All about the Roland Jupiter-series

-----Original Message-----
From: N. Kent [mailto:ndkent@...] 
Sent: Monday, April 10, 2000 12:16 PM
To: analogue@...; inform3r@...
Subject: [AH] MKS-80 Thoughts


>    Hey there,
> 
>     I got an MKS-80 about a week ago and I've finally had a little time to
> get serious with it. I must say that the synth is incredible! 

I think its just great in comparison to a lot of things. Soundwise
theres the differences between the Curtis and Roland chip versions, so
that complicates things a little in comparing its sound.

I bought one about 5 years ago (Roland chip) thinking it would cover the
big polysynth area, and I found, while it was good at the straight
sounds I soon bought a Memorymoog because of all the sonic areas it
couldn't be pushed into (the more extremes, resonant based filter
sounds, never found that bottom end suitible for what I was looking for,
etc.) Still the SYSEX for every parameter and velocity is a rarity in
real analog polysynths. I eventually found I could pretty much cover the
MKS-80 sound with a Voyetra Eight, so I intended to sell it, though I
never got around to doing it. Now I'm a little annoyed that the price is
coming down on MKS-80s. Still its nice to have something poly with SYSEX
on every parameter.

Prior to
> buying it I was use to reading one user review say that it's great and the
> next one would claim that it sucks and it's over-priced.

well overpriced if you will only settle for under $500 synths or wonder
why a MKS-70 goes for $300. I mean look what VAs generally go for.

 I think the latter
> remark is made by people that haven't taken the time to edit it. Once you
> press a couple of buttons and scroll through the parameters this baby
reall=
> y
> opens up!

I should hope so!

> I've even gotten a pretty close Mini bass!(dont flame me! :)

nah, I don't think it comes close, some kind of analog bass, sure.

 I
> haven't even used it in conjunction with the MPG-80 yet, I am planning to
> use it with Unisyn though(editor for Digital Performer).
>     I'm writing this letter to see if there are any MKS-80 users with
> similar feelings. I was also curious if anyone out there is already using
i=
> t
> with Unisyn. Also, does anyone have any cool patches??

I'm using a Doepfer Drehbank which works out since there is just the
right amount of knobs to do all the parameters. (had to sit there a day
and input all the sysex, but since I did it before for the PC-1600, I
just copied, I didn't like that I had to do 3 pages worth on the PC-1600).

The one thing nice about the computer editors is in most cases you can
see every parameter value in one view.

nicholas kent