Roland has released Jupiter-4 as a plugin and SYSTEM-8 Plug-Out, an authentic recreation of Roland’s first Jupiter Synthesizer.
Back in 1978, Roland published its first Jupiter Synthesizer, the Jupiter 4. It was a four-voice polyphonic analog Synthesizer that was one of the first to store patches. More precisely, it was Roland’s answer to the Sequential Prophet-5 at the time but more affordable. It was used by many electronic bands like The Human League or Duran Duran.
The Jupiter-4 has a very unique sound that you immediately recognize. Many musicians described it as the best-sounding and most quirkiest polyphonic Synthesizer of the late 70s. More importantly, the J-4 has a significantly different sound characteristic than its brothers Jupiter-6 and -8. Much more aggressive and wild.
Good news comes from Roland today. The Jupiter-4 is now available as an emulation as a plugin from the Roland Cloud and as a PLUG-OUT for the SYSTEM-8 hardware Synthesizer. So the S8 users can enjoy all the sonic quirks and beautiful elements of the Jupiter-4 with hardware controls.
Roland Jupiter-4 Plugin/Plug-Out
The new Jupiter-4 Plugin/Plug-Out is based on the Roland’s Analog Circuit Behaviour (ACB) technology. The developers have carefully analyzed the original hardware units, circuit diagrams, and other historical data. The result is an authentic emulation of this iconic vintage polyphonic Synthesizer with all the beloved quirks and instabilities.
Like the original, it comes with a single VCO per voice featuring triangle, square with PWM, and a switchable on/off sub-oscillator. Then, you get two filters, one lowpass with resonance and a highpass. There are two ADSR envelopes (filter, VCA) and a single LFO with sine, square, ramp up and ramp down waveforms.
New In The Plugin/PlugOut
Unlike the hardware, the developers have expanded the feature set in many areas. Starting with the voices. They have doubled the number of voices in the plugin/Plug-Out and now come with beefy 8 voices. It also hosts new circuit mod and condition controls that allow users to adjust the overall character to suit their taste. Further, they extended the oscillator range, added adjustable noise, velocity sensitivity, sub-oscillator volume control, and a flexible arpeggiator.
And besides the classic lush ensemble/chorus effect, users can benefit from additional effects including a phaser, flanger, overdrive, reverb, and delay.
If you search for the warm, fat fuzzy voice sound of the Jupiter-4, this plugin is probably a must-have for you. SYSTEM-8 users can be particularly happy because they can integrate the plugin into their hardware. Great to see that ACB is not yet over.
Roland Jupiter 4 is available now on Roland Cloud in one of their memberships (Pro/Ultimate) or as a lifetime key for $199 USD. It is also part of the new Analog Polysynth Collection that bundles lifetime keys of the Jupiter-8, Juno-60, JX-3P, and JUNO-106 synthesizer plugins available with a nearly 40% OFF over purchasing individual titles.
The plugin runs as a VST3, AU, and AAX plugin on macOS (M1 and Intel) and Windows. It also supports the PLUG-OUT technology that turns the SYSTEM-8 hardware Synthesizer into a JUPITER-4.
More information here: Roland
Available at my partner
Perfect Circuit
Yet another eye bleeding plugin from Roland, seriously what are tgey thinking?
They’re thinking you’re going to use it with the System 8 so it doesn’t really matter what the UI looks like. I hate skeuomorphic UIs but dgaf here because I just plug them out and never see the software at all.