Since Roland’s Jupiter-4 synthesiser first brought the Jupiter moniker to our attention in 1978, it’s fair to say that it has since become a byword for synth excellence. The Jupiter-8 that followed in 1981 was a massive 8-voice, polyphonic analogue synthesiser with a unique sound that quickly established itself as the Rolls Royce of analogue polysynths. This is why functional examples of the Jupiter-8, and its more affordable, MIDI-equipped successor the Jupiter-6, are currently fetching astronomical amounts on the secondhand market. So it was with a happy heart that synth aficionados the world over received the news in 2019 that a new Jupiter for the 21st century was entering production, in the shape of the Roland Jupiter-X.
The Jupiter-X is a digital synth, based on Roland’s current ZEN-Core synthesis technology, that contains several virtual synth sound models of Roland’s
