-pitchbender to control pitch, volume and filter cutoff and control tha amount of the LFO applied, which is very nice. The LFO itself is great, too - it goes well into the audio range and helps you to create great patches.

For its age, Jupiter-4 is very reliable. After a check-up at Roland Slovenia, I had absolutely no problems with it (thanks Ervin). Still I'm not deluding myself that the synth would carry on like this forever. Aging analogue technology is bound to fail someday full stop so I sold the Jupiter before I would've been the one with 45 pounds of useless wood and metal on my hands. I still have the original schematics for it though - drop me a line if you're interested.

Before they went bust, Roland Slovenia were great and always willing to help. It's really too bad that the company doesn't exist anymore - a lot of people in Slovenia with old Roland gear don't have anyone to repair it now.

The Jupiter-4 was never a great synth and it's no wonder that it hasn't become one of the classics. It's big and cumbersome, especially considering it's limited capabilities and I didn't see much reason for me to keep it after I realised all this. I used it in a few songs - drop me a line if you'd like to hear them - but never as my main synth.

This is just an addendum to my review below, some four months on. Whereas everything else I said about the J4 remains true, I would have to note that during the period I've owned it, several notes on the KB have begun to fail or to become erratic. These notes are all in sequence (though only the white keys, which strikes me as odd). My hunch was that it was due to the extreme temperature variationsin this room - it was getting up to about 42(110 F) before I had the a/c installed, so I moved the J4 into a cooler room, where it has not developed any additional problems since. The thing is, you don't want to know how much it costs to have someone who knows what they're doing work under the hood of one of these things. Put it this way, if the same thing happened to my Juno 2, I';d throw it away, as the repair costs would be more than the synth was worth. I would never throw the J4 away, but my advice is not to buy one unless you've tested it and it has no serious faults. And once you've bought it, treat it with care, no matter how robust it appears. The thing is probably older than you are, after all.

NB: the arpegiattor still works fine even with the dying keys. To the extent that it ever works fine (sometimes it gets bored and just starts to play the notes in a different order after 2 or 3 minutes)

8 presets, which of course are rubbish - though a few of them are actually quite nice rubbish. The trombone (which sounds more like a trumpet than the 'trumpet' does) actually sounds kinda neat in a 70's Rick Wakemanish sort of way. But you'll mostly use your own pacthes, which are quite easy to store (I figured it out in about a minute, with no manual. For reference, you have to push the 'write' and 'protection' buttons at the same time). Everything else about this synth is either easy, or fun to figure out. It does have some rather odd features, but they're xplained well in reviews below.

I don't think you need a manual for this, and anyway I shudder to think what a Roland manual from the 70's would be like.

4 voice poly, which is plenty. The keyboard action is no better or worse than most synths I've played since 1975.

Switch on the 'ensemble' effect, and forget about it. I don't know why you'd want it turned off again. One-octabe down switch is nice, as is the sub-oscillator, which has 3 range settings.

Unlike the arpeggiator - which is a damn shame, because believe, me, when you switchon the arpeggio, you'll fall in love with this synth. It just sounds goregous. Synth makers usually seem to manage to leave out one thing which would have made their machines perfect, and with the J4 it's the absence of range copntrol on the arpeggiator. It'll just play the whole KB range, which can be really frustrating. EXCEPT - little trick - it actuallyplays the range ABOVE the lowest note you hit, so you can get around the limitation to an extent by setting you pattern i the highest octave, and then using the octave down switch.

No MIDI, but I don't care much about that. The only thing I've ever used MIDI for is linking two instruments together. I only record straight audio.

I love the sound, which I'd describe as warm and shimmering, though you can make it do some appallingly dirty things by cranking that amazing LFO all the way up, or overdriving the VCA a bit.

What does it work well for? Well, for me, it's absolute forte is somethng like this: find a pattern you like on the arpeggiator, and use it as the basic track for a long, ambient/70's style composition. You'll have Klaus Schulze and Kitaro's lawyers banging on the door in no time. Although I haven't had it long, it's also evident that it's going to be capable of some quite cool lead sounds, too. Quite by accident I got a nice Hammond sound out of it tonight.

I suppose I should warn those who like their sounds to be identical every time theyuse them - this synth gets bored if you ask it to do that. You don't prgram this thing, you have a conversation with it.

I got this synth for nothing from a bloke who lived about 1500 miles away. He'd had had it sitting in a cupboard for years. He send it down by road courier. I dragged it from one end of the house to the other (damn thing weighed 55 pounds in its box), plonked it on the stand, switched it on, and it worked perfectly.

However, that was on a monday, and it was in a good mood. When I say that this synth has moods, trust me - it has a PERSONALITY. If I switch it on after I've had the radiator going in the room, it'll be totally out of tune. Thn the oscillators talk to each other for a few minutes and gradually agree to go back into tune again. If you hit a chord, press 'hold' and then ignore it, it'll get bored and start playing with the sound itself.

Reliable? So far I would say yes. Temperamental - definately, but in a way I find endearing rather than annoying. But man, you would not want to use it on stage (though it would probably be worth it just to see a few bug-eyes fro other musos in the crowd.)

Well, Roland Australia have been helpful in the past, but I've never asked them for help with an instrument this old, so I'll pass on that question.

If it were stolen, would I buy it again? Where the hell would I find another one? I live in Tasmania :/ But yeah, I would _want_ to replace it. Actually, I'd really need to find this actual instrument again, because I doubt any two are really the same.
How long have I been playing... errr, 28 years, but not constantly! I'm really only getting back ito recording agai after a long lay-off. Only other synth at the moment is a Juno 2, which is more sonically flexible, but a lot less fun to fiddle with. Have played or owned Moog modulars, Korg Ms20, Dx7, D-70, Poly61, ARP string synth, and whatnot.

What do I wish it had? More control over the arpeggiator.

I look atinstruments this way: most people seem to decide what they want, and then go looking for something that does that. I get something, work out what it does best, and let that influence the music I create with it.