I'm looking to buy some old synths from the late 70ies/early 80ies. I currently have 3 synths on my radar.

I might get a Jupiter 8 without DCB (4000 €). A Prophet 5 Rev 3 (3000 €) and a Jupiter 4 for maybe 1500 Euros.

When it comes to music I prefere prog rock as well as 80'ies synth pop. Genesis, Sandra, ELO, A-ha, Pet Shop Boys, Alphaville, Pink Floyd, Mike & Mechanics...

I already have an SH-2, SH-2000, PolySix, MKS-50/70/80 and Matrix 1000, D-50, TX7/802 and Prophet '08.

Which of them, Jupiter 8 (early version), Jupiter 4 and Prophet 5 Rev 3, might be most interesting to match the sound of the above groups?
I might be interested in buying two of them, maybe? If they are in good condition and working fine.

What do you think about the price and are there things to look for when testing them? Like for the battery on the PolySix? What do you think, which of the is more/less service intensive? And what about spare parts?

Any hints or infos are welcome as they are not the cheapest.

Seeing that you already have several Rolands, I would go for the Prophet. It will give you a different sound -- plus I know at least two of the bands you mentioned, namely Genesis and the Pet Shop Boys, used Prophets back in the day.

As for the prices, they seem okay to me. And as for what issues to look out for, that's not an easy question to answer. I would search GS for more info on those model synths. There are also a number of threads discussing issues of buying vintage synths, what to look out for, etc -- threads like these:

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/elect...ogue-gear.html

https://www.gearslutz.com/board/elect...ink-twice.html

http://stretta.blogspot.com/2008/12/...ks-80.html?m=1

I just found this earlier today while reading up on the MKS-80. Just comparing certain parts that Roland used similarly in the Jupiter/MKS bloodline. Thought it might help. Yeah, I would agree that it appears you've got your Roland bases covered, though some people, probably Jup8 owners, who would swear that the MKS-80 is nowhere close.

If you can afford to get the JP-8, but have serious sellers waiting with the P-5 and JP-4 why not swing another measly 500€ and get both the Prophet 5 and the Jupiter 4? heh

Best of both worlds, i'd say.


...if you can't do that, i have no idea whether the JP8 or P5 would be the "better" synth.
I have never played a P5, but did own a JP8 for a short while and was underwhelmed with it, so personally, i'd try out a P5 before a JP-8.

The JP-4, as nice as it is, should not really be put into the category of "big poly synths" (if that is what you are looking for) - it has its very own thing going on, and is imo not an all rounder like the two others, but more of a specialty synth with a characteristic sound.

Well I think the JP4 is a special synth from the golden age, but you already have many classic Prog rock Rolands from the 70's. You also have some very collectible racks. For bands like A-ah and ELO there is nothing like a JP8. If funds are in a crunch you have so many desirable pieces that you can trade or sell. So the while JP4 is my favorite, for you my vote goes to the JP8.

Of course a JP8--P5--POLY SIX--SH2 combo would be the ultimate in collectible gear and would cover any synth song you could imagine. I would seriously try to spend time with your PO8 before considering the P5.

Thats a fun decision to have to make. Isn't your MKS80 basically a jupiter 8 in a rack mount anyway? And the P08 is uses the curtis chips, that the Prophet 5 rev3 uses...they might sound kind of similar, but the p08 has the extra voices and midi connectivity, as well as stable tuning.

I'd add a minimoog personally, for something really different Second choice (from your list) would be the Jupiter 4, its a class act.

I somehow like the special character that comes with VCO.

Currently it is that way. Favorites for special tasks.
MKS-70: Great String, E-Pianos, Bells, slow basses
MKS-80 Rev4: I like the E-Pianos sound. Very dynamic and old sounding. Further more I think it's good for percussive sound and some basses. Pads/String are not so greate.
SH-2: Bright and sparkling. Very sweet vibrato (fading in of LFO). Beautiful for leads.
SH-2000: Nice leads. Maybe I will modify it and add potis for the ADSR envelope.
Matrix: Nice for pure synth sounds.
TX7: Great solo strings. Bells, E-Pianos and some other sounds are well known.

But what I'm still looking for are very soft and alive sounds. Pads on the MKS-70 are soft, but somehow maybe a little bit static. Maybe VCO would help.

Ummmm... no.

We all have different ears but my ears say "not even close but here's a cigar anyway".

I've had a JP8 and P5 (r2) for approaching 10 years now and my music varies from prog rock to synth pop. I like some of the bands you mention too.

