Roland JD-800, the vintage digital Synthesizer from 1991 is back in virtual form in the cloud as a model expansion plugin and for the Jupiter-X / Xm hardware synths.
Roland Cloud is becoming more and more attractive. At first, the new Roland subscription model was ridiculed by the communities, but the package became more interesting due to constant new plugins, sounds, etc. Just recently, Roland published the legendary Juno-60 as a plugin and plug-out. Now the Japanese are sending another of their well-known vintage synths to the cloud.
Now you can play with the JD-800, the well-known digital polyphonic Synthesizer from 1991 as a Model expansion plugin in your DAW or Dawless in the Jupiter-X/Xm. The Fantom series is currently not supported.
Roland JD-800 Model Expansion
It is no coincidence that they chose this specific Synthesizer as a new Model Expansions this year. Roland celebrates this year the 30th anniversary of this vintage digital icon. As a reminder: the original JD-800 uses linear arithmetic synthesis (Roland D-50) which combines sample playback with digital synthesis. Eric Persing (Spectrasonics) was one of the core developers of this synth and created the 108 built-in waveforms and those who are available via PCM cards.
Like the original, a single sound patch of the JD-800 model expansion consists of four tones/layers. Thus, each of them is an independent synth voice with a selectable waveform, resonant multimode filter (time-variant filter), 3 multi-stage envelopes, and 2 LFOs. The effects are available in two groups including delay, distortion, reverb & more. What makes the synth powerful is its 4 layer engine that you can split up on the keyboard.
Roland says that they capture the sonic behavior of its vintage counterpart with 100-percent authenticity by combining the original JD-800 waveforms with advanced modeling techniques.
Even if I’m a subscription refuser, I still have to take my hat off for Roland with their cloud. Thanks to the constant updates, customers have received great added value every month. Last month the Juno-60, now in March the JD-800, nice.
Roland JD-800 Model Expansion is available on Roland Cloud and is part of the Pro and Ultimate memberships. It runs as a VST/AU/AAX plugin on Windows/Mac and also on the ZEN-Core Jupiter X/Xm hardware synthesizers. From March 2nd to March 31st, you can test the new JD-800 ME for free with a Roland account. If you buy a lifetime key, you get 6-months of Ultimate membership for free for a limited time.
More information here: Roland Cloud
Can you get stuck notes from a virtual red glue issue?
Had XM , I knew JD 800 Exp would arrive , sold it as the screen was too small cramped , afraid I’d get the Steve Martins The Jerk glasses defect , will they bring 990 with Exp , now that would be sweet ,Zen Core is an interesting path , hope the V synth gets brought in , also D50 and a new Zen Core PG 1000 controller with oled screen would be yummy and 2 Vectors