A Roland Super JX / MKS-70 / JX-8P emulation - This is EightyTen!

[Morphoice]

It doesn’t match the sound of the JX-8P. Don’t know about the JX-10.

It actually does, down to the exact measurements and spectral analysis. If you've got evidence to the contrary, kindly send it over and I'll happily track down and fix whatever's off. But please don't post claims like that without something to back them up.

[Morphoice]

Sysex/PG-800 control is now fully working. Unfortunately my iPhone's mic is not.

[ThoughtExperiment]

I'm holding out for the eightyeleven

[drsyncenstein]

Happy now Jamcat.
I bet this has made your day, you’ve successfully driven off a talented independent dev with your little bullying campaign across his threads.
You should be ashamed.

Don’t blame other people for this developer’s erratic behavior. It is just as I called it. But you give me way too much credit anyway. Let’s look at what’s actually changed: very little.

Morphoice is still giving away these “betas” for free. You can still get a full license for $10 during his open-ended beta period. He has always maintained that he was going to start charging for these plugins once they were out of beta.

So the only thing that has actually changed is he has provided a bit more clarity than he had been. Now you know the price he’s been planning on charging, and he has finally stopped with misleading claims that the current versions will somehow magically stop working when a new version is released. That was always just a FOMO tactic to get you to pay the “optional donation” that was really neither optional nor a donation.

But if he expects to charge $45 for his synths, then he’s going to have to get them signed by Apple. So that’s another win you can thank me for, if you like.

We would get a less lot unnecessary drama on this forum if Jamcat could just take himself a little less serious and stops acting like he's defender of the faith in his own crusade.
Your posts have been less than helpful and stirring up drama over things like lack of codesigning (acting like it's a virus) says something about your knowledge and skills. Lighten up, think before you post! Quantity is not quality.

[bk]

He has always maintained that he was going to start charging for these plugins once they were out of beta.

That simply isn't true. It was clear to me, that the synths (Eight and Ten) would remain donationware until that was no longer viable (lack of donations). In that case, they might become commercial synths, with a fixed price. The recently released EightySix did get commercial pricing at release, but that was not the plan for the more recent synths.
I bought EightySix for his asking price because it's worth it.
I donated for the other two while the $10 option is still on the table.
They all work great and sound great on windows in StudioOne/StudioPro
For a $10 donation, these are no-brainers.

[bk]

I removed the plugin and immediately did a scan of my system for malware.

It's both amusing and sad that you feel the need to report this simply because some software didn't work on your Mac. Everyone look out. Probably malware. Thanks for "protecting" the unwashed masses.

[tumface]

Your posts have been less than helpful and stirring up drama over things like lack of codesigning (acting like it's a virus) says something about your knowledge and skills.

Not codesigning commercial software is a red flag. It sucks that Apple got rid of being able to use third-party code signing certificates and now requires a developer account with their system, and the extra "notarization" step, but if you're going to sell commercial software on their platform, that's the game you have to play right now. I have no problem with freeware and open source stuff requiring this step, for obvious reasons. Asking users to both *pay* for software and then tell them to bypass the codesigning check is goofy. Sorry, but I totally agree with Jamcat here.

[osofaux]

Just gave it a try and I think it looks and sounds great, so I picked up the lifetime license.

Could the wording surrounding the beta have been a little clearer? Sure. But not to the extent all the drama in this thread would suggest. Not even close. People need to take a deep breath sometimes. It's just a synthesizer, folks.

Now I'm going to go enjoy my new plugin.

[drsyncenstein]

Your posts have been less than helpful and stirring up drama over things like lack of codesigning (acting like it's a virus) says something about your knowledge and skills.

Not codesigning commercial software is a red flag. It sucks that Apple got rid of being able to use third-party code signing certificates and now requires a developer account with their system, and the extra "notarization" step, but if you're going to sell commercial software on their platform, that's the game you have to play right now. I have no problem with freeware and open source stuff requiring this step, for obvious reasons. Asking users to both *pay* for software and then tell them to bypass the codesigning check is goofy. Sorry, but I totally agree with Jamcat here.

