For those interested to buy a System-8

[matt_one]

I purchased the Roland System-8 three months ago,
so I would say to have clear ideas about its pros & cons.
I'm not talking about pros & cons known BEFORE the purchase,
since choice and decision to purchase should rely on advertised features and known limits.
You know the features, you know the limits or lack of features, you decide if it's good for you or choose another product.

Here are the limits (BEFORE the purchase) : 1 LFO, no modulation matrix, 8 voices polyphony, 4 octaves keyboard, no aftertouch.
Here are the features : a main synth engine, 3 PLUG-OUT synthesizers, a great hands-on control panel,
split & layer functionalities, arpeggiator, step sequencer, onboard effects, vocoder, line inputs.

After three months of use, I wouldn't waste too much time talking about:

- how good the PLUG-OUTS synths are;
- how close to the originals they are;

I can say that the idea of a synth with its main engine and capable of hosting 3 different synthesizers is great, and I really like it.
I never owned one of the original Jupiter-8, Juno 106 and JX-3P, so I can't say how close the sound is...
But they sound good.

The strong point of the synth should be the native System-8 engine, with a standard subtractive architecture and a noticeable set of 24 waveforms for the two main oscillators, including 14 FM waveforms, plus a third oscillator acting as a sub-oscillator.
The COLOR parameter of each oscillator allows to further shape each waveforms and can be modulated by several modulation sources.
Cross modulation, Sync and Ring modulation are available as well.
Talking about modulations, I can't avoid to mention the single LFO.
Compared to other synthesizers in the same price range, where at least 2 LFOs are available,
the presence of a single LFO might be rather questionable.
I've considered this carefully before buying, and the option to record knobs motions in the step sequencer
seemed to me a valid compromise solution.
Nevertheless, you would expect a single fully functional LFO and I found out soon that's not the case...
Apart the inability to separately modulate the pitch of each oscillator (you need 2 LFOs for that), or at least switch off the modulation on one of them (which is possible on the Jupiter-8 and JX-3P PLUG-OUTS),
the LFO behaviour is very unusual and it's something that you wouldn't expect on a synth.
The System-8's LFO has 6 waveforms (sine, triangle, saw, square, sample&hold and random) and 3 VARIATIONS, thus a total amount of 18 LFO waveforms.
The single LFO is available as source modulator for PITCH, FILTER, AMP and COLOR.
While all the LFO's waveforms are usable for PITCH, FILTER and AMP modulations, only what would seem a sine or a triangular shape is "available" for COLOR modulations, and actually you can't even choose it.
Whatever action you take on the LFO waveforms knob, the result is forcibly the same single wave shape.
The same happens with the other waveforms in VARIATION 2 and VARIATION 3 of the LFO, where only one out of six works.
Needless to say how useful would be to use a Square wave LFO, or a Saw, a Sample&Hold or a Random, to modulate FM oscillators.
As well with the other two VARIATION's waveforms, that would be extremely useful with FM oscillators.
So, instead of 18 LFO waveforms, you get one single waveform shape to modulate the COLOR.
A single LFO is a limit, a crippled one is way beyond this limit....
I would say that's clearly a bug of the System-8, since on its little brother System-1M and System-1 VST, as some users reported, all the LFO waveforms are instead available for oscillator's COLOR modulations.
It's really baffling to me.
I didn't find before any synth with an LFO in which its waveforms are available for some destinations and inhibited for others.
Still talking about modulations, also using oscillator 3 as source modulation for osc1 or osc2 COLOR produce a strange effect,
a clear dissonance every four key pressed.
This has been reported by Roland as an intended behaviour, since it should mimics old analog synths behaviour.
But, again, this behaviour is not the same on the software version, the System-8 VST, where the same modulation doesn't produce the same effects and therefore is way more usable.
Last but not least, I must report another issue when external MIDI sync is enabled, in order to use the System-8 with a DAW external sequencer.
Enabling TEMPO SYNC for rhythmic effect using DELAYS onboard effects, some bizarre changes in pitch of delayed notes are clearly audible and the display on System-8 shows a very unstable BPM value.
I find it extremely annoying and after all possible tests, USB MIDI, MIDI cables, DAW settings,
I gave up and manually match the tempo between the DAW and the synth.
Since I described known issues that some users reported on various places on the Web since the end of 2016
(but that I unfortunately discovered AFTER the purchase), it's really disappointing to still find the same issues 4 years later.
It seems that this product suffers from these issues since the beginning.
As a synth user, since I like to use a synth for sound design, I've found out these problems very soon.
Which use is intended to do with a synthesizer : to program sounds on it or it's just a mere presets player?

The System-8 is a good synthesizer, without these issues would be a GREAT synth.

[Revelation]

Thank you for your insightful information. In comparison to the newer Jupiter X, the System 8 has a gritty sound which they say is a little closer to the original Jupiter 8. I think the sound of the System 8 is killer. As long as you have another keyboard that is at least 5 octaves I think I would be OK with the 4 octaves this keyboard has.

