Morphoice EightyEight is an upcoming authentic Roland Jupiter-8 emulation for macOS and Windows: now ready for free in a public beta
The Roland Jupiter-8 analog Synthesizer from 1981 has been emulated countless times by Arturia, Cherry Audio, TAL Audio, and others. Do we really need another emulation? According to another developer, apparently, yes.
With EightyEight, developer Morphoice presents yet another Jupiter-8 emulation for DAWs.
Morphoice EightyEight
Following emulations of the Yamaha CS-80, Simmons SDS-V, Roland Juno-6, and others, one of Roland’s most iconic polysynths is now on the list.
The EightyEight plugin is an authentic emulation of the Roland Jupiter-8. Currently, the plugin is still under development, but is already in public beta.
According to Morphoice, some essential features of the EightyEight are not yet implemented, including the arpeggiator, LFO, and the iconic cross-modulation of the Jupiter-8. These will be added in the coming weeks.
EightyEight is a bi-timbral 8-voice polyphonic Synthesizer. They meticulously modeled the eight vintage voice cards of an old unit, capturing their nonlinearities, detuning, drift, and wobble.
It has two oscillators per voice, but unlike the original, they offer the full set of waveforms (sine, saw, pulse, square, and noise). Cross-modulation and oscillator are modeled straight from the hardware, says the developer.
They also modeled each voice card’s filter, which has a different subtle coloration. Like the original, it comes with a four-pole lowpass filter with resonance and a non-resonant highpass filter.
Modulation is also identical to the hardware with two ADSR envelopes with the original timings and an LFO with multiple waveforms. The latter can modulate the pitch, filter, and pulse-width. modulation.
Not yet implemented, but will be part of it is a classic Jupiter arpeggiator with key hold. New is a Juno-6 chorus from the EightySix plugin for lush, shimmering sounds. There is also a built-in Strymon/Eventide-inspired reverb and delay, as well as a HeatBurn drive/distortion.
Further, a vintage slider lets you dial in organic imperfections, instability, and warmth. You turn it from a pristine to a drifting, alive emulation, closer to a not-perfectly-serviced unit.
Availability
At present, it is too early to form a first impression, as the emulation is still under development. Especially because specific features like cross-mod are still missing.
I’m curious to see how the plugin compares to other virtual Jupiter-8s. One thing gets an advanced bonus point: there’s Linux support.
Morphoice EightyEight is now available as a free, unfinished version as part of the public beta. It runs as a VST3 and AU plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel), Linux, and Windows. Note that beta versions may stop working when that release arrives.
The developer gives a free license once officially released to any contribution of $10 or more through the pay-what-you-want option on Gumroad.
More information here: Morphoice
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