My elementary school teacher just texted me he's going to give me his old JX-8P. I just can't believe it !!! My first analog poly 😍😍😍

Last night I bought this synth. Waiting for the delivery. Happiness is an option.

Bubbles. I was 17-18 and this was the first synth I put my hands on at the music store, probably after buying whatever piece of drum equipment I could afford that week. I will always remember smiling when I played the 'Bubbles' patch. It began a long fascination with synthesizers I have till this day.

The JX-8P has a mellow and kind analog sound. Sometimes I get the feeling that people talk about how they crave analog “warmness”, when in reality they want the in your face feeling from the THX intro (I love the THX intro btw).

For those of you who are confused a DCO synth is an analog synth that is programmed digitally. The DCO synth quantizes analog parameters so they can be set digitally (recalled from memory). The sound path is analog.

The synth mainly responsible for the final countdown synth riff. It was layered with a Yamaha TX816 to achieve that iconic sound.

What an incredible synthesizer. Sounds almost digital! Just goes to show, with some good programming, an analog synthesizer can create sounds you never thought possible! Bells voices and pianos, that, although cheesy, actually manage to be pretty true to life. Well done Roland, and thankyou SynthMania! :)

Most underrated synth ever. It was trying to compete with the DX7 with its factory sounds. If you programmed your own sounds it was as lush and fat as anything else out there. One of my favorite synths.

My dad had one of these. I remember playing with it when I was like 4-5 years old, I remember these sounds like I heard them yesterday!!!

I recall 1999 when I first met my music mentor who'd been given a JX8p by his protégé. Though both my mentor and his protégé were first-rate pianists, neither really knew much about synthesis. In quick succession, I knew more about what was under the hood of this undervalued monster than I did about how to play it well. One thing my mentor never learned about it is that you couldn't erase or overwrite the first 64 patches. They're read-only patches. He was just so terrified to lose them. P. S. I might've already written all this from a different KZfaq account at a previous time. P. P. S. It's a treat that the aftertouch on yours is fully functional. I received my mentor's model after he passed away, and its aftertouch is all but non-functional.

I bought mine brand new just after it was released. Havent played it in about 10 years, so I will have to see if it still works? Great video, brought back so many memories.

Ha Ha - this brings back memories - this was my first synth. I had in the end so many carthridges full of sounds I had programed. Great fun indeed.

That second piano preset is so perfect. It sounds like the elevator music in some old point-and-click adventure game like Beneath A Steel Sky or Leisure Suite Larry.

Such a warm and rich sounding synthesizer. Very underrated! Great demo as always! Looking forward to Part 2! Bryan

Whoever is doing the demo'ing is a tasteful player. I like that guy.

The JX-8P came out at an interesting time in synthesizer history. You can see where Roland was going at the time and if you look at the old advertisements for this, Roland is clearly targeting the DX-7 crowd with this. They marketed it as if to say "Sure, you can go ALL digital with no filters and have ONLY that type of synth, or you can get our JX-8P and have the best of both worlds!" Of course, the JX is not a true digital synthesizer as it has digitally controlled ANALOG oscillators...... which is what DCOs are. (People think that DCOs are purely digital, but this is untrue. They're analog, but are kept in perfect stability and tuning digitally) Still, I would say that Roland was perhaps a tad bit overzealous with the whole "best of both worlds" marketing. The only real way the JX can sound digital (as in DX digital) was through the use of some cleaver oscillator cross-modulation functions. This was to the JX as Poly-Mod was to the Prophet-5, and is critical to giving the JX that extra harsh-digital edge. I think of the JX-8P as a sort of "1985 edition" of the Jupiter-8 from 81', as it is powerful, very functional and has a wealth of sound crafting facilities that even the Jupiter-8 didn't have. The keyboard is a pleasure to play as it it both velocity and touch sensitive, though the latter doesn't quite respond as easily as I would prefer. The one area in which the JX-8P doesn't impress is the difficulty in accessing its synthesis parameters. It is of course possible, but without the optional (not included - totally separate product!) PG-800 programmer, have your rebreather ready, cuz' you'll be doing lot's of menu diving..... on an 80s-style LED screen. Now, that aside, the JX-8P is a fantastic and VERY playable synthesizer which, when placed in the right hands, can be fuckin' awesome. :D

whenever I wanna watch a demo of a keyboard I just come here or to synthartist69 you 2 have every good keyboard and make fantastic demos of the sounds

P 8 Voices wow what stunning synth programming...... a gorgeous gorgeous patch !

