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Roland JUPITER-4

19-Mar-2024

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Roland JUPITER-4



Category:  Products / synthesisers / analog synthesisers

Added: 13-Dec-98  |  Author: admin

New price: discontinued  |   S/H price: ??


Roland JUPITER-4



The Roland Jupiter 4 was an analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation of Japan between 1978 and 1981. It was notable as the company's first self-contained polyphonic synthesizer, and for containing digital control of analog circuits (termed "Compuphonic" by Roland), allowing for such features as programmable memories and voice assignment modes.

Priced at around US$2,000, it was cheaper than polyphonic machine from its competitors (such as the Sequential Circuits Prophet-5 and the Oberheim OB-X) however it did not sell well in comparison. (These poor fortunes were reversed on the release of its successor model in 1981, the popular Jupiter-8.)

The Jupiter 4's basic architecture was 4 identical voice cards, each with a VCO (with sub-oscillator), resonant low pass VCF (which could self-oscillate), and VCA. Modulation included an ADSR envelope and LFO. The LFO, routable to oscillator pitch, pulse width, filter cutoff and amplifier, was notable for being able to reach audio frequencies, allowing for crude FM and AM synthesis.

The Jupiter 4's two most distinctive features were provided by virtue of its "compuphonic" digital control of the four voice cards:

* An arpeggiator, with a choice of up, down, up/down, or random mode. The arpeggiator can be prominently heard in Duran Duran's 1982 hit single "Rio."

* Four voice assignment modes, which, as well as simple 1VCO-per-voice polyphony, included the ability to effect 4-VCO unison when one key was pressed, 2-VCOs per voice when two keys were pressed, and 1-VCO per voice when three or four keys were pressed. This effect can be heard on tracks such as "Seconds" by The Human League and "I Dream of Wires" by Gary Numan.


The final signal path also included a simple high pass filter and a stereo chorus effect. The Jupiter 4 had 10 preset sounds and also featured 8 memory locations for user-created patches.

Despite not being incredibly popular, it did manage to find its way into the hands of some musicians, most of which were associated with the New Wave and synthpop music scenes (see below). Phil Oakey of The Human League eulogised that despite its limitations "the Jupiter 4 will be tatooed on my heart for ever".


(From Wikipedia)








Product Videos


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Product Manuals or Files

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User Comments

Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Jose Antonio Moreno
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 20-Jan-99

I got one...its great!

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: jimmy hoose
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 20-Jan-99

i've got one of these & would either like to make it midi-compatible or sell it locally...what's the most money that i should ask for it...it's in almost new condition...what is the best way to sell an old keyboard like this? Please send any suggestions to me at your earliest possible convenience...Many Thanks!

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: august
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 20-Jan-99

have a Jupiter4 that I used to love to play.Can get it repaired if I can find schematics..Please help.Will pay

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Sean Vindahl Frederiksen
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 20-Jan-99

Jupiter 4 is a great synth,

I have my own, but it´s falling apart

the only thing im anoid over, is the keys...

but other than that, I think is super

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Sean Vindahl Frederiksen
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 20-Jan-99

Jupiter 4 is a great synth,

I have my own, but it´s falling apart.

the only thing im anoid over, is the keys...

but other than that, I think is super

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: august
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 20-Jan-99

Wish I could get mine working...used it for years..good basic analogue synth. Could do things with it that I cant do with my new JP 8000 (like wind). Dont hear much about these units. I liked mine though

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Marcus
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 20-Jan-99

I have a Jupiter 4 and it is one of the best sounding machines I've ever used or owned. I should point out as a reference that I own a Minimoog, Pro-One, Prophet 5, Jupiter 8, Jupiter 6, MKS-80, Source, Juno 60, Rogue, ARP Axxe, Odyssey, 2600, Quadra, Minikorg K1, SH 101, SH 5, OBXa, 2-Voice, Wave 2.3, Octave Cat, Promars, MS-20, etc. and the Jup 4 is one of the best sounding out of all of these. It's a little more basic in terms of the variety of sounds you can create with it than a Jup 8, 6 or MKS-80 but I think it wins hands down in the "how amazing it sounds" category. There is a quality to its sound that very few synths have. I would never sell the 4 and contrary to many people, I actually haven't had any problems with mine yet - knock on wood.



Marcus the gear addict (I've been at it a long time folks)

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Alex Ganzeveld
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 26-May-00

Cool thing. Big and ugly and it sounds like shit. Great!

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Rzo
Email: Email supplied but hidden
.
Activity: part-timer
Date: 18-Sep-00

Just got one given to me... (yeah!) Pretty crazy sounding for a 1osc+sub synth. I like the LFO self modulation, very cool stuff indeed. The pulse wave sounds decent with chorus. Whack it into unison for added fun. Anyone know how much they go for?

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: H
Email: Email supplied but hidden
h
Activity: Professional
Date: 19-Oct-00

one Dx7 is a plenty there you Piano players.You can't play this like a piano but it's easier to program and you don't have to use an operator to get through to the frequencies you want.

