Roland Boutique JP-08 Synth Demo Sounds

Published on Nov 18, 2015 mylarmelodies

"Being largely a collection of some sounds on the ace little Roland Boutique JP08 I programmed in the car on a motorway, demoed through a touch of Valhalla Vintageverb. Thoughts on it below:

I think it's ace. The sliders have a tiny throw - they're 10mm. That's not much, but personally speaking, they're not at all 'unusable' either, as some commenters have pre-judged it to be before it was even in shops. Unusable means the machine is just that, and it just isn't. If you feel like complaining about it, you can go ahead and make your own better version. Sure, it can be tricky to absolutely nail a setting in certain circumstances, and for live performance it might not be ideal, but for a studio (or car) setting I had no problem whatsoever programming it. I suggest you reserve judgement till you've actually tried it in person, if you haven't.

In terms of sound I don't have a Jupiter 8 to compare it to, if you want to know if it's like half of a real Jupiter 8. There's a slight feeling of over-perfection to its sound, pitch stability, in that the original will never really be absolutely in tune, and that absolutely impacts the sound, but all I can assure you is that this is a genuinely impressive sounding thing, and frankly is more than 'close enough'. If there was anything I'd like it'd be a 'stability' setting to make it a bit wonkier. Anyway I think you'd probably struggle to pick it out from the real thing in a double blind, and anyway all that really matters is it's an inspiring sounding voice, very flexible, and to have all that flexibility in a box that's so tiny you literally can shove it in a carry bag and take it on holiday along with your laptop...that's cool. That's really cool.

Roland are to be congratulated for bringing this back in any form frankly, and here's crossing fingers for more ace Jupiter 8 inspired gear to come."

Click here for all JP-08 posts to date.