Excellent video! This is the synth that defined Roland's future! Yes the JX 10 was a God! But this little baby stole my heart back then and still sounds amazing! Then came the D-50, and damn..... :)

P13 music box is why i bought mine back when. And adding wind chimes to a reverb and straight analog (moog) randomly modulated wind sound was the second reason. I sure miss mine. I sold it and my korg poly61m to a musician at abc tv who did tunes and such for soap operas. Lol

The JX-8p was the first true analog synthesizer which I had the pleasure of playing regularly. Mine came to me from a "traditional" classical/Jazz musician who didn't understand that you could have fun with the 64 presets, but you couldn't save the changes. Its original owner bought it blindly back in 1985, without doing the right research to find out that it was the one for him. Its DX-style interface probably distracted this guy. I've owned other analog models (including a JX-10), but this one still holds that "special place" for me. I'm convinced that P8 was used in the theme from X Files. And, I didn't know you could do what you did with the aftertouch using P20.

Lovely sounding synth.

I don't know why so many people complain about the JX's factory presets. Some of them are quite nice and have aged beautifully! They may be a bit overused, but they're certainly worth studying, IMO.

Really great sounds! :-D

It's interesting to see how the soundtrack patch evolved. On the JX-8P it's a relatively conventional dark-sounding strings sweep, but on the D-50 it's more expressive - it almost sounds like a cross between soundtrack and the psycho mellow preset. The JX-8P's version is very reminiscent of Tangerine Dream's Legend soundtrack.

Love mine. Had it since 1986. We need to get a cable for the PG-800. I think it sounds exactly like the Jupiter 8.

Amazing instrument

I married a 3P to my 8P and was over-awed by the sounds I was able to get from these machines. Sold both a long time ago. However, now that I'm trying to use vintage sounds, I have to go in search of another 8P. I had so much fun using it, especially with the editor. The 8P was also touch sensitive. I was hoping that this demo would have displayed more of that. The 'soundtrack' position is great when using a bit of feel.

i have the jx8p and the jx10 with pg 800. i love that synths

this synth is worth having just for soundtrack alone

Wow i really like it :)

Nice! I've had a JX-8P since the late 80s. It's a great sounding keyboard. Great brass and string sounds. It's also underrated as far as I'm concerned. Too bad the PG-800 programmer costs more than the synth itself!

it was my first 'big ' synthé i was 16 y old . i still got it ..)- and still ove it ;)

Nice sounds

I had a JX8P & PG800 between '88 and '92. It's the only synth I regret selling. That 'Voices' patch was one of my favourites.

Excellent.

A piece of the 80's...

P31 Bubbles the intro of Midnight Star - Midas touch

Alone for the presets "Voices", "Soundtrack" and "Music Box" the machine is worth the money.

This was used a lot by bands in the 80's kinda has an FM sound for the most part for the factory patches but lovely nice analogue Jupiter type strings sounds. Recently that FM type sound is in fashion again. (until the big names find something else to 'recreate' from the past).

with one of these you either liked them or you didnt. i do because it didnt sound like any other synth at all. synths with just button and a slider instead of knobs and sliders are harder to program but once you get the hang of it its good. this is one synth id buy in the future

Soundtrack: to die for.

I just bought one for 100$ , but it needs some cleaning! Fantastic synth!

Jam and Lewis used this in Janet Jackson's Control, Alexander O'neals "Hearsay" (Especially on "Fake" and in New Editions NE Heartbreak Album

Came here because of the Produce Like A Pro video on 'Slave of the Rhythm' by Grace Jones on which apparently preset 18 Fat Fifths was used ;-)

Found one on Craigslist. Buying it.

Smoothest Brass in de Roland catalog!

damn it really does sound great; the filter's so nice; got this kinda 'juicyness' to the resonance. Thx

amazing;)

i couldn't produce a dx7 electric piano from jx3p back then but when i bought a used jx8p ... i was surprised!!! it's not super FM like... but it was pretty close!

Wow, most of these sounds are just so inspiring; sure some are cheesy, but who cares. I love the church bells, the electric bass is pretty convincing, & a fair number of these would be great for sound design (the Bubbles reminded me of the atmospheric noises of Dagobah from The Empire Strikes Back lol). Excellent demo!!! All the horsing around I want in a demo & none of the horsing around I don't want in a demo lol

Got one of these downstairs in the garage; a few keys are dead. A few years ago I pulled it apart to clean under all the metal contacts but some keys still wouldn't work.

Jan Hammer loved his Junos!

For some reason, I never really caught on to Roland's pitch/ mod wheel combo. I don't think it gives as much control over the modulation, but maybe that's just me. Great demo! Regards, 808

you can buy nowadays a kiwi patchprogrammer and it adds the possibility to take an external cv signal (expl. LFO) and to route it to a other parameter...nice feature!!!

Best Vintage Keyboard

psycho mellow freaks the hell out of me

IT'S THE FINAL COUNTDOWN

Getting aftertouch working is a case of disasembling the keys, and cleaning off the oxidised films that meaure the aftertouch.

Majestueux magic

fabian quintiero of soda stereo and juan del barrio of los abuelos de la nada used that synth

P17 Soundtrack is perfect for the intro chords from Crockett's theme by Jan Hammer. 👍

Is 5:07 from a song, or did you improvise that? Fucking beautiful - reminds me of the intro theme of Tales From The Darkside (80s horror show)

7:30 that alone is worth the price!

