Finally got a Jupiter 80!

Congrats!

Cool I just bought one too with that Sweetwater no interest financing thing. Should be here late next week. I only really needed a new studio DAW controller. Literally every synth action dedicated midi controller I've tried feels like crap, spongy, noisy, cheap, etc. Man I hope this things action is as good as my D70 and JD-800. No one ever answered my question about the Jupiters keybed and action, luckily I can just request a call tag and send this Jupiter back for a full refund, but I'm keeping my fingers crossed I don't have to do that. Wish this forum was still active. Guess I'm just too late to the game. Anyway enjoy your new axe.

I'm loving it so far.

Sounds fuller than the Integra-7.

The keyboard action is slightly lighter than I'd prefer but it feels robust enough for live use.

I've got it coupled with an A-88, which is great for playing piano stuff, and a laptop running Win 7 x64, Cantabile 3, Halion Sonic 2, Omnisphere 2, Korg Legacy M1, Wavestation and Polysix, OPX ProII and Tal-Uno-LX.

The Jupiter 80 has replaced an A-37 and a rack with Integra-7, Fantom XR + SRX03, SRX04 and SRX07, TR-Rack and Proteus 2000 with Composer, Sounds of ZR and Vintage Pro ROMs.

Despite the Jupiter 80 being fairly hefty it has cut down my overall carry quite a bit.

JeffB63 wrote:

I'm loving it so far.

Sounds fuller than the Integra-7.

The keyboard action is slightly lighter than I'd prefer but it feels robust enough for live use.

I've got it coupled with an A-88, which is great for playing piano stuff, and a laptop running Win 7 x64, Cantabile 3, Halion Sonic 2, Omnisphere 2, Korg Legacy M1, Wavestation and Polysix, OPX ProII and Tal-Uno-LX.

The Jupiter 80 has replaced an A-37 and a rack with Integra-7, Fantom XR + SRX03, SRX04 and SRX07, TR-Rack and Proteus 2000 with Composer, Sounds of ZR and Vintage Pro ROMs.

Despite the Jupiter 80 being fairly hefty it has cut down my overall carry quite a bit.

Do you have any experience with the Roland boards of the 90's? Would you say the action is lighter than those? I use a Roland RD-700gx for triggering piano samples, but most of the time prefer a good synth action.

The last Roland boards I had before the A37 and A88 were the JV-90, XP-50 and FA-76.

I'd say this action is a bit firmer than the JV-90 and very similar to the FA-76.

The best semi-weighted action I've ever had was my Kurzweil PC-3, a good compromise between fully weighted and synth weighted.

I think that with the feel of the A-88 for the piano stuff and the Jupiter 80 for everything else I should have it covered. (Still miss that PC-3 though!).

synth action style keybed. keybeds are personal so one person may think they feel great and another wont. personal taste. i love the j80 keybed.

ive an ob6 and a juno 60 and i can tell you the j80 of course feels much better than the juno 60 (i LOVE the juno 60!!!!! dont get it twisted!)

you should have no problems with the j80 keybed. if you know how an a-88 prop feels, then you should get a good idea on the j80.

marctronixx wrote:

synth action style keybed. keybeds are personal so one person may think they feel great and another wont. personal taste. i love the j80 keybed.

ive an ob6 and a juno 60 and i can tell you the j80 of course feels much better than the juno 60 (i LOVE the juno 60!!!!! dont get it twisted!)

you should have no problems with the j80 keybed. if you know how an a-88 prop feels, then you should get a good idea on the j80.

So true on actions, my folks Steinway D feels too light after playing my RD-700gx for the past several years lol. I'll admit the only recent synth action I've played in the past decade was a 61 Key Yamaha Motiff while I was waiting for them to bring out my RD at my local GC, and it felt spongy and rattley. There has been no reason to check anything else out in all this time since the D70 and JD-800 have held up so well all these years, and really after soft synths got good all my sounds have been generated by them even though I have 2 tall racks full of synth modules.

I have however bought and returned just about every dedicated synth action controller made in the last 10 years sold by Sweetwater, Zzounds, or AMS looking for a D70 replacement. Every single one of them I returned because the actions were just cheap. Probably the best of those were the SL61mkII and the Roland A800pro, but even those didn't have the solidity of the big Roland synths, but I suspect thats in part because the controllers don't have the heft or weight of a full blown synth. Anyhoo a few more days my 80 will be here and I can make my own mind up.

On the props side for Roland I called em yesterday and talked with Scott, and he actually went in back and pulled out a D70 and stuck it next to the 80 and compared the actions. He's a good player so I listened with keen ears as he played the two side by side and described the differences. The consensus seemed the two boards 76 key action were almost identical, Thats got me excited! Still can't find anywhere describing the process to get audio from the 80 to my PC via USB so I ordered a couple mic cables so I'm not caught next week with no sound. I'm pumped!

cloudswimmer wrote:

Still can't find anywhere describing the process to get audio from the 80 to my PC via USB so I ordered a couple mic cables so I'm not caught next week with no sound. I'm pumped!

That's an easy one. You set the Jupiter to the USB mode that allows MIDI and Audio, and select the Jupiter as your Audio Interface in your PC DAW.

Had the JP 50 and that's how it went anyways. Nothing to worry about there but it will be nice having cables you can plug into amps or speakers because I guarantee you're going to want to have a quick solution for powering up and getting lost in a 15 layer evolving pad every now and then.

Man..... just noticed the current pricing on this and oh do I wish I had something I'd be willing to get rid of to make space for it! Roland are practically giving these away now.

Must be near the end of its sales cycle, which makes sense.

My only regret will be if I somehow missed out on this one and Roland doesn't debut something even more spectacular (is that possible, though?!) in this category.

If you've been on the fence on this, or have been sucked in by all the ridiculous bashing that's gone on online, seriously reconsider. The JP-80 really is almost everything Roland has refined over its entire history of synthesizers, fine tuned to work incredibly well for making music.

It's a complete steal at the current price!

I was the owner of a JP80, sold it two years ago, only had it for a year, I did get very frustrated with the horrible OS with regards to handling sounds, importing and exporting, no librarian (which would have been a really massive help). I was sucked in with wanting an analogue synth instead and sold it, however the past four months I find myself missing and wanting one again. I don;t see any price reductions in the UK?