New synth from Roland?

[adhmzaiusz]

Yea, you are both right... Roland never intended it's products to be used the way they were used (which is funny because Roland can be credited for starting so many revolutions in electronic music genres) but what people ended up using them for defined so much in the music industry. So were these products excellently designed or just happy accidents in abundance? Are they just waiting for the right innovators to find the hidden gems in their new products?

....unless, the next revolution comes long after the world getting nuked and futuristic cave-dwellers discover a Jupiter 80 tombed up in unmarred yet playable condition. They will have no idea about diatonic scales, (or power for that matter) but somehow they make it work, the arpeggiator commanding a new style of dance and ways to tap a stick, and a new world will all prosper for aeons to come.

[tallowwaters]

Right, because the forward looking company would be making analog synths (you know, like the ones they stopped making 30 years ago) for a niche market of crybabies.

Really, it's just a rack version of a synth for people that don't need a massive workstation in their rig. The nerds like the ones here are the ones that blew the news of something new out of proportion.

[b3groover]

Here's what it comes down to: If you can't make good music with an instrument like the Integra, you need to find another line of work.

I'm not saying it's the be-all-end-all of synthesizers or even that I'm remotely interested in it (I'm not). I'm saying that compared to what was available when I was a lad, it's incredibly powerful and flexible. It's obviously for people who need a bunch of high-quality sounds and don't want to fiddle with 40GB of Kontakt nuttiness. Many people still play live and don't want to use laptops, for instance.

[Bitexion]

I agree with tallowwaters, they won't start remaking analog synths just because a tiny vocal minority is bitching about it in youtube comments and selected forums all the time. The new workstation synths from the Fantom series and up have become staples in pop artists live setups, specially since the same guys often get hired to play keyboards on major artists' tours.

So what if you got a brand new Jupiter-8, all analog and everything..it would still cost $3000 and be out of reach of most of you. And it still wouldn't sound "the same" as the 1981 one. No serious companies go backwards and remake stuff they did 30-40 years ago, just like bands don't remake all their old albums every 10 years, just to appease some nostalgics. Well, except for Square Enix, who's been remaking Final fantasy games for handheld consoles for the better part of a decade now, but still, they remade them in full 3D engines, so the nostalgics would have something new to b***h about.

When Dave Smith went back to analogue synths, he didn't just clone a Prophet-5 and be happy with that either.

[kuroichi]

I dont want roland to make an analog synth at all, I think my only real gripe with roland is that they seem to be stuck in 'trying to emulate real instruments mode'. As a company, they rarely inspire any excitement and have become stale, which I imagine is a business decision, as trying to make exciting products can be risky business.

Plus the things they do make that are interesting, often dont get developed enough.

I personally think the SP-404SX was one of the most fun samplers I ever used, however it's lacking in essential areas, like the sequencer capability (not only lack of features but its sloppy quantize etc), which seem just lazy coming from such a big company.

To put it bluntly they just seem boring...

[zoomtheline]

To me, they (or any company) needs to forget about instrument replication. We all want to use these instruments and not all can play them so it is a useful thing to have for sure but... You will never be able to replicate the details of an instrument due to a wide range of player influence. With the stuff we have now, we can create realistic phrases without going too extravagant. Anything more warranted then you get someone who can play the instrument. it's the only way to do a good job.

Roland are too blinkered on this route and think that sticking an old D-beam on it will keep the tech heads happy.
There must be new sounds to have, surely?

EDIT: sorry, only scanned above posts so I probably just replicated a lot of points covered.

[CS_TBL]

The only way in which a new instrument would be interesting towards those who need realistic acoustic instruments simulations is by going brute force. So, either ship it with an array of SSD's containing a terabyte worth o' acoustic samples, or ship it with a brutal load o' CPU power in order to do physical modelling beyond the quality we already know.

Alternatives to VA and ROMpler models would be.. tadaa.. FM. ^_^ But, yea, of only 1% of the potential audience knows how to program such synths..

What else? Additive synthesis perhaps, but I've never been a fan of that.

Physical Modelling. Perhaps, but only when done well.

Neural Nets. Perhaps, but certainly not at Neuron prices, and it will have to ship with sounds that make sense - it's what sank the Neuron for me.

I'd try to put the focus not on synths but on other things. The synth market is quite saturated if you ask me, with tons o' freebies and powerhouses in VST format that leave about nothing to be desired. I'd focus on innovative MIDI/USB controllers and live sequencers/performer systems.

[Hugo76]

I think that if Roland coupled tis baby with the V-Synth GT, they'd have a serious conteder for the Kronos. Hopefully this will be their next workstation

Edit:
I would like to add, though, that Roland rally should do something about the effect section. Having effects for all parts is nice, but in this day and age 1 effect simply won't do. On VA synths from Access, Novation and others, a whole set of effects pr part has long been implemented.

[StepLogik]

Hopefully this will be their next workstation

Or just fix the bugs and implement all the missing features in their current G-series workstations.

[Hugo76]

Or just fix the bugs and implement all the missing features in their current G-series workstations.

I don't know the G, but if there are bugs they definately should be adressed. Even if they were, however, Roland need to adress the threath from Korg (as do Yamaha), and that calls for a new beast indeed. I think Roland's future ws must incorporate a V-Synth in order for them to stay relevant and competitive

[zoomtheline]

What the h**l was the Jupiter 80 then? I assumed that was a synth/workstation thingamibob?