[Manic]

Talking about modulations, I can't avoid to mention the single LFO.
Compared to other synthesizers in the same price range, where at least 2 LFOs are available,
the presence of a single LFO might be rather questionable.
I've considered this carefully before buying, and the option to record knobs motions in the step sequencer
seemed to me a valid compromise solution.
Nevertheless, you would expect a single fully functional LFO and I found out soon that's not the case...
Apart the inability to separately modulate the pitch of each oscillator (you need 2 LFOs for that), or at least switch off the modulation on one of them (which is possible on the Jupiter-8 and JX-3P PLUG-OUTS),
the LFO behaviour is very unusual and it's something that you wouldn't expect on a synth.
The System-8's LFO has 6 waveforms (sine, triangle, saw, square, sample&hold and random) and 3 VARIATIONS, thus a total amount of 18 LFO waveforms.
The single LFO is available as source modulator for PITCH, FILTER, AMP and COLOR.
While all the LFO's waveforms are usable for PITCH, FILTER and AMP modulations, only what would seem a sine or a triangular shape is "available" for COLOR modulations, and actually you can't even choose it.
Whatever action you take on the LFO waveforms knob, the result is forcibly the same single wave shape.
The same happens with the other waveforms in VARIATION 2 and VARIATION 3 of the LFO, where only one out of six works.
Needless to say how useful would be to use a Square wave LFO, or a Saw, a Sample&Hold or a Random, to modulate FM oscillators.
As well with the other two VARIATION's waveforms, that would be extremely useful with FM oscillators.
So, instead of 18 LFO waveforms, you get one single waveform shape to modulate the COLOR.
A single LFO is a limit, a crippled one is way beyond this limit....
I would say that's clearly a bug of the System-8, since on its little brother System-1M and System-1 VST, as some users reported, all the LFO waveforms are instead available for oscillator's COLOR modulations.
It's really baffling to me.
I didn't find before any synth with an LFO in which its waveforms are available for some destinations and inhibited for others.
Still talking about modulations, also using oscillator 3 as source modulation for osc1 or osc2 COLOR produce a strange effect,
a clear dissonance every four key pressed.
This has been reported by Roland as an intended behaviour, since it should mimics old analog synths behaviour.
But, again, this behaviour is not the same on the software version, the System-8 VST, where the same modulation doesn't produce the same effects and therefore is way more usable.

I agree, a second LFO would be great. I would rather have the variation knob select between LFO 1 and LFO 2 than all the other waveform variations which are very niche IMO.
However, I'm pretty sure the LFO of the System-8 VST the exact same behavior when applied to the Color, so I do think it is intended. It is weird and also limiting. However, it also gives you an option to use 2 waveforms simultaneously - which isn't possible on the System-1. For example: a square to the pitch and a triangle (I think) to the Color knob. Anyway, I also have the System-1m, so I got best of both worlds :)

Last but not least, I must report another issue when external MIDI sync is enabled, in order to use the System-8 with a DAW external sequencer.
Enabling TEMPO SYNC for rhythmic effect using DELAYS onboard effects, some bizarre changes in pitch of delayed notes are clearly audible and the display on System-8 shows a very unstable BPM value.
I find it extremely annoying and after all possible tests, USB MIDI, MIDI cables, DAW settings,
I gave up and manually match the tempo between the DAW and the synth.

I think this is not entirely System-8's fault. The midi clock coming from a DAW is inherently instable. The System-8 just doesn't deal very well with an instable midi clock. But if you send it a more stable midi clock (like when using a USAMO or just a hardware sequencer), it will be much better. Still some tiny artefacts sometimes though. So for that reason, when recording, I also just set the tempo manually (and save it per patch). But for live use, it is perfectly fine if you send it a stable clock. Also, I love the ability to just port the whole sound to the plugin, so you don't even need to record the audio anyway. I am very happy that they actually DID fix a bug recently that caused the plugin version to sound different to the hardware version when the reverb type Mod was used. The plugin version sounded like it was actually one of the Hall type reverbs being used.

[losgatos]

Last but not least, I must report another issue when external MIDI sync is enabled, in order to use the System-8 with a DAW external sequencer.
Enabling TEMPO SYNC for rhythmic effect using DELAYS onboard effects, some bizarre changes in pitch of delayed notes are clearly audible and the display on System-8 shows a very unstable BPM value.
I find it extremely annoying and after all possible tests, USB MIDI, MIDI cables, DAW settings,
I gave up and manually match the tempo between the DAW and the synth.

I think this is not entirely System-8's fault. The midi clock coming from a DAW is inherently instable. The System-8 just doesn't deal very well with an instable midi clock. But if you send it a more stable midi clock (like when using a USAMO or just a hardware sequencer), it will be much better. Still some tiny artefacts sometimes though. So for that reason, when recording, I also just set the tempo manually (and save it per patch). But for live use, it is perfectly fine if you send it a stable clock.

Fascinating! I just posted something about my SYSTEM-1m in the MC-707 forum thinking that the strange "tempo" issues on the SYSTEM-1m are caused by something in the MC-707: Once I made a change to the MC-707 MIDI config the problem disappeared for me. But you describing the same kind of behavior for a SYSTEM-8 makes me think that maybe there's something else at work here. (On the MC-707 once I disabled "MIDI Sync Out USB" things settled. Of course it makes no sense since my SYSTEM-1m is not on USB MIDI at all.)