Audiobus: Use your music apps together.

What is Audiobus?Audiobus is an award-winning music app for iPhone and iPad which lets you use your other music apps together. Chain effects on your favourite synth, run the output of apps or Audio Units into an app like GarageBand or Loopy, or select a different audio interface output for each app. Route MIDI between apps — drive a synth from a MIDI sequencer, or add an arpeggiator to your MIDI keyboard — or sync with your external MIDI gear. And control your entire setup from a MIDI controller.

Download on the App Store

Audiobus is the app that makes the rest of your setup better.

So disappointed....

encenc
edited November 2016 in General App Discussion

Ever since I was a kid I wanted a Roland Jupiter 8. Its up there with the other leg ends … but, without question the JP8 is the Holy grail of synths… TBH, ive never played one (never even touched one) but i remember Blancmange performing Blind Vision live on The tube like it was yesterday.... Stephen Luscombe's Jupiter 8 B) B) B)

With the JP8's commanding upwards of £10k im unlikely to ever own one. I had a Juno 60 back in the 90's and was in a band with a guy who had a 106 (Juno not Peugeot) but still hankered after the Holy grail …

Late last year Roland put out the word it would be releasing a "boutique" range and the JP8 was going to be the flagship of the range .... could thit be my chance of a sniff.... of the Holy grail :o :) well i waited.... and waited .... and today i called into PMT music in Manchester with the full intention of buying a boutique JP-08 ... i waited ages while a staff member was free to set up a demo machine for me to tinker with (killing time on a Roland JDXi which incidentally is a cracking little synth for the money)
So finally i got my hands on the Jp-08 and First impressions were good. Build quality is superb, the unit is weighty and all the knobs and sliders have a feel good factor. Its tiny ...even smaller than i was expecting! the sliders are very small but being used to music apps on iPhone and iPad ... manageable. So far so good.
Then I started to run through the presets and tinker with the knobs and sliders and that's when the disappointment started to set in. where were the deep, lush, warm string pads and chunky, sub bass patches ? this thing is so ordinary it beggars belief.. i guess when we hear a JP8 on record its put through a myriad of FX processors to achieve "that" sound. Despite listening through a pair of KRK Vxt 8 monitors with ample bottom end the JP-08 sounded bland.
I guess we are spoil't by endless ios apps swathed in reverb and delays ...

BTW, im not suggesting the JP-08 is going to sound as good as the real thing but in _some _comparison reviews on Youtube it comes pretty close.

few of my favorite Jupiter 8 moments

Blancmange live on The Tube 1982

Shreikback Faded Flowers

Shriekback Midnight Maps

Howard Jones Hide and Seek extended mix

«13

Comments

  • edited November 2016

    The 'sound' coming out from a synth is just the starting point. The media to which recordings were made has changed too, tape-distortion/saturation/wobble and other processing played a huge part of the 'old sound' and with regards to 'old school sampling' the old AD/DA had a 'sound' to them that we're trying to emulate today with bit-crushers and re-samplers :)

    I mean I used to sample my Juno-106 with an 8-bit sampler on an Amiga but it's next to impossible to 'emulate' the sound on modern equipment.(The Paula chip used quite some tricks for playing the samples at different pitches and it's not just a matter of 'sample interpolation'). And well, even the new 'SID Emulations' are a lot 'cleaner' and less noisy than what my old C64 could ever produce...

    I've played with the JP-08 too thinking it would be the holy grail of synths to buy but to my ear an iOS synth like Poison-202 gives it some real competition for fraction of the price...

    My conclusion is that it's more important to know how to use the tools we have available rather than lusting after new gear and get disappointed when/if it doesn't deliver.

  • Jupiter 8 's price is 'ridiculous', yes most good old analogue synths were sweetened, mostly with analogue effects, thus creating more imperfection that today is slowly being 'perfected', but you could always try out the system-8 emulation, a fraction of the asking price of the original, also you'd actually be able to use it without, praying to the aliens, every time you breathed on it.

  • Roland needs to wake up and start making these awesome synths on IOS. Thank you Korg for taking the initiative!

  • Agree wholeheartedly with @Samu

  • It has only 4 voices
    Isnt system-8 a new j8 ? I mean vst in the box

  • @Goozoon said:
    It has only 4 voices
    Isnt system-8 a new j8 ? I mean vst in the box

    Yeah, and the JP8 plug-out for the System-8 will be out on an unspecified date during 2017...
    https://www.roland.com/us/products/system-8/

    The other 'Plug-Outs' that are out there are already AU/VST...
    https://contentstore.roland.com/aira/

    After a '30 day test-run' I'm not impressed, the SH-101 doesn't even include the iconic sequencer...

    For 'Roland Emulations' I actually prefer the TAL-Stuff especially the Junu-60 emulation...
    https://tal-software.com/Products

  • @Goozoon said:
    It has only 4 voices
    Isnt system-8 a new j8 ? I mean vst in the box

    Yes it's the plug out system VAs/VSTs

  • @DD829 said:
    Never give up hope !

    I wish the new system 8 was a Jupiter 4, 6 & 8 all in one.

    Some day it will at least be Juno-106 and Jupiter 8 :)

  • It's stupid that Roland made the maximum polyphony on the boutique recreations of the Juno 106, Jupiter 8 and JX3P only 4 note polyphonic when the original synths were 6 and 8 note polyphonic.

  • The td4 kp, someone has experience? my brother's interested.

  • I'm "so disappointed" some users feel the need to use enigmatic non- descriptive titles ,
    presumably as click-bait , so others have to waste their time clicking to discover the thread is of no interest to them .... never mind OT to the original forum aims .

