Roland JD-08 Tabletop Boutique Synthesizer

Two separate items…dock station (keys) sold separately…although they appear together in photo…

There are a lot of thoughts on “desert island synths”. You’ll see names like Waldorf Blofeld or Virus or whatnot. And if you want to spend a lot of money you get a Hydrasynth. But if you are smart and you want to spend even less money, you get this. Why this?

1) It’s a recreation of a digital crossover synth. That means this is the one that actually has all the “sounds you remember from the 80’s” that never happened in the 80’s. It was the 90’s. You are remembering it wrong. This is the one that’s going to have the doot doot sound from Sandstorm, and the pads from stranger things stolen from stephen king movies.

2) It has a gabillion voices. So you won’t have a problem filling out your own pads.

3) You can assign A and B sounds to different midi channels. So if you are like me and control everything with a sequencer, that’s chords and leads with the same synth.

4) Has the lazy “mix in” connection in 1/8 trs. I love this connection.

5) Could be portable. Takes batteries. I don’t care.

6) Has a built in speaker I’ll never use, but is great for letting you know when a cable gets disconnected.

7) You can pick it up all day for 300 used. But it holds it’s value well enough, you can justify paying 400 for new.

I can’t think of a more useful synth in this price range that is good enough for recording, that will play nice with all your gear, that isn’t 10 years old. Maybe the JX-08, but this has more versatility. The very inexpensive Roland S1 would be almost as good with 4 more voices. Definitely look at the Waldorf Blofeld if you see one under 400 bucks. Otherwise, this is the one. Make sure you get a grounded power supply, This device has no problems transmitting 60hz hum if you don’t.

This is a widely misunderstood piece.

You get the Zen-core engine of the $3000 Jupiter X, with way more hands-on control than a plugin will provide you, and 128 voices spread over as much as 8 parts multitimbrality (yes, you get two independent patches on two MIDI channels with four independent tones each, and the ability to split each keyboard in four parts with +/- 48 semitones pitch range on each). The four tones each get an easily assignable 20mm throw palette fader so you can have evolving trance pads galore as you wish.

So it certainly isn’t the power on tap or the raw sound quality or the hands on controls that people misunderstand. Most of the faders are only 10mm throw but that’s still way way easier than Volca-size knobs especially so densely packed. If your fine motor skills are hopeless then OK get a larger unit.

The filter is early 90’s digital in all its horrifying glory…which brings us to the point: you are not buying an analog-style 70’s synth here. Not at all. However you are buying something that stands out above a rack of old analog synths which is why digital synths were popular by the mid-80’s, with the DX7 the best selling synth of all time, and the D-50 and M1 huge hits.

The JD-800 addressed the main performance failing of those synths by returning hands-on control to a then-modern digital sound. Which makes this JD-08 still relevant today as plugins do ever more impressive noisemaking. Do not think “analog synth” for a second here. Maybe the JX-08 (JX-8P boutique) is what you want if that is what you’re thinking. This is for when you’re already sick of all that muddy analog sound and want something else to cut through that.

The old presets are of the era when evolving midi stacks of digibells, keytars, and most grievous of all, panflutes were in style. I remember this era with some trepidation and I never craved a JD-800 at the time. However, you can program interesting things with the 108 waveforms and fancy envelopes and digitally screaming filters. And with direct hands-on control of a couple dozen faders. There is minimal menu diving for a Roland.

The sonics are more than twice as good as the Volca’s or small Behringers. Jupiter-X sonics, with a full stack of Roland FX. It doesn’t do JP-8000 style synth things like synced oscillators or FM but it does lots of other things with no voice stealing. It fills out an arrangement freeing up voices and sequencer tracks on all your other pieces.

I got a perfect used one from Amazon Warehouse and am keeping it. I am glad so few appreciate the point of this thing. After you have enough analog it’s refreshing to have something else you can perform (and polyphonically sequence) motion on.

The preset sounds are mostly dated, true–but include some nice pads for when you need them. I got this mostly for programming sounds from scratch, and for that there is a bit of a learning curve. You’ll need to grok the internal architecture and the quirks of the UI to get there: there are a lot of parameters to control over a lot of layers of sounds. But once you DO get there, this thing is awesome.

I’m still learning of course, but now I know how it all fits together and I’m starting to get what I want out of it. Oh, and don’t let the tiny sliders scare you–they actually work way better than I expected. This is a serious synth if you can get over the “Roland Boutique” form factor that includes 1/8″ jacks, old school LED display, and other corner cutting quirks. Recommended.

Interfaz poco intuitiva y el sonido es diferente a su predecesor. No deja de ser muy bueno e interesante. Su sonido es más brillante que sus predecesores.

Great sounding synth. It’s the boutique version of the JD800, Roland’s flagship synth from the early- to mid-90s. Chances are you’ve heard this synth on nearly every popular piece of music or soundtrack made then, and even later. The controls are small but surprisingly easy to manipulate and the build quality is excellent.

Someone rated this synth a low grade because it didn’t come with the 25-key keyboard. None of the Roland boutique models come with a keyboard. It’s an unfair rating.