Why I Love the Roland JP-8000
Posted: 01:00, 13 January 2012
I'm not one of those people with an ear to say its sound is way better than what else is available.
But the layout for ease of paramater controll is unmatched:
Sliders, as opposed to knobs for filter cut and res right next to eachother allow one to easily tweak both simultanously with one hand while keying with the other- once you understand this, you can't live without it.
Also, can't live without: the left side/ribbon controll and mod lever, how one can with one hand fade in/out of LFO 2 WHILE changing rate and/or depth WHILE changing the assignable ribbon controlelr with your palm, WHILE bending the pitch, all while playing keys with the other hand. Maybe novation X station can do something like this if you program the pad and stick, but most likely not as much. Sure you can automate software to do 99999X more at the same time than this, but not hands-on spur of the moment while playing. I threw this idea out there in a recent roland email and they said they'd relay it to their design team for possible use in future products. Also, the hard to find feedback osc. there are some softwares with feedback synthesis, but I haven't played them. I did a side by side of the SH-201 and JP8K feedback and the are different, JP allows you to change the harmonics and amount, while sh-201 just says 'feedback'. I'd say they're slightly different and both have an advatage over the other: JP has more of a harmonics range but the 201 has more of a pronounced deep growl to the FB (with no distortion either). Oh, and tell me another board with presets as distinct, and complicated as the JP8K, cause I don't think one exists- they're great but almost give the board too much pre-made personality.
JP8K one of the holy grails of synths. Shoulda added distortion and maybe taken away how the envelopes click on really short attacks (read older true analogs do that, but I'm not crazy about it.)
The end
But the layout for ease of paramater controll is unmatched:
Sliders, as opposed to knobs for filter cut and res right next to eachother allow one to easily tweak both simultanously with one hand while keying with the other- once you understand this, you can't live without it.
Also, can't live without: the left side/ribbon controll and mod lever, how one can with one hand fade in/out of LFO 2 WHILE changing rate and/or depth WHILE changing the assignable ribbon controlelr with your palm, WHILE bending the pitch, all while playing keys with the other hand. Maybe novation X station can do something like this if you program the pad and stick, but most likely not as much. Sure you can automate software to do 99999X more at the same time than this, but not hands-on spur of the moment while playing. I threw this idea out there in a recent roland email and they said they'd relay it to their design team for possible use in future products. Also, the hard to find feedback osc. there are some softwares with feedback synthesis, but I haven't played them. I did a side by side of the SH-201 and JP8K feedback and the are different, JP allows you to change the harmonics and amount, while sh-201 just says 'feedback'. I'd say they're slightly different and both have an advatage over the other: JP has more of a harmonics range but the 201 has more of a pronounced deep growl to the FB (with no distortion either). Oh, and tell me another board with presets as distinct, and complicated as the JP8K, cause I don't think one exists- they're great but almost give the board too much pre-made personality.
JP8K one of the holy grails of synths. Shoulda added distortion and maybe taken away how the envelopes click on really short attacks (read older true analogs do that, but I'm not crazy about it.)
The end