ROLAND MKS-70

ROLAND MKS-70 - Super JX

Analog DCO Polyphonic Synthesizer - Released in 1986

The Roland MKS-70 is a rackmount version of the biggest JX-synth, the JX-10. It has the synth engine of two JX-8Ps and has the best MIDI implementation of them all. The Super JX was the last analogue synth made by Roland in the 80's.

I bought it to replace my JX-8P as it takes less space. My first impression of the Super JX was that it’s actually a bit different from a JX-8P. Although the basic sound is somewhat the same, the bi-timbral nature of the patches makes it a bit deeper. So, now a patch is made of two "tones", (same as patches in the older JX-8P). When playing these single "tones" with the Super JX in whole-mode you can have all the polyphony of 12 notes. Normally you would play the patches that are in dual- or split-modes and the polyphony is then six notes which usually is still enough.

All the gorgeous analogue sounds, warm pads and fat brasses are there with that fabulous stereo chorus too. Of course I kept the PG-800 programmer to make things easier because without it I probably wouldn’t have the patience to program this. You can read more of my thoughts about the JX-synth in the JX-8P page.

But in the end of the day replacing my JX-8P with the MKS-70 was a mistake. I hated the dual structure of a patch from the beginning. Maybe I'm just simple and want to keep things simple, but the Super JX killed the JX-fun for me. I like to layer sounds musically within a composition, not necessarily inside one patch. Basically you can make more advanced patches with the Super JX, but that is just more complex engineering also. And it's annoying when you modify a "tone", then all the other patches that might be using that tone are screwed up...
I was unhappy with the lost inspiration and sold the synth away.

ROLAND JX-8P

ROLAND JX-8P + PG-800

Analog 6-voice DCO Polyphonic Synthesizer - Released in 1984

Roland JX-8P is a nice synth from the 80′s. It represents well the sound of that decade, although I think it’s still the better side of it. The JX-8P is an analog synth, but the osillators are digitally controlled (DCO) for more stable operation. The name can be misleading if you think it refers to the polyphony as the synth really has only six voices with two oscs per voice. Roland’s last analog synth was the bigger brother JX-10 (Super JX) which doubles the synthesis power of the JX-8P and has 12 voices of polyphony. There was also the JX-3P from a year earlier, and it seems to be Roland’s first MIDI capable synth along with the Jupiter 6.

In the 80′s digital was coming big time and that naturally affected synths as well, not always in a good way. One downside of this new digital technology was that the synths' programming interfaces were cut down significantly. The old analog synths had a dedicated knob, switch or slider etc. for just about every parameter in the synth, but a typical digital interface was a couple of buttons that called up one parameter at a time for adjusting it, and the whole instrument was operated from a tiny LCD display. This might have been cost saving, but programming a synth like that became tedious and uninspiring. A positive feature of digitality was the possibility to store sounds.

The JX-8P suffers also this very boring digital user interface. But fortunately Roland made a separate programmer unit for it, the PG-800! The programmer is quite an essential if you really wish to dive into the synthesis of JX-8P (or JX-10).

JX-8P with a PG-800 Synthesizer Programmer

The synth

The sound of JX-series is a bit different from the popular Juno-series. But the JX-8P offers a lot more programmability of sounds with it’s dual oscillators. Roland was advertising it being able to deliver "rich-timbred patches usually associated only with digital synthesis" along with classic analog sounds. And that’s kind of true with functions like waveform cross-modulation and oscillator sync for example. But the synth is really excellent with classic analog sounds like string pads and brass sounds. The JX-8P has also a very fat and warm-sounding stereo chorus.

Memory cartridge to store more sounds.

I find the overall sound quite dense and it certainly can be very thick but not aggressive at all. And how about a unison-mode which can be detuned? You got it here. The bottom end is pretty boomy and many times some low frequencies have to be rolled off with the highpass filter. The JX-8P is also very dynamic instrument and reacts very well to keyboard velocity. The keyboard itself is pretty good too, but the aftertouch doesn’t work on mine, and that seems to be a typical problem with these.
The JX-8P is a very nice and smooth analog polysynth although a bit ugly in my opinion, (the JX-3P looks better). It can be had pretty cheap but the PG-800 programmer is usually raising the value considerably.

Soon after I realized how wonderful my first analog synth, the Yamaha SK-20 sounded, I wanted to get more involved with analog synths. My next purchase was this JX-8P. It sounded excellent but very different from the SK-20. I used it a lot on the albums Enlightenment, Subtle Moves and Orion.

Now you can control the synth!

Roland JX-8P under a Micromoog.

ROLAND V-SYNTH XT

ROLAND V-SYNTH XT

Digital Synthesizer - Released in 2005 (Original V-Synth 2003)

The Roland V-Synth XT represents the more modern end of my synths. And it really is a feature-packed thing! There’s very much to offer if you are into designing sounds. There’s a comprehensive analog modeling synth engine, and PCM samples can also be used as oscillators. But the PCM-side on V-Synth is not another "rompler". Instead of your regular multisampled instruments found in many workstations, the V-Synth utilizes the VariPhrase technology, basically meaning you have complete control over the time of the samples. The PCM-side is truly a synthesizer, not just samples played back - it is Elastic Audio Synthesis. You can add your own samples too.

The V-Synth XT really has too many features to analyze here – COSM filtering, lots of quality effects, even the huge color screen can be used as a TimeTrip-pad and so on. But it’s the sound that counts, and here the V-Synth offers a lot.
Synthwise there’s nothing it couldn’t do. You should not expect acoustic grand pianos or things like that as this thing is a synthesizer. It’s very good on complex and evolving sounds, but I prefer real analogue synths when it comes to basic sounds.

Once I was trying to get a simple lead sound into a piece I was working on. I got the sound I was after and then tried to get it to work in the mix. I adjusted the sound for quite a while and wasn’t happy with it. Eventually I turned over to the ancient Korg Micro-preset, picked a flute preset and voila – that was it! The sound of Micro-preset was instantly clear and present in the mix without being too loud at all. Sometimes I think I don’t like the sound character of the VariPhrase-technology either. But still the V-Synth has so much to offer I’d regret selling it.

The V-Synth XT is a (4U) rack/ tabletop module. It’s not directly a rack-version of the original V-Synth nor the newer V-Synth GT. The XT is somewhere in between perhaps, (closer to the GT, I think). But it has the otherwise optional V-Cards pre-installed. And that’s great!


V-Cards

VC-1  -  D-50 synthesizer.
The Roland’s famous digital synth from 1987 is fully reproduced here. It’s great fun to have that classic vintage instrument inside the V-Synth. I still has to confess that I don’t like the sound of D-50 too much, but it’s still fun and interesting for a synth-head like me to have it.

Listen to the piece I made using only the D-50 synthesizer on the V-Synth. Additional effects were used:





VC-2  -  Vocal Designer
The Vocal Designer has to be one of the best modern vocoders around. But it’s even more than just a vocoder as it does advanced vocal modeling. I like it even though I very seldom use vocal-based stuff in my music.