    I try to be a polite & constructive forum member , but this p****s me off .
    I consider it respectful to other users to clearly inform them what the thread is about in the title , especially if OT .

  • Like Samu said, I think the Poison 202 has a definite Roland sound to it and can probably get 90% there. It's up to you if the remaining 10% is worth it - but the the JP8 won't be 100% either.

  • edited November 2016

    Pure synth sounds are just to dry and unnatural
    A little reverb / delay goes a long way here
    And analog synths without fx processing can sound very poor & boring
    But the right sound with the right eq and the right fx and the sun starts to shine.

  • Shriekback. Wow. Long time.

  • @Samu said:

    @Goozoon said:

    Yeah, and the JP8 plug-out for the System-8 will be out on an unspecified date during 2017...
    https://www.roland.com/us/products/system-8/

    now thats what im talking about B)

  • @MusicMan4Christ said:
    Roland needs to wake up and start making these awesome synths on IOS. Thank you Korg for taking the initiative!

    this

  • @PhilW said:
    Like Samu said, I think the Poison 202 has a definite Roland sound to it and can probably get 90% there. It's up to you if the remaining 10% is worth it - but the the JP8 won't be 100% either.

    not keen to be honest ... sounds more digital than analogue to my ears

  • encenc
    edited November 2016

    @lala said:
    Pure synth sounds are just to dry and unnatural
    A little reverb / delay goes a long way here
    And analog synths without fx processing can sound very poor & boring
    But the right sound with the right eq and the right fx and the sun starts to shine.

    very true. like i said in my OP i think we are a little spoiled with IOs apps. i think a lot of sounds in megellan are "helped" by the layers of FX piled on the presets. not that it isnt a decent app...

  • I feel your pain :)

    @lala i still can't get over how good the nord a1 sounds without fx (don't have one)

  • edited November 2016

    When I saw the title, I thought this was about the election...

  • I don't know, I'm not saying they all sound the same but
    In the end all of those sounds need to fit together
    It's like cooking
    Buying a Jupiter 8 won't make you Howard jones.

  • encenc
    edited November 2016

    @lala said:

    Buying a Jupiter 8 won't make you Howard jones.

    TF for that :D ;)

  • @enc said:

    @lala said:

    Buying a Jupiter 8 won't make you Howard jones.

    TF for that :D ;)

    +1

  • @Artmuzz said:
    It's stupid that Roland made the maximum polyphony on the boutique recreations of the Juno 106, Jupiter 8 and JX3P only 4 note polyphonic when the original synths were 6 and 8 note polyphonic.

    hmm.. why do I keep thinking I saw someone online who was chaining two of those little JP8's and getting 8 voices? I may be wrong. I dont own one. I did try it out in the store and thought it was a little bit mich for what it was. Sounded good to me ears though.

  • edited November 2016

    I remember how disappointed I was with my first polyphone synth
    Everything sounded like shit no matter what I did
    It's like the sound is glued to the speakers and doesn't want to come out
    It took me a while to get that I need to buy a reverb. :D

    All those 80s productions are really heavy on the reverb,
    Usually today stuff is mixed much dryer
    In the 1sr video is a phaser on the arp must be the box standing on it ...
    What's nice with the Rolands is that they always have a big sweet spot

  • @lala said:
    I remember how disappointed I was with my first polyphone synth
    Everything sounded like shit no matter what I did
    It's like the sound is glued to the speakers and doesn't want to come out
    It took me a while to get that I need to buy a reverb. :D

    All those 80s productions are really heavy on the reverb,
    Usually today stuff is mixed much dryer
    In the 1sr video is a phaser on the arp must be the box standing on it ...
    What's nice with the Rolands is that they always have a big sweet spot

    Agree with this. I've owned many analog and digital synths and managed to get some great sounds out of all of them when hooked up to the old studio fx and pedals I had. Some of the most celebrated synth sounds of the eighties were very basic sounds until fx and recording techniques bolstered the sounds.

  • One of the things that really made some of the older synths special was their design. A Jupiter 8 can sound great, but so can a Fizmo or DX7. Try getting that playing the synth parameter feel with the interfaces of a DX7 though.

    The small sliders on the little jp08 just will never compare. I can get some really decent sounds from the new Korg iOddy, but it's not like playing the sliders of a real full size hardware synth.

  • encenc
    edited November 2016

    @Fruitbat1919 said:
    One of the things that really made some of the older synths special was their design. A Jupiter 8 can sound great, but so can a Fizmo or DX7. Try getting that playing the synth parameter feel with the interfaces of a DX7 though.

    The small sliders on the little jp08 just will never compare. I can get some really decent sounds from the new Korg iOddy, but it's not like playing the sliders of a real full size hardware synth.

    Very true .. nothing can compare to the immediacy of physical hands on slider/knob tweaking... not to mention the security the tweek is going to work first time without having to stab a finger at a screen two or three times... hats off to those that use iPads in a live set up

    Roland have seen how popular these boutique "toys" are ... i reckon there's going to be a lot more to come ... TR808 please Mr. Miki ;)

  • @enc said:
    Roland have seen how popular these boutique "toys" are ... i reckon there's going to be a lot more to come ... TR808 please Mr. Miki ;)

    Why wait? The 808 emulation in the TR8 is already excellent, and the ergonomics of the unit are a lot better and hands-on than the Boutique form factor.

  • encenc
    edited November 2016

    @lala said:

    In the 1sr video is a phaser on the arp must be the box standing on it ...

    Ahh, wondered what that was

Sign In or Register to comment.