Roland Jupiter-50 announced

[Stab Frenzy]

Why are you complaining?

[dustinh]

I think most people are complaining because of the name of the workstation. Had they named it something else, no one would have batted an eye. But the fact that they made it look like a JP-8 visually, gave it the Jupiter name, and marketed it as "the rebirth of a legend", made for a lot of disappointed jupiter fans. So I see it as a bad marketing scheme. Most people who love the Jupiters aren't going to care about a digital workstation, so they're missing their target audience with the branding of it.

[CS_TBL]

I think it's merely disappointment, and complaints are because of that. My pov: music technology, at consumer prices, has progressed enormously, yet Roland and other (similar) companies rely too much on their 90's legacy. New name, new layout, but the same technology (and at that: technology which is dated).

This afternoon I watched that presentation video at the V-Synth (GT) page @ VSE. Probably a fine machine for synth sounds and sound scapes. But from 4:10 on, there was this guy talking out of his a*s about "Articulative Phrase Synthesis technology" .. boy oh boy.. I wish I had a job at Roland, inventing names like this one. What I've heard was not something new but some kinda tweaked portamento. Next he talks about flurries.. flurries? I doubt an actual flautist knows what flurries are, except something you can perhaps eat or drink. So, what was the guy playing? Trills! With his fingers! And with the lovely machine gun effect! Neglecting the fact that during a real trill there's a boatload o' flaps clicking on the flute. Neglecting the fact that, with woodwinds, for large intervals there's usually some odd/harsh transition noise to be heard. And this machine came out in a time when e.g. VSL was already years old with their performance libraries, featuring real note to note transitions. And okay, @ VSL one such instrument is a gigabyte in size, but that's because they continue their transitions with a sustaining note. Roland could've chosen to sample the transitions, and only store the mere second of the transition and continue with a regular/universal sustaining note from there. Instead: you get regular 90's samples, without minor and major trill samples I bet (I don't have a V-Synth myself, so don't hold me on that), and without note to note transitions. Why are they talking about flurries and "Articulative Phrase Synthesis technology" as something new when it is not?

The disappointment is: why can't Roland invest in more sample ROM and supply real trills and real note to note transitions? Then they could rightfully claim to have supernatural acoustic instruments towards a certain degree (nothing is ever perfect). VSL can.. other libraries can, or are at least picking this up this phenomenon. It's not like this sample ROM is that expensive. If you see all this as a race, then cars from other technologies are out of sight already, far beyond the horizon, while Roland is a mere T-Ford coughing and choking its way forward. That is the disappointment; others progress, Roland doesn't, others are proud to present radical new things, Roland is proud to present peanuts using legacy names for marketing reasons. People at KVR are screaming for a VST D50 (just like the Korg Legacy VSTi), but most people think Roland is over-protective for their 80's D50 ROM tones. Why?!? It's 2012, for heaven's sake!

[Alex E]

Roland noticed people have a boner for the Jupiter 8 and are paying absurd amounts of money for it for no apparent reason, so they put the aesthetics of it on a rompler and slapped "jupiter" on the front.

I can't blame them for trying, but it still doesn't seem any more appealing than it did before.

[Ashe37]

Roland noticed people have a boner for the Jupiter 8 and are paying absurd amounts of money for it for no apparent reason, so they put the aesthetics of it on a rompler and slapped "jupiter" on the front.

I can't blame them for trying, but it still doesn't seem any more appealing than it did before.

Its not a rompler, its all physical modelling. (AKA emulation) If it were a rompler, it would likely sound better.

[Alex E]

That's sort of cool I guess.... I wonder if you can abuse the physical models a-la korg Z1 for weird s**t.

[Ashe37]

That's sort of cool I guess.... I wonder if you can abuse the physical models a-la korg Z1 for weird s**t.

If you can, its buried deeper in the menus than i could find.

[Dr. Phibes]

I've played a fair bit with the Jupiter-80 in the shop (less old men glare at me waiting for turn than with the VoyagerXL) and it seems that with some of the modelling presets all that supernatural guff does come together and the results are impressive. However, it's true that many other sounds are pretty insipid: I recall that quite a few don't allow for much in the way of modification either.

I just could not justify forking out the money for one. On the other hand, the Jupiter 50 may offer a more cost effective solution for people looking for a decent performance synth/pseudo-sampler.

[theglyph]

Does anyone actually know how well the Jupiter-80 is selling?

Perhaps the 50 is a way to try and recoup R&D from the 80 but does anyone here actually know for sure? I've been curious as to how it sounds in person and hopefully the local GC or George's actually get a 50 in to demo. I may actually like it even if the name is a total dud.

BTW, there's a software update for the 80 which supposedly adds some extra editing capabilities.

[tim gueguen]

Haven't see one in my neck of the woods. Some of the Long and McQuades out east have them, but they've never appeared here in Saskatoon.

[bochelli]

Its clear to me Roland are unable to produce anything new anymore , if this Jupiter 50 is been sold to make the buyer think you can capture the splendor of the mighty Jupiter 8 then we must all be fools, rather than bring out something no one asked for why not simply not bother, we have come to the end of the line now with all this new gear and it looks like these companies are starting to repeat themselves, new minds , new ideas, new products is whats needed, is that asking too much ??

[ApolloBoy]

I've only seen one Jupiter-80 and had the chance to try it out at a local music shop. I wasn't impressed at all and I thought it was sacrilege to model it after the Jupiter-8 when it clearly wasn't worthy of the name. Honestly I wish Roland would wise up and offer something interesting for once instead of endlessly rehashed romplers and second-rate VAs.

[Stab Frenzy]

Its clear to me Roland are unable to produce anything new anymore , if this Jupiter 50 is been sold to make the buyer think you can capture the splendor of the mighty Jupiter 8 then we must all be fools, rather than bring out something no one asked for why not simply not bother, we have come to the end of the line now with all this new gear and it looks like these companies are starting to repeat themselves, new minds , new ideas, new products is whats needed, is that asking too much ??

Ummm, the Jupiter 80 was a completely new product. It sounds like you don't want them to produce something new, you want something old like a JP8.

[Stab Frenzy]

Honestly I wish Roland would wise up and offer something interesting for once instead of endlessly rehashed romplers and second-rate VAs.

Like some kind of physical modeling with a new way of articulating the models perhaps? Or a sampler that lets you alter pitch and time independently and mix with VA oscillators? Yeah, it would be great if Roland made something like that.

[Ashe37]

Honestly I wish Roland would wise up and offer something interesting for once instead of endlessly rehashed romplers and second-rate VAs.

Like some kind of physical modeling with a new way of articulating the models perhaps? Or a sampler that lets you alter pitch and time independently and mix with VA oscillators? Yeah, it would be great if Roland made something like that.

Unfortunately, unless the features are buried somewhere the Jupiter doesn't allow the VSynth style sample manipulation.