Does anyone know if the Roland Cloud for Zenology consists of all 64 original preset patches? I recently purchased the JX-08 boutique synth and was disappointed that it doe not have all the original patches. (Going to sell it) thank you for advance , I appreciate any input / help . Thank you guys

Maybe P11 Pipe organ + shimmer effect would probably sound like the intro of "where the streets have no name" of U2

Great sound

Most of you probably disagree but the JX-8p is more versatile and have a broader sound spectra than the Grand Old Daddy himself Jupiter 8.

stab brass was used in we need protection by Picnic at the whitehouse

The voices patch is pretty cool. Soundtrack is a nice pad. Some other stuff was good too. But can modern 2 oscillator analog synths do what this could do? I understand there will be some differences due to filter. I also suspect this thing's sawtooth wave might sound better than some other synth's sawtooth based on some of these patches. But sawtooth differences always sound subtle to me.

Ive got one and havent played it in years, Think mainly because I dont like going through menus to adjust stuff, Id love to get my hands on a PG-800 programmer so I could change things on the fly, the preset sounds sounded awesome though plus the previous owner had some saved

Love my JX8P . I also have a Jupiter 8, An Oberheim Matrix 12, and a Yamaha DX5 to name a few in my collection.

Refreshing hear a demo video that features an actual keyboardist. As for the Jx, it definitely has a sound signature. The E Bass is really nice whereas, the Synth Bass patch suuhucks.

Someone is selling this for $180 in my area. Should I buy it?

These piano stuff sound like they come off of a DX7 almost

Are there any VSTs (or modern synths for that matter) that can emulate the 'Soundtrack' patch? I think the Roland Alpha Juno had a similar sound ...

Thanks for putting the presets here. I guess Piano 1 and 3 were supposed to imitate the DX7 E. Piano 1, right? The aftertouch on yours seems to be more sensitive (6:30 ish mark) than any other Roland based on the mid/late 80s action. I'm puzzled as to why they called it JX-8P when it only had 6 voices, though. 3P made sense: Programmable Preset Polyphonic = 3 P's.

Ciao Paolo, anzitutto complimenti per i tuoi video, sempre estremamente esaustivi e completi: un piacere guardarli 👍🏻🙂... Ho da poco scaricato il PG-8X e mi chiedevo se tu sapessi se siano disponibili in qualche sito i preset banks del Jx 8p.. Ho già acquistato i presets di Espen kraft ma sono solo i primi 32.. Sapresti nulla a riguardo? Grazie e ancora complimenti! Andrea

these sounds remind me of (old) Tangerine Dream

Two oscillators in stereo , vcf , vca and a chorus versus one mono sound ... 8 operators with algorithms structures mmmh!!!

Ciao Paolo ! Thanks for all your great content !! Amazing piano skills ! Are you self trained or did you study piano ? . saluti da Parigi !!

People are beyond lazy when it comes to programming this thing without the pg800... it's very straight forward

P17 Soundtrack...feel like I just watched an spisode of Hill Street Blues. lol

Nice sounding Roland synth. But they should have called it JX6P because the voices stealing is painfully evident on long release patches (at 5:28). I've never understood why they didn't give it 8 voices like the Korg counterpart DW8000 that came out the same year for about the same price... After all, wasn't this JX8P supposed to have followed in the footsteps of the Jupiter 8 ? Anyway, thanks for a very nice demo with high sound quality.

Not the worst synth out there for sure, but the pg 800 makes it soooo much better.

Hi you have the link for load the factory presets please? thank

It's very rare to work aftertouch in most of JX's. How did you made it? Please tell us!

Amigo el sonido Low String con que esta combinado que suena como un pad tambien. Me fadcina el sonido del poly brass.

Isn't the patch "Voices" were the patch that played at the beginning of Elton John's "Japanese Hands"? Sounds like it.

9:36 church bell ❤

nice demo - warmer and darker than the new Boutique JX-08 but it's not a bad copy for most things

Soda stereo 😍

I guess those halls etc are from xternal equipment?

hmm. i have thoughts about the things i would trade for one of these with a programmer..

This synth sounds better than Jupiter 8 in my ears. You can make complex sounds with Jupiter 8 and good lead sounds, but not fat brass sounds and fat pads. Roland JX 8P looks ugly, but sure sounds great. Combine JX 8P with the PG 800 controller and you would not miss the Jupiter's 8 knobs and wheels.

what song are you playing on Piano 3?

I remember a Steeldrums preset in my JX-8P but I can not find it here.

Do you used unbalanced cables for this synth? I'm assuming yes due to the era this came from.

and also the arco low and high strings sound like van halen strings

I think i buy the new Jupiter X,i mean the JX-8P is inside it !!!!:-)