NI Super 8 opinions.

[RobGee]

Super 8 sounds great, IMO. It's a nice mix of the Juno 60, Jupiter 8, and Alpha Juno.

There's one thing you need to do under the hood though: A) Go into Reaktor and up the voice count to 12 or 16, then B) use the unison mode.

It's more modeled after a prophet (the filters anyways). Sort of a Prophet/Juno design.

Where are people getting the notion that it's like any of the Juno line? Those are single oscillator synths with single envelopes and 1 LFO. Super 8 is a 2 oscillator synth (and the Sync and Crossmod that comes with that -- nowhere to be found on any Juno, of course) with two envelopes and two LFOs.

It's far closer in design to the Prophet and the OB-Xa / 8 than any Juno synth. And the filter, I remember reading when it first came out, originated from the old NI Pro-5 synth -- so again, Prophet. Though certainly the overall setup is similar to a Jupiter-8 as well, but I find the sound more in the Sequential zone than the Roland one -- again probably because of the filter.

Great synth, though! I especially love how easy it is to set up Polyphonic LFOs that modulate cutoff, Panning, etc -- allows for much more complex programming / sound-design than many other similar 'retro' style synths.

Maybe because it has PWM Sawtooth wave like the Alpha Juno?

[EvilDragon]

Yeah oscillators are definitely Juno+Alpha Juno inspired.

[jasonekratz]

Rotary encoders != knobs.

Yes but in the case of a synth with patch memory and knobs is this not the case?

[EvilDragon]

Nope. Rotary encoders are endless, knobs are not.

[Echoes in the Attic]

Super 8 sounds great, IMO. It's a nice mix of the Juno 60, Jupiter 8, and Alpha Juno.

There's one thing you need to do under the hood though: A) Go into Reaktor and up the voice count to 12 or 16, then B) use the unison mode.

It's more modeled after a prophet (the filters anyways). Sort of a Prophet/Juno design.

Where are people getting the notion that it's like any of the Juno line? Those are single oscillator synths with single envelopes and 1 LFO. Super 8 is a 2 oscillator synth (and the Sync and Crossmod that comes with that -- nowhere to be found on any Juno, of course) with two envelopes and two LFOs.

It's far closer in design to the Prophet and the OB-Xa / 8 than any Juno synth. And the filter, I remember reading when it first came out, originated from the old NI Pro-5 synth -- so again, Prophet. Though certainly the overall setup is similar to a Jupiter-8 as well, but I find the sound more in the Sequential zone than the Roland one -- again probably because of the filter.

Great synth, though! I especially love how easy it is to set up Polyphonic LFOs that modulate cutoff, Panning, etc -- allows for much more complex programming / sound-design than many other similar 'retro' style synths.

You're right, it's not modeled after a juno at all - But the combination waveforms with subs in a single oscillator make me think of juno. Prophet can have multiple waveforms on a single osc but don't have the sub.

[mholloway]

Where are people getting the notion that it's like any of the Juno line?

I don't see anything Roland-y or Juno-y about the thing.

The faders for the oscillators and filter are very Juno-y.

How so? The Juno 6, 60 and 106 don't even have faders for the waveforms on their oscillator, but rather just On - Off buttons with no level control, so I have no idea what you could mean by this. (And as for the filter having a fader, that's, well, every analog synth I've ever seen, so not sure what makes that "Juno-y" at all....)

https://www.roland.com/us/products/rc_juno-60/

Roland's own Juno-60 emulation shows faders/sliders for mixing the different oscillator waveforms together, presumably they decided to improve upon the hardware's original on/off switch design and use the same fader style as the other controls on the synth.

As for "faders on every analog synth you've ever seen", you must not have seen many Moog, Korg or Oberheim synths then, because they use rotary encoders knobs/pots/whatever you want to call them, for their filter cutoff control.

When people say a synth is "Juno-y" I think they mean the hardware Juno line -- not, specifically, some aspect of the Roland Cloud emulation that doesn't exist on any of the hardware. And I think you know that, too, and are just trying to defend your case, shrug. I mean c'mon. You're saying the Super-8 is "like a Juno" because it has level sliders for waveforms, like the Roland Cloud Junos (and ONLY the Roland Cloud Junos) but not any Juno hardware? Quite a stretch...

As for Sliders Vs. Knobs -- again, let's see, your point is that Super-8 is "Like a Juno" because the filter uses a Slider instead of a Knob, as does the Juno? Wow, amazing likeness....so it's also like a Jupiter and like an ARP Odyssey and like an ARP 2600 and like an SH-101 and [[ list every synth that uses sliders instead of knobs -- there are many ]]...

