but my confusion began when I found what seemed to be five separate Base Engine synthesizers called Common, PR‑A, PR‑B, PR‑C and PR‑D.

It can generate up to 256 simultaneous Partials so, depending on how many Partials you invoke per Tone, that's a polyphony of between 64 and 256 notes if just one Tone is being played. This generates all but one of the effects and also provides a powerful four-Partials-per-Tone synth architecture that echoes many Roland products from the JV1080 onward. The first of these applications is called the Zen Core Base Engine. A final EQ and compressor across the outputs complete the signal path.

Each Part then adds a dedicated MFX (multi-effect), and the mix of all five Parts plus four global effects is called a Scene. The sounds that you generate using these synthesizers are called Tones and, with certain limitations that we'll address shortly, you can insert any Tone into any of the five Parts available. A number of applications running within this environment then provide the various synthesizers and other facilities on offer. This runs an operating environment called Zen Core that is, in many ways, the equivalent of the operating systems that run on the Intel chips in your Mac or PC. It's based upon a new chip called the Behaviour Modelling Core, or BMC.

It took me weeks to fully plumb the depths of the Jupiter‑X but, having done so, I now feel that I can explain it in just a few paragraphs. The documentation was of little assistance so, before continuing, I wanted to work out exactly what the Zen Core, the Base Engine, the Instrument Specific Applications and everything else mentioned in the blurb really are. Unfortunately, some of my initial enthusiasm evaporated when I tried to find out what was going on inside it. Consequently, I was delighted to be offered the chance to review it. With its beautiful design and higher quality hardware, five-octave velocity- and pressure-sensitive keyboard, greater polyphony and internal power supply, this seems to be the instrument that the System 8 never quite aspired to be. It also offered limited patch and performance memories, lacked an XLR microphone input, its screen was tiny, and it was powered by an external power supply that, for me, made it unsuitable for live use.īut now Roland have released the similarly targeted Jupiter‑X. My greatest frustration was its four-octave keyboard, which meant that I had to treat it as an expansion module if I wanted to take full advantage of its sounds and, while it doubled the polyphony of the Boutique modules that preceded it, it was still only capable of producing eight voices at a time. But there were aspects of it that left me cold. In 2017 I reviewed the Roland System 8 and concluded that it sounded great its own synth engine was a revelation, and I was impressed with its Jupiter 8 and Juno expansions. The Jupiter name comes loaded with expectation.

Roland jupiter 80 vstorrent