which is the best roland JX to get?

[squatski]

I really want the mks70 because it looks like one of the big daddies, is it worth having in 2020 for my synth pallet or is it a bit over kill and all I need is the JX8P
I like strings
I don't want a juno strings sound though but something else. not sure.
Problem is that mks70, the prices be getting OTT.

[squatski]

ok what the h**l? where's all the posters this used to be busy 4 or 5 years ago!

[ppg_wavecomputer]

Four or five years ago people were dealing with different issues, and Corona certainly wasn't one of them.

Stephen

[Rasputin]

ok what the h**l? where's all the posters this used to be busy 4 or 5 years ago!

Used to be newsletters, used to be Yahoo groups, used to be this forum, now it's Facebook groups, and soon to be TikTok or whatever else people with no attention span (TL;DR) are using these days.

[commodorejohn]

JX10. It does big lush pads like nobody's business.

[meatballfulton]

ok what the h**l? where's all the posters this used to be busy 4 or 5 years ago!

We got hammered by spammers a few years back, people left and never came back.

[squatski]

might just save up my pennies and get the mks70

It's pads and strings I want, I'm sure all jx's are good at this type of sound
Would love a jx10 or jx8p but wow damn! - the keyboards are HUGE! why does the jx8p even need to be that wide/deep? I bet it's just filled with air and not electronics because the alpha juno's were slim and from that era. I don't have the space for a jx8p

as for jx3p, would love one but they're more expensive, do they sound warmer or something? have a different filter?

[D-Collector]

The JX-8p has a great, warm sound, and is enhanced by the onboard chorus. I had one for some years and it is not *that big in size.. Certainly not huge. A bit deeper than the D-50 I had, but not much of an issue. And from what I remember it is quite packed with electronics inside, and heavy. My main complaint with the JX-8p was the base plate, which is made of wood. It made the whole thing warp and flex, too much for my liking. If I had the resources I would have had a metal plate made for it or something. Maybe I am fuzzy about it, but compared to my D-50 (which is a tank!) it felt flimsy. However, the JX-8p was good enough for Gary Numan to bring 5 of them on tour in 1985, and he bragged about reliability in magazines. Second, the keyboard had a tendency to make tones stick. There is a fix for this, but when Martin Lueder's PG-8x freeware emulation came out, I sold it. I programmed a complete patchbank for my JX earlier and I A/B'ed them all with the software, and could not tell the difference. Highly recommended.

[ppg_wavecomputer]

[…] as for jx3p, would love one but they're more expensive, do they sound warmer or something? have a different filter?

It has a built-in sequencer which is pretty nifty and, for some reason, it seems to be more immediate (at least to me). Never bothered the six-note polyphony whereas those beautiful lush chords on a JX-8P tend to be disrupted fairly nastily when changing chords (voice stealing and such).

It does look pretty ugly by comparison, that's true.

Stephen

[meatballfulton]

as for jx3p, would love one but they're more expensive, do they sound warmer or something? have a different filter?

It's hype, much like Juno prices. It uses the same IR3109 filter chip as the Jupiter 6/8 and Juno 6/60. However, nobody thinks a Jupiter, Juno and JX3P sound very much alike. For some reason the MKS-30 rack version uses the same unreliable 80017a filter chips as the Juno 106.

The JX8P, JX10, Alpha Junos and their rack versions all use the same IR-3R05 filter chip.

Why someone would pay more for a JX3P than a JX-10 is beyond me.

[fh991586]

Why someone would pay more for a JX3P than a JX-10 is beyond me.

I would think that the simpler user interface (bringing more instant gratification) of the JX-3P and the firmware/midi bugs of the JX-10 might explain that. Also the cooler colors look...

[desmond]

Why someone would pay more for a JX3P than a JX-10 is beyond me.

I know, but it's a fashion thing. People pay more now for CZ-101's than CZ1's. Seriously!
The same is true for DX100 over something like a DX11.

And probably why SH-101's are still going for around a grand. £1000+ for a damn SH-101 - a super limited, cheap budget monosynth...

Crazy, and it's usually based on younger people who weren't around at the time and they just want what they perceive as cool, regardless of the actual reality of these things.

[ZeeOne]

Why someone would pay more for a JX3P than a JX-10 is beyond me.

I know, but it's a fashion thing. People pay more now for CZ-101's than CZ1's. Seriously!
The same is true for DX100 over something like a DX11.

And probably why SH-101's are still going for around a grand. £1000+ for a damn SH-101 - a super limited, cheap budget monosynth...

Crazy, and it's usually based on younger people who weren't around at the time and they just want what they perceive as cool, regardless of the actual reality of these things.

It's because kids have bought into the idea that the 80s weren't just the apex of popular music, they had their own A E S T H E T I C that was everyone's universal experience at the time. Part of that was the use of keyboards that could be strapped on and played like a guitar.

Case in point: The Human League, to the best of my knowledge did not have a keytar player in their prime, but have performed live with one since the early 2000s. Because they're an "80s band", their younger backing players feel its appropriate.