Roland Jupiter-X, Xm, Pros & Cons, Cons, Cons

Digiphex Electronics

"Warning: I didn't like it."

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He focuses mainly on the hardware interface and not the sound. The loud keyboard play was odd... Any Jupiter-X owners want to chime in?

For what it's worth, I owned a Jupiter-8, JX10, two Juno-106's, JX-3P, and an Alpha Juno. I picked up a Jupiter-Xm for the portability and I am happy with it. That sound is there and the interface is not difficult to work with once you understand it. It sounds the same as the originals to me, just turn down the effects. The aging and warm up emulation is a nice addition. BTW, the vintage Roland synths the X and Xm emulate were pretty spot on with tuning. Roland's tend to have a very in-tune and clean sound compared to many other poly analogs of the time. The Jupiter-8 has a certain glow and fullness about it that the Xm captures. Other synths like OB-Xa and Prophet-5 have a different character about them, kind of like an IPA compared to a lager or pilsner. An interesting addition to the X and Xm BTW, are the Moog and SCI filters. It would be awesome if they added additional models - Oberheim (4 and 2 pole on the OB-XA and SEM state variable), Yamaha CS, Korg MS20, and of course the classic TB-303 diode ladder filter. Alesis added a slew of filter types with the ION and Micron.