Under the abyss | Roland JD-800 ambient improvisation soundscape

video upload by MIDERA

"The Roland JD800. This is a synth that has interested me for years and it came yesterday. It feels like a D50+PG1000. But it doesn’t sound like one. I can hear a lot of similar sounds in here. Honestly, I really don’t know what to make of this synth. There is no honeymoon phase. It looks great and it feels great. Even the keys are surprisingly nice, given what I’ve read about them being awful. Yes, I will need to open this up and remove the red glue which hasn’t been a problem on this unit yet.

I think I would love this thing more honestly, if I didn’t have so many synths and no good way to store them. I had bought a Jaspers stand but sold it within a few days because it made my room feel like a tomb and I just hated being in here. But now, I have too many synths and shouldn’t have even bought the JD800.

For me, I’m not yet understanding how this synth is really worth its price. Sure, it has 4 parts, but each part is fairly static (no FM, AM, Cross Mod, etc). Each part has its own envelopes and LFOs and that is pretty nice, but I’ll never get unique timbres that one gets with other synthesis models. For now I feel like it sounds like a less interesting SY77 or D50.

Maybe I’ll change my mind. I don’t know.

This sound was made using 2 (or 3?) parts with internal FX only."