Anyway, yes, I'm way into the weeds here. Moving along.

[PieBerger]

Where are people getting the notion that it's like any of the Juno line?

I don't see anything Roland-y or Juno-y about the thing.

The faders for the oscillators and filter are very Juno-y.

How so? The Juno 6, 60 and 106 don't even have faders for the waveforms on their oscillator, but rather just On - Off buttons with no level control, so I have no idea what you could mean by this. (And as for the filter having a fader, that's, well, every analog synth I've ever seen, so not sure what makes that "Juno-y" at all....)

https://www.roland.com/us/products/rc_juno-60/

Roland's own Juno-60 emulation shows faders/sliders for mixing the different oscillator waveforms together, presumably they decided to improve upon the hardware's original on/off switch design and use the same fader style as the other controls on the synth.

As for "faders on every analog synth you've ever seen", you must not have seen many Moog, Korg or Oberheim synths then, because they use rotary encoders knobs/pots/whatever you want to call them, for their filter cutoff control.

When people say a synth is "Juno-y" I think they mean the hardware Juno line -- not, specifically, some aspect of the Roland Cloud emulation that doesn't exist on the hardware. And I think you know that, too, and are just trying to hard to defend your case. I mean c'mon. You're saying the Super-8 is "like a Juno" because it has level sliders for waveforms, like the Roland Cloud Junos (and ONLY the Roland Cloud Junos) but not any Juno hardware? Quite a stretch...

As for Sliders Vs. Knobs -- again, let's see, your point is that Super-8 is "Like a Juno" because the filter uses a Slider instead of a Knob, as does the Juno? Wow, amazing likeness....so it's also like a Jupiter and like an ARP Odyssey and like an ARP 2600 and like [[ list every synth that uses sliders instead of knobs -- there are many ]]

You're trying, I see that, but you have not convinced me that Super-8 is in any way a "Juno style" synth other than pointing out that both share the Basic Properties of Any Synthesizer, ever. Cool.

I can see it, other people can see it, you can't and that's fine. I don't think this needs to be pursued any longer. Personally I couldn't care less about any functional or aesthetic similarities, it's a cool synth that is fun to use, that's all that matters imo. It's been good wasting time with you

[jasonekratz]

Nope. Rotary encoders are endless, knobs are not.

OK then Mr. Picky....

[SebAV]

Too bad you can’t trial it, that’s the way you can tell if it sounds good for you (same with korg odissey)

[Tj Shredder]

Too bad you can’t trial it, that’s the way you can tell if it sounds good for you (same with korg odissey)

As far as I know, you can install anything from Native Access, and without authorization its a demo…
Or write to NI…

Edit: I am wrong, its not possible. But it would be a feature request to deal with it like that in the future… The former Reaktor version of Super 8 definitely would work as demo, support might just send you that…

[gentleclockdivider]

Super 8 osc's are alpha juno style
Osc routing is jupiter 8 where the x modded osc is also the sync master and NOT the sync slave like on the prophet 5 and which is a much more interesting routing , also found on jupiter 6 ..and tal jupiter 8 ( later ipdates)

Filter is prophet 5

[Jmf1928]

Anyone else running on an M1? Finding CPU to be pretty poor unfortunately. Lots of clicks at 96Khz/128 buffer. This and Pigments seem to be in need of some Apple Silicon Optimization. Nothing else I’ve thrown at it has been particularly problematic, and all better than the 2013 iMac it replaced.

[Ah_Dziz]

I am not particularly excited by it but I'll be getting it in the next couple of days anyway when I update komplete. For 80s type sounds and pads it will definitely hit the mark. The sound quality is nice as can be. I'm sure I'll use it quite a bit, but it wasn't cool enough for me to buy it outside of a komplete update.

[EdSfer]

I am not particularly excited by it but I'll be getting it in the next couple of days anyway when I update komplete. For 80s type sounds and pads it will definitely hit the mark. The sound quality is nice as can be. I'm sure I'll use it quite a bit, but it wasn't cool enough for me to buy it outside of a komplete update.

It's hard to justify buying anything from NI outside of Komplete. I'm on the same boat, I recently updated from K10 and thus discovered Super 8. And, like you, I wasn't particularly excited by it before trying it. I saw it as "yet another analog emu", well I was wrong. I've only scratched the surface but it's a f*ing great sounding analog emu! Don't know what it emulates and I don't really care, but the sound is top notch and I would consider it on par with the best analog wannabe vst synths (emulations or not).