Roland Jupiter-8

Jupiter-8
ManufacturerRoland Corporation
Dates1981–1985
Price¥980,000 JPY
$5295 US
£3995 GBP
Technical specifications
Polyphony8 voices
Timbrality2
Oscillator2 VCOs per voice
LFO1 triangle/square/sawtooth/random
Synthesis typeanalog subtractive
Filter12 or 24 dB/octave[1] resonant lowpass,
non-resonant highpass
1 ADSR envelope for VCF
Attenuator1 ADSR envelope for VCA
Aftertouch expressionNo
Velocity expressionNo
Storage memory64 patches
EffectsNone
Input/output
Keyboard61 keys
External controlDCB (on later models)

The Jupiter-8, or JP-8, is an eight-voice polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizer introduced by Roland Corporation in early 1981.

The Jupiter-8 was Roland's flagship synthesizer for the first half of the 1980s. Approximately 3,300 units have been produced.[2] Although it lacked the soon-to-be standard of MIDI control, later production series of the Jupiter-8 did include Roland's proprietary DCB interface. The instrument had many advanced features for its time, including the ability to split the keyboard into two zones, with separate patches active on each zone. Two years after the release of the Jupiter-8, Roland released the more affordable Jupiter-6 synthesizer with built-in MIDI control but an otherwise slightly reduced set of features.

In 2011, three decades after the release of the original Jupiter series, Roland released the fully digital Jupiter-80 and Jupiter-50 synthesizers as successors to the 1980s originals. They were in turn succeeded by the Jupiter-X and Jupiter-Xm in 2019.[3] A Jupiter-8 plug-out was included already installed on the Roland System-8 synthesizer, in 2017.[4][5]

  1. ^ "Roland's Jupiter family yielded one or two shining examples of what an analogue polysynth should be. GORDON REID planet rocks... [THE JUPITER 8]". Sound On Sound. February 1998. Archived from the original on 6 June 2015.
  2. ^ "Roland Jupiter-8 – the grand master of synth-pop". www.greatsynthesizers.com. 25 December 2017.
  3. ^ "Roland revisits its classic synths in new Jupiter-X range". September 5, 2019.
  4. ^ "Roland System-8 Reviewed - A Wolf in Jupiter's Clothing?". February 16, 2017.
  5. ^ "Roland System 8". www.soundonsound.com.