KVR Audio

Supekutoru · Post by **Supekutoru** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:10 pm

Hi im thinking of buying an old roland and i think i've narrowed it down to the JD-800 and the JP-8080. i make electro and want that old arp sound. also love that old aphex and autechre synth sound. cant decide at all though!! i know the 8080 has an arp but i can midi sync the 800 to an external arp anyway so doesn't make a huge difference. actually have been looking at the nord lead 2 too but im not sure about that...
if anyone has any advice for me its much appreciated! anyone have much experience with any of these synths?

cheers!

xoxos · Post by **xoxos** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:18 pm

i'm a def. nord preferrer (nord demos

i don't prioritise aural values of digital h/w synths.. sure both engines are superceded by many freewares.. advantage to me is the nord pitch stick. if you use one to emulate string vibrato you'll want one everytime :p both synths many happy users.

if you're set on buying h/w get an analog w/ inter-osc mod.

lordvader48 · Post by **lordvader48** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:29 pm

I know what kind of sound you're talking about, and it's something that I am still looking for myself. By now I have churned a lot of synths. I still have a Roland JP-8000, and I like it. But it does not do "ARP" sounds. I had a Nord Modular 1 for a while. It was a thin and nasty instrument, capable of doing weird, complicated things that were not musically useful. Nasty, but not "good nasty", if yaknowwhaddimean.

These days, I am trying to see how far I can get with softsynths. I have had some success with the G-Media Oddity. It does the "ARP" thing to some degree. But it does sound thin. Similarly, the Way Out Ware 2600 can do ARP sounds to some extent. However it also seems pretty thin. Another surprisingly useful one for these kinds of sounds is Ableton Operator. Also, the sonicprojects OP-X is very good for short synth sounds. It's probably the best of the softsynths.

To some extent, compression and EQ on candidate sounds, especially staccato sounds used for sequenced patterns, can help a lot. But I do not think that virtual analogs, hardware OR software, are very good at making this kind of sound. I have spent thousands of dollars and countless hours trying, searching for a good solution.

I have the feeling that some real analog synth might provide a better answer. But I am not sure that I want to buy or maintain a real ARP synth, which would almost certainly do the job.

Muzik 4 Machines · Post by **Muzik 4 Machines** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:37 pm

jd 800 and jp 80 8080 are worlds appart, the former being a rompler (IIRC, probably digital roland filters)(of the times) and the later being a virtual analog (unless you meant the jp 8000 the keyboard but vocoder less version of the 8080)

beej · Post by **beej** » Tue Oct 16, 2007 11:37 pm

> i know the 8080 has an arp but i can midi sync the 800 to an external arp anyway

He means "arp" as in "arpeggiator", not arp as in ARP, ARP 2500 etc...

Supekutoru · Post by **Supekutoru** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 8:39 am

Yea sorry i think my lazy typing has confused things! i did just mean 'arp' as an abreviation of apeggiator. to be honest i dont even really know what im looking for. i just know that i like what ive seen from these synths on youtube. they could well be worlds apart....what i want is something that can do really nice leads, mellow sounds (like the early aphex/autechre) and very delicate, clear sounds (kinda why i've been looking at some digital stuff). had a dave smith evolver and it didnt do it for me at all

pschelfh · Post by **pschelfh** » Wed Oct 17, 2007 10:18 am

I have a JD990 + vintage expansion. It doesn't have the hands on control of the JD800 but it has more samples inside. It can sound digital but also surprisingly analog (filters are yummy). It even has oscillator sync, no other rompler has that!

It will never go.

Peter.

Roland JD-800 Vs JP 8080 Vs Nord 2!!