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: chinaski
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 20-Oct-00

the thing is a dinosaur for the Jupiter series. I haven't heard it but I heard that the Jupiter 6 and the 8 win hands down for sound(s).

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: ashley
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 20-Oct-00

this is a piece of history. it wont sound as good as the later jupiters but can they do the intro to duran duran "rio". jp4 arp on random.

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: H
Email: Email supplied but hidden
h
Activity: Professional
Date: 22-Oct-00

I haven't heard it but the 6 or 8 wins hands down?Listen to subliminal sandwich by MBM 4 all over it.I am looking for a wide angle lens for my third eye.I tried a fisheye but the smell was too much for me.

-:)

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: reg
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 09-Jan-01

I had ws in a band with one when it first came out and it was a great old beast sounds unique and weighs a tonne
buy one if you can just for the novelty value.....

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: WenOc
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 09-May-02

Hello there

I'm sitting here with my open Jupiter-4. I'm opening it because I want to build it modular, with a breakout box that is patchable with usual phono-cables (1/8").

The Jupiter-4 is pretty nice-sounding but has a pretty annoying arpeggio (it goes all the keyboard up), four or sometimes three octaves... There's no rythmic in it. Pretty annoying.

It's cute, but larger than you may think. If you open it you'll find the nicest analog electronic, and so many cabels in all colors that you believe you are at a pride-parade. Pretty nice, indeed.

The patches is not that very clever, because if you have programmed something once, you canät change it again. To bad... I do almost always use the little synth in the manual mode, where you cant move all the sliders exactly as you wish. There are plenty.

I think that this little thing should be able to be midi-controlled and also act as a midicontroller, fairly well, but, the microcontroller in this little things is probably so old you can't find a similar anymore...

The keyboard is a bit cheap i think, but that can be only my ex. It's too bad it's only have one VCO for each voice. (Okay, a Subosc to, and noise)...

The filter can be self-oscillating pretty easy, and with correct adsr-curve, fairly nice electronic percussion can be made. Nice :)

I would never get rid of this synth. If I did, it would be bacuse it's so heavy and smells so much flame-protection. I think it's toxic.

If you have any help to my modularproject, a servicemanual for example(!!!), dont hesitate to e-mail me. I'm very nice.

Bye!

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Bob Weigel
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 21-Jul-03

the Jupiter 4 is Roland's first polyphonic synth remember. They went out of their way in many aspects to create this synth. It is very smooth in transistions, and tends to have a surreal (it's acoustic but...what is it?) type of sound. Locking the hold and using arpegiator with certain sound can yield some great textures like those heard in Blade runner in places. (Might be that's what he used in fact. Vangelis had one in some of this stuff. China probably also used it.) All the jupiters have their own sort of sound I've heard. This one is much simpler in facilities but uses what is has VERY well. I'm yet to see what these sold for new. Heard it was a lot. Anyway, I've got to side with the guy who said it's best sounding synth he has. I have 20 synths here. And in a way it is! You have to be into appreciating subleties....things that make truly great music instead of things that make music that is marginal or just sounds like the latest craze wanna be type thing. It's an artists machine for sure. It's bulky. Only 4 voices. But it does what it does so well. I have to save 5 for machines that have more facilities AND sound great but it is a very special machine to get the rating I give it; having such meager facilities.

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Carl
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 13-Sep-03

I've had my jupiter 4 for nearly 2 years now and i can tell you it's a truely amazing machine. But i still hate the fucker. Don't get me wrong it's got the best sound on the face of the earth but it's so unreliable. for some reson i can never get each oscilator(polyphonic voice) to sound the same. At the moment one of them is about four tones out of tune and the tuning pots only rotate about a semitone or so. If anyone knows how i could bypass the tuning pots or anything that would help please email me. Anyway if your thinking of buying one don't hesitate. I bought a juno 60 hoping it would do the same thing and stay in tune at the same time but it won't ever live up to the jp 4. It's a really cool synth hey. the lfo is to die for. with triangle, square, saw up and saw down. the saw down wave is really wierd, if you set the pw to mod and the delay about half way you can get the coolest acid bass sound. not like a 303 more of a thick chunky slab of whale. you probably don't believe me but try it out hey. also its got the widest lfo speed range on any synth ever made from so slow you can't tell if it's doing anything to "what the fuck it can self oscilate". when it self oscliates it almost sounds like a dx7. if you have any questions about the jupiter 4 email me at carlbartos@hotmail.com

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Robert Weigel
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 01-Dec-03

