Morphoice EightyTen is a new upcoming Roland JX-8P and Super JX-10 + MKS-70 Synthesizer emulation for macOS, Linux, and Windows – now in free beta.
At the end of June, I reported on a new Jupiter-8 emulation currently in development. The developer behind this project is Morphoice. There’s another project he’s working on- yes, another Roland emulation.
Morphoice has announced the EightyTen, a new Synthesizer plugin that emulates not one but three Roland synths simultaneously.
Morphoice EightyTen
EightTen is an upcoming Roland JX-8P polyphonic analog Synthesizer emulation for macOS, Linux, and Windows. Wait, Morphoice not only emulates the JX-8P in the EightTen but also the Super JX-10 and the MKS-70. So three synths in one plugin.
It makes sense. The Roland JX-8P is an analog polyphonic Synthesizer released back in 1985. The JX-10, or Super JX-10 is essentially two Roland JX-8Ps in one instrument with smaller differences: “MIDI delay”, different chorus and components, and more.
And the MKS-70 is the rack-mount version of the JX-10 (Super JX), released back in 1986. Morphoice says that you will be able to load patches from these three synths in its new emulation. But now back to the soft synth.
According to the developer, EightyTen is circuit-modeled after these three DCO-based Roland synths and gives you the full tweakability of a full PG-800-style panel with the MKS-70’s functionality under the hood. The DSP is written in Faust.
Yes, the EightyTen is more of a JX-10 emulation as it offers two layers, one upper and one lower like the original. Each layer features a full synth with two DCOs with the 3-mode cross-mod (2x sync and FM), a non-resonant high-pass filter, and a resonant low-pass filter.
Two modeled ADSR envelopes with key follow function and one multi-wave LFO with delay form the modulation. No extras, like the original hardware. And the chorus with the slow and fast modes is also onboard.
Also onboard are velocity and aftertouch support, routable to the filter and amplifier, plus key tracking and glide. On top of the classic Roland chorus, Morphagene added to the EightyTen a new Lo-Fi tape delay, a drive/distortion, and a Strymon BigSky-inspired reverb.
First Impression
The Jupiter-8 plugin isn’t even finished yet, and the developer is already launching the next project. I downloaded it, and you can immediately tell that the plugin is still a work in progress. Many features are missing, including effects and other elements.
The plugin already sounds, and what I heard I like very much. I can’t say how close it is or will be, but what I heard in the early beta sounds great. I’m looking forward to the final version.
Morphagene EightyTen is now available as a free beta download. It runs as a VST3 and AU plugin on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel), Linux and Windows. You can support its development using the pay-what-you-want option on Gumroad.
Any contribution of $10 or more grants you a lifetime license, should future releases become paid.
Note that older versions may stop working once newer ones are released.
More information here: Morphoice
will it model the different filter responses between the various versions (JX8P, JX10, MKS70)? each one had noticeably different filter qualities – the 8P did not self oscillate but the 10 did, and the 10 has different tracking than the 70.