JUNO-6 done, which Roland Synth should I model next? Jupiter-8?

[Morphoice]

I don't own a Roland Boutique SE-02, so unfortunately that would be impossible for me to do. From the experiments I've run over the past few days, I'll most likely end up making a Jupiter-8 model based on my unit, which I sadly have to sell soon. At least this way its essence lives on as a plugin, and I get to share it with more people rather than keep it to myself.

Looking at existing emulations like Arturia or TAL-J8, that one's well modeled on their absolutely pristine, beautifully maintained unit with a super clean tone. Mine would be the opposite end of the spectrum: a well-worn, heavily-gigged machine. The voice cards are badly detuned and drift, there's noise, wobble and instability in the tone, and the whole thing behaves in that organic, nonlinear way that only an old, used instrument does.
To me that's exactly the charm of vintage hardware, the imperfections are the character. But I'm curious where you all land: is a raw, characterful "warts and all" Jupiter something you'd want, or would you rather have the clean, polished sound? Or ideally, switchable between the two?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Make it switchable or add an Aging knob. But a simple switch that alternates between an idealized model, and one based on measurements of the instrument you're describing sounds like a novel way to approach it. I'm not a fan of editing individual voice card trimmers. That feels too tedious.

[Morphoice]

Make it switchable or add an Aging knob. But a simple switch that alternates between an idealized model, and one based on measurements of the instrument you're describing sounds like a novel way to approach it. I'm not a fan of editing individual voice card trimmers. That feels too tedious.

Yes a typical "vintage knob" is exactly what I was thinking of, that makes it go from nice to wonky.

[Morphoice]

Also how would you prefer the upper/mix/lower mono outputs handled? multichannel outputs? or given it will have some effects built in, a simple stereo downmix?

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Some users will inevitably want multiple channels. Others may never use the other panel and do any layering in the DAW with multiple instances.

I'd mimic what TAL did:
Outputs 1/2 = Stereo Downmix with a Balance knob
Outputs 3/4 = Upper Only
Outputs 5/6 = Lower Only

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Yes a typical "vintage knob" is exactly what I was thinking of, that makes it go from nice to wonky.

I think that's a good approach. If you go that route though, I'd suggest noting where on the knob your measured unit falls, then allow it to go a little futher than that. Example: at minimum, it's brand new and pristine, at noon, it closely matches your hardware, at maximum it's nearly broken.

[Seafire Mk2]

Nobody wants broken, it sounds like shit
It's got to be usable.

You do realise the struggle musicians went thru with that old gear to try and keep it in tune and stable???

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Nobody wants broken, it sounds like shit
It's got to be usable.

You do realise the struggle musicians went thru with that old gear to try and keep it in tune and stable???

Why said broken? I said "at maximum, nearly broken". For example, take any Prophet-5/10 Rev 4, crank up the Vintage to maximum. You're going to get some voices that are waaaay out (tuning, filter cutoff, envelopes).

That's the kind of thing I'm talking about. And that's a new, 4,000 synth, that does that by design.

It's almost always too much. But if you're doing a sparse Boards of Canada or ambient type thing, it can be really cool.

[Seafire Mk2]

If it has a vintage knob, it's not accurate. Tune all the cards settings/trimmers as best you can and use those settings. Don't fake it by making it sound awful/'nearly broken'

[Morphoice]

If it has a vintage knob, it's not accurate. Tune all the cards settings/trimmers as best you can and use those settings. Don't fake it by making it sound awful/'nearly broken'

There are a few philosophies I could follow here. My usual approach is to do whatever sounds good and musical, and is genuinely useful to me as a working producer. With that as the guide, I figure the decisions I land on should serve most people well.
That said, the worn character isn't about faking "broken." It's about capturing how my unit behaves. Tune everything dead-flat and you arguably lose part of what makes a vintage Jupiter sound like a Jupiter. My plan would be to model it faithfully and let the player decide, so you could dial that character in or clean it up to taste. To be honest though, the measured instability, and there's a lot of it, doesn't actually come through that strongly by the end of the chain once you've built a patch. So there might be real value in going over the topwhere things could drift even further off. Best of both worlds, dial it clean or push it well past

[Seafire Mk2]

It's virtually impossible to tune all the cards the same on an old analogue, that small discrepancy is pleasant. Making it wild just sounds awful imo

[Funkybot's Evil Twin]

Define wild. How much is too much? Where does awful start? These things are subjective. Your "pleasant" may be my "almost broken".

There's no clear guideline about how to talk about this stuff. You may be imagining something much worse than I intend for example. Or you may have incredibly polite tastes and a very sharp ear for tuning. So it's hard to talk about this stuff with any precision.