The Jupiter 4 was fairly expensive when it first came out and represented Roland's FIRST polyphonic synth...and they held out 4 years after Oberheim began using their modules to create the first polyphonics roughly. Yamaha had the CS50 two years earlier. Many other machines using divide down technology came out those years but this was roland's first unit that had multiple separate synth channels that went through a prioritization scheme. I think the time paid off. It's a very smooth synth. When the arpegiator is going you'd swear you are listening to more than 4 voices sometimes.
It has been noted to have a sound like no other. The filters are very warm and dynamic. There is only 1 vco per voice, but they can be stacked for a thick monophonic sound with the push of a front button, also where the 4 arpegiator paterns are selected. It's a great synth to have above another using the arpegiator while playing the other synth and just reaching up to do pattern changes. It's huge and fairly expensive for the facilities it has, but ....it's just great. It's one of those mysteries that make us believe that maybe whatever they did in there actually payed off in a very real way. :-)
There are 8 memory locations but I recommend saving all settings in a book because you can't retrieve the data. Once you hit save, the information is in RAM and will never again be seen in a graphic way that you can decode without fiddling for a long time with the controls. But in this way it is a totally analog synth. For the presets the memory converts to analog voltages which just set there and nicely mimick the effect the sliders had in 'manual' mode when you were programming the sound. -Bob/ Sound Doctorin'

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Jean
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 28-Dec-03

This baby's got it all: big, heavy, tacky looking, amazing sounding. This is one I'll hold on to for a long time. I agree with what most people here have said: great LFO, sounds well, the patches have flaws and it's impossible to tune. Nevertheless, I love this thing, and I'd really love to get my hands on an instructions manual!

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: justin mills
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 13-Jan-04

clunky, rickety old box.
but, sounds fantastic, partly due to the arpeggiator and partly cos'
its true analog. tuning drifts, the filters go awol and a load of other things.
but i love mine, great for electro (drexciya type stuff) and deep, deep techno.
ill never get rid of it.

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: sabutane
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 13-Mar-04

I've owned a Jupiter -4 for about seven years now, and although it's lost much of it's presets, it still kicks much ass. Very nice sound shaping ablility, classic Roland fat sound, I definately use it in accompanyment with digital synths to ad that "analogue" feel. Very cool piece of equipment, especially when paired with external effects, excellent for live applications as well.

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: nick munro
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 16-Sep-04

I just wondered if anyone has a Jupiter 4 users manual as there are various things I can't figure out.....Is anyone decent enough to scan it and pdf it to me??? Or photocopy it and post it?!?!? Drop me an email if so...thanks very much.

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Rob
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 12-Oct-04

HI

just bought a Roland Jupiter 4, great synth
but i need a manual, roland in the UK dont dupport it now, can anyone help me please...........


Cheers
ROb

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Frank Zerban
Email: Email supplied but hidden
www.thezerb.com
Activity: Professional
Date: 21-Nov-04

sound?
unique!
only the cs-70/80 comes close!

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: zac
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: part-timer
Date: 30-Nov-04

Hi! i have had my jupiter 4 for about 1 year, and it has broken... can someone please please please be nice enuff to send me a copy of the schematics by email!? please help me! i will do by best to re imburse you with music, progs etc thanks so much

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: alan rolfe
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 09-Mar-05

I used to have one of these until i upgraded to a Jupiter 6 which although versatile, just didn't have the same punch on live gigs as the Jupiter 4. There were some great preset sounds on the buttons on the front, particularly a marimba like sound which i wrote a song around and could never replace.
The only pitfall was having to retune the four oscillators before every gig which had plastic screw heads and which soon wore out.
One of the last analog synths, very nostalgic

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: sk8citizen
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity:
Date: 12-Jul-05

hi,please i am looking for jupiter 4 service manual.please can anyone help me by sending it to me or tell me where i can find it?i dont have money to give.. thank you

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: James Ketz
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 12-Aug-05

Hello, I'm James and addicted to my Jupiter-4. I use it in combination with a Yamaha CS-30, Roland SH-101, Alfa Juno-1, JX-8P and lots of other things but the JP kicks ass!. It sounds very rich and powerfull (try the unison mode). The filter is sharp as a knife and with the EG's you can create a scala of sounds. There are LFO's and LFO's but this baby has the best there is. It can sweep mega slow to ultra fast. I use the external input to trigger the JP's arpegio's. When I tweak the JP for a few seconds and add a fat drumtrack to it you have instantly a "Dave Clarke" kind of techno track. A Jupiter-4 is a real "must have".

Analogue greetings from James

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Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: Analogue Crazy
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Professional
Date: 21-Nov-07

I just bought a mint condition Jupiter-4 and its amazing. I owned a Roland Promars 2 years ago and was so impressed with it i wanted to get the Jupe4. I had to wait a full year to find one but it was worth waiting for. The Jupiter-4 is one the best Polyphonic Synths i have ever used. I have played a Juno-6 and 60, Prophet-5, Poly-61, CS-80 and this clunky synth is up there with the Prophet and CS. Amazing sounding synth with many unique features.

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Last added comment

Product:  Roland - JUPITER-4
Name: antonio zicchittu
Email: Email supplied but hidden
Activity: Hobby-ist
Date: 06-Dec-09

qualcuno mi sa dire quanto costa un jupiter 4 ?

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