[madmarkmagee]

After the facepalm (those demo's were truly awful) I thought I would write what I actually think and what I have picked up from discussions here and all over the interweb.

I think firstly people need to remember that Roland is a company. The primary aim of companies is to make money. Roland is obviously going after where the money is and I guarantee that the money is in the "main stream" as opposed to in a small sect of synth nerds like us who buy a lot of their gear second hand anyway. I also think that they figure not to target a market which knows how to use VSTi Plugins etc.

I think also that Roland cops a lot of flak while the other big two (Yamaha and Korg) come out unscathed. Yamaha, who has made a ton of famous synths in its' life, now just makes like four romplers (this was said by someone here before). Korg as well to an extent, just makes romplers and VA's, sometimes adding a tube valve or something (and ofc to be fair the monotribe and monotron). Yes everyone says the Gaia is JP-8000 revision three (even though it's a different engine). But korg are worse. Microkorg is just an MS-2000, the R3 is the Radias and the Radias is part of the Kronos before that. The Japanese are experts at capitalizing on R and D.

I think it is also important to understand that companies have demographics which they target. They also look for market space which is free. Roland seems to be going after the mainstream atm. The mainstream being not the poor or rich, but people who are not really hardcore synth nerds. The kind of people who are just looking for a keyboard that does all the sounds , or a simple synth like the Gaia. We have to remember that your "average" person isn't going to want to or know how to download a two terra byte sample library and use it in a DAW.

That said, there are still massive fans of the Jupiter 80 et al. All the reviews I've read about it are quite positive, saying that they think the SuperNATURAL technology is quite good at emulating the behavior of real instruments. I assume that these DAW libraries I hear about don't have the "behaviour modeling". That said, I know people say that the "behavior modeling" is bullshit lfo vibrato etc. So I don't know who to believe. To many fanboys and haters. LOL.

I also think that Roland has an advantage in the mainstream as it is so famous. It and Yamaha are like the only "brands" your average person recognizes, thus when their kid wants a keyboard...

I'd also like to add that Roland is one of the few companies that still services ALL IT"S GEAR. THAT I THINK IS VERY GOOD. I live in Sydney, Australia, and technicians are hard to get a hold of. Roland even still have old/salvaged parts that they have sold me. Don't b***h to hard, they might go out business, then I wouldn't have a technician LAWL. Also we still need Keyboard Amps.

Anyway I'll leave you with this. Came with a recent Roland product I bought. Small naive Girl holding 600 dollar Keytar that plays back presets.

[Fredthehound]

FWIW/TMMV/ETC...

Several people already posted a good number of my thoughts on this but to add a bit more...

First off, does anyone but me think it's funny that people are bitching that Roland won't build a new Jupiter at the same time they want all new/wondrous tech? If they cloned a J8 to the molecule, people would b***h that those molecules were not NOS molecules and the new Jupe didn't sound like the old one...while bitching in paraless that it didn't have a sequencer that did additive FM with quantum BuckyBall modeling.

Now that said, I'm Roland's market in one sense. I have a full DAW/ITB setup and don't want/need a $5000 VSL library for samples, don't want/can't afford vintage prices, want good quality sound and realize that I'm not the next Vangelis/Moroder/Deadmouse.. but still want good tools to make good music.


The Roland facepalm c**p makes me facepalm as hard as the Arturia facepalm c**p. If you can't make decent music with there products, it's not the products. If you are 'offended' that Roland uses their names/products in ways that ruin your high school football jock glory years sensibilities...well, perhaps you should buy a botiqque synth whose ownership didn't 'sell out' and fly your hipster flag with pride.

Last rant:

OMD and the Cars, along with most of the cast of Synth Britania, managed to make beloved and classic music on synths that couldn't hold a candle to an old (but great) VST like Synth1. Korg Micropresets and the like. They didn't 'need' all the c**p people seem to be unable to live without. Of course they didn't have the internet to tell them that their synth p***s was somehow lacking unless they had #100,000 in hardware unobtanium either.

[jaypodesta]

People still don't really have an appreciation of how little the V-Synth can do and they go for way more than they're really worth.

I can't believe you keep saying this.

Lucky though as I plan to pick one up cheap one day and see if it really is as bad as people on the internet keep saying.

[Bitexion]

What the h**l was the Jupiter 80 then? I assumed that was a synth/workstation thingamibob?

It's more of a synth than a workstation, it doesn't feature a sequencer like Workstations do. So you can't record tracks and make songs per se like you can with a Motif.

It's also alot more of a synthesizer than the Fantom series, the VA part is very heavily integrated and fully featured with several filter types, envelopes LFOs and all that, and you have 3 parts. So essentially the "analog" part is a VA synth with 3 oscillators and 3 filters. Plus you can select waveforms from an archive of thousands of samples and sampled waveforms from other Roland analog synths and other manufacturers synths. Like a prophet-5 sawtooth etc, and use them instead of the virtual analog waveforms.
The internal VA synth is styled after the Jupiter-8. I've played a JP-80 in a store several times. Most folks just say "it sucks" without even having seen one.

The V2.0 firmware upgrade focussed alot more on the "analog synth" part, improving the filters and adding more types.