The Usual Suspects JADE is an upcoming free Roland JD-990 Synthesizer simulator for macOS, Linux, and Windows – now in alpha for supporters.
I reckon that everyone in music production knows The Usual Suspects by now, even those who usually avoid plugins. With their simulators for vintage digital synthesizers such as the Access Virus, the Roland JP-8000, or various Waldorf synths, they have caused a stir.
One of the developers, Giulioz (Giulio Zausa), who is responsible for the chip simulation, released a Roland JV-880 rompler simulator back in 2025. The Usual Suspects now also have a simulator for a famous Roland ROMpler in development, called JADE. It’s now in public alpha.
The Usual Suspects JADE
JADE is a ROM simulator plugin for the Roland JD-990 Synthesizer from 1993, which was an enhanced version of the JD-800.
The plugin gives you all the sound design functionality of the original hardware, including the ability to read sound banks. Important: the JADE is not a traditional emulation but a ROM simulator.
This means that to use it, you need the official Roland ROM file. Legally, the simulator is only intended for use with hardware related to it. So, in simple terms: only for hardware owners and users.
If you don’t have the ROM and need to download it from a third-party website, the situation is different, and we are in a gray area legally. This has also been the case with other TUS Synthesizer simulators.
Visiting the official The Usual Suspects website, you won’t find the JADE simulator. This is because the simulator hasn’t been released yet. It’s currently only available for supporters of the TUS project on their Discord channel as a public alpha version.
What Was the Roland JD-990?
The JD-990 was Roland’s 1993 flagship ROMpler synth with 24-voices of polyphony and multi-timbrality.
It had four oscillators per patch that used 6MB of ROM waveform data. Ring mod, oscillator sync, frequency cross-mod, and more were also onboard.
It had a multimode TVF filter with lowpass, bandpass, and highpass, with cutoff, resonance, and dedicated envelopes. Yes, part of the modulation was envelopes as well as two multi-wave LFOs per patch.
Roland JD-990 also featured a multi-FX processor with chorus, distortion, EQ, phaser, delay, and reverb, perfect for refining the sounds. Additional sounds and waveforms could be imported via dedicated sound cards.
To this day, the JD-990 remains a popular rack synth rompler used by many musicians. In the past, artists like Klaus Schulze, Vangelis, The Prodigy, and many more used it in their productions.
First Impression
It’s great to see the TUS team back with a new project. I have to admit that all the Roland romplers never really grabbed me. I know many people love them, so I imagine this release will be a big deal for them
The Usual Suspects JADE is available now as a public alpha version for supporters on their Discord channel. It runs as a VST2, VST3, AU, LV2 and CLAP on macOS (native Apple Silicon + Intel), Linux and Windows
More information here: The Usual Suspects
The JD-990’s oscillators could be expanded with waveforms from SR-JV80 expansion boards? Presumably, this simulator will be able to mount SR-JV80 images, and knowing that the SR-JV80 format has been opened up by products like the SR-JV Romulator, it would be awesome if there was a tool to convert custom collections of audio files into SR-JV80 images for use with this simulator.
Also, since The Usual Suspects’ simulators are designed to work with the hardware’s firmware, would it be possible to modify the firmware to add features that wouldn’t have been possible with the original hardware? Maybe some of the simpler modules in the Soundpipe DSP library (which is available in C) could be implemented, like the wavetable playback routines.
these are ROM simulators. So you import the original ROM and the software simulates it. I don’t that there are modification possible because they don’t change the ROM
A method for creating custom SR-JV80 images to use with the expansion slot would be a lot more useful and practical, no doubt.
As far as firmware modification goes, I’m thinking if people can modify firmware for other instruments, like the Tauntek firmware for the Matrix 1000 or the Vecoven firmware for the MKS-70, then it should be possible to modify the JD-990 firmware and that such a modification wouldn’t be limited by the hardware, but by the simulator, which could allow for a lot more functionality.
At any rate, I’m really just daydreaming here…
Truly brilliant release from US again 🙂
Find it really hilarious that to access “free” early Alpha version you need to donate minimum of 20 pounds… LoL
or just wait until it’s released
If JADE links against GPL code (for example the dsp56300/Gearmulator framework), what is the source situation for the alpha? Under GPLv3 there is no obligation to publish publicly, but anyone who receives a binary is entitled to the corresponding source, or to a written offer for it. That means every donor who has the alpha can request the source and is then free to redistribute it.
So the question is simply whether that has been offered to supporters. If third-party GPL components are involved and the source is being withheld from recipients, the copyright holders would be within their rights to act on it.