He did not ask to pay. He asked for a donation. If you tried to buy it you'd have seen that.
And no, it's just an opinion that no code signing is a read flag. Any developer can decide for himself. And there are lots of them that don't. At least on W11.

[tumface]

He did not ask to pay. He asked for a donation. If you tried to buy it you'd have seen that.
And no, it's just an opinion that no code signing is a read flag.

The beta is "free" but it won't be free in the final version. And he doesn't sign his other non-free plugins, either.

And no, it's just an opinion that no code signing is a read flag.

Sure. What you're saying is also your opinion, too.

Any developer can decide for himself. And there are lots of them that don't. At least on W11.

macOS doesn't have anything like Windows Defender or Smartscreen. There's no crowdsourced heuristic binary reputation thing on macOS like there is on Windows. You just run the thing and if it decides to f**k your shit up, it does so. That includes plugins.

To be clear, I also don't like what Apple has done with "notarization" and forcing everyone to have Apple accounts. You used to be able to buy code signing certificates from any code signing CA, not just Apple, and there was no "notarization" step where you had to upload your thing to Apple and wait for it to be stamped and approved. I hate this newer system. But Apple being Apple, bundled everything together to get their way, so you either get their security the way they want you to, or you get none. If you charge customers for money, you should just play their game instead of putting the burden on the customer. It's a lot of wasted effort.

[Morphoice]

For anyone genuinely concerned rather than just piling on: the plugins aren't signed, that's all. Unsigned software triggers Gatekeeper on macOS and SmartScreen on Windows by default, so the OS shows an alarming-looking dialogue which in this case basically means "this developer hasn't paid Apple or Microsoft a hefty yearly fee for a certificate," not "this file is guaranteed dangerous and will delete your pc."

Signing requires a paid developer account and an annual certificate, plus Apple's notarization step on the Mac side. It isn't currently feasible for a one-person operation, which is the same reason plenty of indie plugins ship unsigned.
For the record, the only thing my plugins do over the network is check my server for the availability of a new version, just like most other plugins do. Nothing else is sent, collected, or phoned home.

And you don't have to take my word for any of it — run the installer through a malware scanner, or upload it to VirusTotal and see it checked against dozens of engines at once. It'll come back clean, because there's nothing there.



If that still doesn't put your mind at ease, that's completely fine — there are plenty of other plugins out there, and no one has to use mine.

P.S. The final release will probably land today or tomorrow. The $10 offer then ends and the betas will be pulled. Please kindly use the ticket system on my website for questions, as I am not constantly monitoring forum threads.

[tumface]

Signing requires a paid developer account and an annual certificate, plus Apple's notarization step on the Mac side. It isn't currently feasible for a one-person operation, which is the same reason plenty of indie plugins ship unsigned.

Just to be clear so that people are aware, you can get code signing certificates for Windows for less than $99 a year, and it doesn't require you get it from Microsoft or have an account with them. Apple, not so much. (I think a lot of people starting out making consumer software are unaware that the rules on Windows for signing software are not like an app store.)

It's also totally feasible for a one person operation. I did it for years, for both platforms. It's not that hard. Probably less hard than repeatedly having to deal with people being unable to run the software.

I don't know of any other indie plugins on Mac that cost money and are unsigned. I'm not saying there aren't any, but I'm just not aware of them.

[hurricaneaudiolab]

It doesn’t match the sound of the JX-8P. Don’t know about the JX-10.

It actually does, down to the exact measurements and spectral analysis. If you've got evidence to the contrary, kindly send it over and I'll happily track down and fix whatever's off. But please don't post claims like that without something to back them up.

I don't have a JX-10. Based on what you have on your website, you say:

"The Super JX-10 — and its rackmount twin, the MKS-70 — was, quite literally, two JX-8P synth engines bolted together"

Now I don't know if you're modeling the JX-10, which is supposed to sound different than a JX-8P, or if you're modeling a straight-up JX-8P and simply stacking 2 of them. The blurb on your website makes it sound like you're doing that.

