Roland Jupiter-8
The Jupiter-8, or JP-8, is an eight-voice polyphonic analog subtractive synthesizer introduced by Roland Corporation in early 1981.
| Jupiter-8 | |
|---|---|
| Manufacturer | Roland Corporation |
| Dates | 1981–1985 |
| Price | ¥980,000 JPY $5295 US £3995 GBP |
| Technical specifications | |
| Polyphony | 8 voices |
| Timbrality | 2 |
| Oscillator | 2 VCOs per voice |
| LFO | 1 triangle/square/sawtooth/random |
| Synthesis type | analog subtractive |
| Filter | 12 or 24 dB/octave resonant lowpass, non-resonant highpass 1 ADSR envelope for VCF |
| Attenuator | 1 ADSR envelope for VCA |
| Aftertouch expression | No |
| Velocity expression | No |
| Storage memory | 64 patches |
| Effects | None |
| Input/output | |
| Keyboard | 61 keys |
| External control | DCB (on later models) |
The Jupiter-8 was Roland's flagship synthesizer for the first half of the 1980s. Approximately 3,300 units have been produced. 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. A Jupiter-8 plug-out was included already installed on the Roland System-8 synthesizer, in 2017.