New Synth Day

[xgsjx]

At last the day has arrived & I’ve taken delivery of a shiny new Roland Jupiter X. 
been playing with it for the past hour or so & what a superb bit of kit it is.

 

[bartelby]

ooh, lovely!

[dave_bass5]

OH MY……that is gorgeous. I had the original JP8 in the early 90’s, and loved it, but i didnt find much use for it in a covers band. 

These days i use a Fantom 06 with the JP8/JX8P/Juno106 expansions and find i use the JP8 most of the time. I can only imagine how powerful this sounds. 

[xgsjx]

8 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

OH MY……that is gorgeous. I had the original JP8 in the early 90’s, and loved it, but i didnt find much use for it in a covers band. 

These days i use a Fantom 06 with the JP8/JX8P/Juno106 expansions and find i use the JP8 most of the time. I can only imagine how powerful this sounds. 

I was considering getting a Juno 106 just before Xmas & saw the Juno X, which looks so at home, then discovered this. The fact that it comes with 6 pre loaded synths, an RD piano & a vocoder made it a better option than the Juno X.  And you can layer any 4 of them!
The ease of creating or tweaking sounds is superb. Took me less than 30 mins to recreate the piano sound on “One more smile” by Yebba. 
 

 

[dave_bass5]

Wow, XV-5080 as well. Its amazing what Zen core does these days. It looks like you have the same expansions built in that the Fantom does, plus the 3 on the right. 

I almost got the smaller version last year, but was put off by the shorter keybed for live playing.

 

One of the reasons i like using the synth expansions in the Fantom is for the more traditional user interface. It just seems more intuitive. I tihnk Rolnad do a good job with the ergonomics on these things.

 

[BigRedX]

Do the controls that aren't present on the original synth become inactive when you load one of the models?

[xgsjx]

1 hour ago, BigRedX said:

Do the controls that aren't present on the original synth become inactive when you load one of the models?

Yes. The front panel is very similar to the Jupiter 8, but is designed for the Jupiter X engine. So some controls get reassigned or become inactive. E.g, the J8 is a 2 oscillator synth, so the slider for osc3 is for PWM & osc4’s for cross modulation. The LCD shows what it’s assigned to the moment you touch it. 
On the 106 osc 1&2 sliders turn into on/off switches for PW & Saw respectively, whilst 3&4 are level sliders for sub & noise. 
Same with the buttons, a 106 doesn’t have ring mod, sync or xmod, so when you press one of the corresponding buttons, they do nothing. 
What you can also do is change the filter section to a Moog or Sequential filter. So if you’ve ever wondered what an SH-101 would sound like if you replaced the filter with a Moog ladder filter, then this lets you do that. 😎

[dave_bass5]

The ability to change filter characteristics is a good one. I’ve got most of my generic Zen Core synth brass programmed with the Moog filter. As much as I love the Roland sound the Moog seems to have a bit more body to it. A bit darker I guess. 

[BigRedX]

If I had a spare £2k I'd be seriously considering one of these. I had a JP6 in the 90s which I loved, but it was simply too big and heavy to use live especially when you consider that it was being played by a computer rather than a human being. It was sold and replaced with a Nord Rack. Right now all my synth needs are being met by the plug-ins that come with Logic, but a nice bit of hardware would be appreciated.

[Waddo Soqable]

That looks, and no doubt sounds, brilliant.. 👍

I had an old JX3P years ago that I really wish I'd kept, these days I've just got a battered cheapo Juno Di that is quite useful and adequate for any keyboardyness I might need. 

[xgsjx]

4 hours ago, dave_bass5 said:

The ability to change filter characteristics is a good one. I’ve got most of my generic Zen Core synth brass programmed with the Moog filter. As much as I love the Roland sound the Moog seems to have a bit more body to it. A bit darker I guess. 

Yes. I used the Moog filter on an RD piano along with a little Juno chorus & Integra7 reverb. The result was a superb moody dark piano. 
 

I looked at a few other synths before settling for this. The Arturia Polybrute was a serious contender, as was the UDO Super6. 

Edited July 14, 2023 by xgsjx

[Quatschmacher]

On 14/07/2023 at 06:59, xgsjx said:

I was considering getting a Juno 106 just before Xmas & saw the Juno X, which looks so at home, then discovered this.

The Juno 106 is wonderful. I’ve had one on loan for the last six months and am totally smitten. I did try out the Juno X in store a couple of times and, while it is incredibly powerful, I feel it lacks the Juno’s superpower which absolute simplicity, immediacy and WYSIWYG controls. Don’t get me wrong, I love programming but I seem to get much more musical mileage out of synths that are simple and quick to dial up a good sound on.

[BigRedX]

Surely the Juno X completely replicates the original Juno's front panel?

 

What makes the new version less immediate?

[Quatschmacher]

Just now, BigRedX said:

Surely the Juno X completely replicates the original Juno's front panel?

 

What makes the new version less immediate?

When loading in a particular model, it was far from obvious how to navigate to presets that utilise only that model for instance as the preset buttons recall from all models. There are quite a few modal functions on buttons, which does detract from the immediacy of one button serving a single function.

 

If I recall correctly, there was some aspect of PWM that wasn’t quite at the top level too. It’s a while since I last was in front of it so would have to check.

 

I found it a bit of an option paralysis machine. 

[xgsjx]

2 hours ago, Quatschmacher said:

When loading in a particular model, it was far from obvious how to navigate to presets that utilise only that model for instance as the preset buttons recall from all models. There are quite a few modal functions on buttons, which does detract from the immediacy of one button serving a single function.

 

If I recall correctly, there was some aspect of PWM that wasn’t quite at the top level too. It’s a while since I last was in front of it so would have to check.

 

I found it a bit of an option paralysis machine. 

It might be portamento time?  That’s not on the front panel of the Jupiter X.  You have to go into a menu to set the speed, but there’s a big portamento button on the panel.  

[Quatschmacher]

24 minutes ago, xgsjx said:

It might be portamento time?  That’s not on the front panel of the Jupiter X.  You have to go into a menu to set the speed, but there’s a big portamento button on the panel.  

Having had another look, it’s the LFO depth that has a shared slider for its destinations. Also shared sliders for the levels/parts and the 3 envelopes. I’m just not a big fan of that approach; I much prefer a strict knob/slider per function layout wherever possible. (There are ways around this like on the Melbourne Instruments Nina (motorised knobs) or Nord Lead 3 (encoder ring LEDs).) I do have a synth that has shared slider functionality and it’s always a bit of a pain when switching between layers and functions as it’s so easy to mess something up. 

[BigRedX]

Surely then the problem isn't with the Juno emulation but the fact that it's also trying to be other things?

 

If you really want those other things and better control over them you should get the Jupiter X which has most of the controls missing from the Juno X at the top level.

[xgsjx]

4 hours ago, BigRedX said:

Surely then the problem isn't with the Juno emulation but the fact that it's also trying to be other things?

 

If you really want those other things and better control over them you should get the Jupiter X which has most of the controls missing from the Juno X at the top level.

A couple of nights ago, I just sat & messed around with creating the biggest bass sound I could. Started with a Jupiter 8 & created a good synth bass, then I opened anuther Jupiter 8 for another bass sound, then added a JX8P for a more bell like overtone & then an SH-101 for pure sub below it all. Did it all with no menu diving at all & was a great way to spend 2 hours (that includes playing about with said patch after creation). 😎