Fine, so I'm comparing yours to the other JX-8P emulations which I find very faithful to the hardware - TAL's and PG-8X. I loaded up the soundtrack patch on yours. I then loaded it up on TAL's and PG-8X. First of all the chorus on yours doesnt sound right. Did you model the JX-8Ps chorus or did you re-use your Juno chorus? Cuz the JX-8P has a different chorus than the Juno. Then I lowered the attacks on both envelopes on every synth and raised the cutoff to max, and noticed that yours seems to not have free-running OSCs. I hear a zipping and lasery attack on yours. The others are soft and smooth as butter. That was enough for me to be like "NOPE" - moving on. Considering I am very satisfied with TALs, and also have a hardware JX-8P right here, that was the extent of my testing.

[Morphoice]

It doesn’t match the sound of the JX-8P. Don’t know about the JX-10.

It actually does, down to the exact measurements and spectral analysis. If you've got evidence to the contrary, kindly send it over and I'll happily track down and fix whatever's off. But please don't post claims like that without something to back them up.

I don't have a JX-10. Based on what you have on your website, you say:

"The Super JX-10 — and its rackmount twin, the MKS-70 — was, quite literally, two JX-8P synth engines bolted together"

Now I don't know if you're modeling the JX-10, which is supposed to sound different than a JX-8P, or if you're modeling a straight-up JX-8P and simply stacking 2 of them. The blurb on your website makes it sound like you're doing that.

Fine, so I'm comparing yours to the other JX-8P emulations which I find very faithful to the hardware - TAL's and PG-8X. I loaded up the soundtrack patch on yours. I then loaded it up on TAL's and PG-8X. First of all the chorus on yours doesnt sound right. Did you model the JX-8Ps chorus or did you re-use your Juno chorus? Cuz the JX-8P has a different chorus than the Juno. Then I lowered the attacks on both envelopes on every synth and raised the cutoff to max, and noticed that yours seems to not have free-running OSCs. I hear a zipping and lasery attack on yours. The others are soft and smooth as butter. That was enough for me to be like "NOPE" - moving on. Considering I am very satisfied with TALs, and also have a hardware JX-8P right here, that was the extent of my testing.

I'd rather respond to evidence than impressions, so I took your post to the bench. Here's what came out of it:

Credit where due on the attack: the oscillators themselves free-run, but the voice-hosting layer was resetting each voice's state at note-on in the beta, so every note started at identical phase — that's the "lasery" quality you heard. Thanks for the pointer — fixed for the final, on top of the per-instance seeding we already do (as in EightyEight) to prevent instances cancelling.

Worth knowing though: the snappy attack itself is the real instrument. I calibrated the envelopes against my own hardware, and at minimum attack it genuinely is fast and percussive — it even lets a small click through the closed filter, which I measured and kept in, as it's integral to many patches made on it. Emulations that are "smooth as butter" there have rounded off something the hardware actually does. This is actually integral to many bass patches I designed, not modeling it would lose them their snap.

The chorus is not my Juno chorus — different circuit, separately modeled from the hardware and bench-measured. And since you hold up PG-8X as the reference: on the same bench its chorus runs the wet hotter than the real unit lowpasses it around 4 kHz where the hardware is flat well past 8 kHz, and its sweep rates run ~16% slower than the hardware on both modes. So yes, mine sounds different from PG-8X's chorus. It's supposed to be accurate to the hardware — and will offer you options to tweak it to your liking in the end anyway as a surplus.

EightyTen models the JX-8P, MKS-70 and JX-10, which will even be selectable in a future version (catering mainly to the subtle filter and LFO differences).

So you have a JX-8P at hand — if you want to help rather than just dress down a dev publicly, kindly send a recording of a patch on your hardware and on my plugin to morphoice@gmail.com and I'll gladly take a look and fix whatever is genuinely off/problematic, should anything be.

[drsyncenstein]

Some posts back i asked about the possibility that you would put the editors side by side, so that you can see both layers at once. Would make editing easier. Is that something that could be on your roadmap?