Jupiter-80/50 LayerSection Functionality

[cabot001]

I don't have a Jupiter-80, but since reading about the Version 2 software and the new Jupiter-50 I am becoming more interested in buying one or the other (probably a 50). I have a Fantom-X7 but didn't make the upgrade to a Fantom-G. I do big band arrangements using a JV-50 with the old Sound Canvas sounds, but recently heard some impressive demos of the ARX-03 Brass board. I am particularly interested in its ability to handle section instruments in a more musical way, i.e. to trigger all the section instruments when playing one note and split them up when playing chords (Unison Mode). It also allows you to stack the instruments to produce bell tones, etc. (Stack Mode). I emailed Roland US to ask whether this functionality was present in the Jupiter-80/50, but was told it wasn't. However, this appears to be incorrect as the Jupiter-80 parameter guide has a page explaining that "LayerSection" is indeed the same as Unison Mode on the ARX-03 board.

I was wondering if any forum members had tried using this on the Jupiter-80 and how it compared with the ARX-03 board. The latter seems to offer a lot more tweaks to the brass instruments in the section (Personality, Stability, Turbidity, Noise, etc.), but maybe these are subtleties that don't matter too much. One concern with using LayerSection on the Jupiter-80/50 would be what happens if, say, four trumpets are used in a section. When I sequence more than one trumpet on my JV-50, the resulting sound is full of phase cancellations because the same sample is being triggered four times. I get around this by adding different small delays to the four trumpet parts. Has anyone tried layering four Supernatural trumpets on the Jupiter-80 and, if so, is the sound satisfactory or is some extra tweaking necessary, e.g. slight microtuning of each trumpet, to avoid phasing? Maybe the SuperNatural engine for the trumpet sound adds the necessary random elements to each instrument's tone/tuning/timing to produce a satisfactory unison sound - I don't know.

OT, I am glad to hear that the MFX can now be arranged in series on the Jupiters as this allows, for example, e.q. to be added to a Rhodes sound and then this sound to be fed into a chorus or phaser effect. Having recently demo'd a JP-80, I think the Rhodes and Wurly sounds will now have great potential to be tweaked in many useful ways to emulate how these instruments sound on record.

Thanks for any replies to this query!