I paid about the same for both synths (back then), and they fit very well together in a track. I do find though that I get more use from the Jupiter 8. I can get a wide variety of different sounds very quickly and it always sounds fantastic. I definitely consider it to be my "workhorse" or "go to" synth. The Prophet can be bigger, richer and more organic but I somehow make less use of it in my music. When it delivers though it is magic. I would probably use the Prophet for bass if I didn't have a Moog (it is huge!).

So if I had to pick one it would be the Jupiter 8, but I would miss the different character I get from the Prophet. To be honest, I could quite happily make a track with either!

The Jupiter 4 has never appealed to me that much because I tend to make a lot of 2 oscillator sounds (and quite often 4 oscillator sounds in JP8 dual mode), so I don't feel I'd get much use from a JP4. I think of the JP4 as the sound of early synth pop, but my taste is perhaps more towards later synth pop where the JP8 and Prophet came to rule. The JP4 has to be up there amongst the great sounding synths though, so if you like the sounds it can produce, I'd say keep it on your wish list.

Both my Jupiter and Prophet have been very reliable. They were both serviced around the time I bought them. The Jupiter still works great, but would probably benefit from calibration now. I did gradually replace most of the keys on the JP8 because they were heavily worn when I got it. It is feeling much better to play now. I had one minor issue on the Prophet with the LFO but it was a cheap fix. In 10 years I've spent considerably more time and money fixing modern synths, because simple faults can get costly very quickly if whole boards need to be replaced. So I'm happy with my vintage while they remain reliable. I was led to believe my Prophet would be always out of tune and I'd be spending hundreds on SSM chips, but so far (in nearly 10 years) that hasn't been the case. It plays perfectly in tune and I haven't had to replace a single SSM. Maybe it is how luck falls, this is the only Prophet I have experience of.

Hey its good to hear about the prophet 5. Its a Beautiful synth, I would have overlooked it with all the really great new DSI stuff about and the notorious tuning issues with old prophets. I really like modern DSI synths with all the modern extras.

I agree the jupiter 4 is a bit limited as a synth, just the one oscillator and sub oscillator. PPL buy it for its unique sound though.....which is the main reason buy the old classics anyway.

Didn't the OP say he has a MKS80 already, and didn't like the pad sounds so much? Its a Jupiter 8 in a rack isn't it?

hmmm, i have a jp8, p5rev2 and p5rev3....

if i could only have 1 it would be jp8

if i had to pick between jp8 and p5rev3 it would be jp8 every time

picking between jp8 and p5 rev2 would be harder decision to be honest. would probably still go for jp8 just cause it's more versatile, split mode, arpeggiator, etc...

fwiw, i also have mks-50/70/80...mks-20/30 too. and well, in terms of overlap, if you have a mks-80rev4, you might actually find it sounds more like a p5rev3 than it does a jp8! Especially the raw oscillator sound with filters mostly open. Those CEM oscillators really do determine the character of a synth sometimes. Many of the bass sounds and such that I get on the prophet 5rev3 I can get near identical on the mks-80rev4. I will eventually be selling my p5rev3.

I can also agree mks-80 is not always the best for pads. Don't expect the p5rev3 to be all that much better though. It's good for those dark electro bass stabs and brass stabs and all that kinda stuff, again much overlap with mks-80, and it can do decent strings though not as good as rev2, but lush pads? ehh look elsewhere...JP8 is definitely more of a lush-pad machine than a p5rev3 or a mks-80r4...just sayin'...plus, you said soft and alive pads...i think you want a jp8. prophet 5 rev3 is not what I think when I think "soft pads" at all, it's definitely a synth on the harsher edge of things.

In that case then, go for the JP-8 and forget about having too many Rolands. (Does such a thing even exist? )

With the filter down, the Prophet can make some beautifully deep and dark pads. But generally speaking I would not describe the character of the REV 3 as "soft and alive." Alive, yes... but the filter can be quite hard and aggressive.

When talking about Prophet 5 Rev 3 and Jupiter 8, what about Oberheim Xpander? Isn't Oberheim the next big thing besides Prophets and Jupiters? They are a little cheaper but rare, too.

Do I understand it correctly. If Prophet 5 then I should look for a Rev 2? Especially for pads?
Is there something I should know about the Jupiter 8. Aren't there two versions? 12 bit vs 14 bit and DCB or not DCB? Which one would you prefere? Are the prices the same, or is the later one more exprensive?

Basically, owners of a rev 2 will tell you so...and rev 3 owners will say the differences are highly overstated....LOL

There used to be a side with sounds from both rev's side by side...sorry, can't find it now.

Xpander/matrix12 have the whole pad thing down, sure, but I don't think they'll have that snappiness that you'd expect from a jp8/p5. From what I've heard, they have that darker mid-80s-trying-to-compete-with-dx7 sort of sound, and in that regard, I feel like they actually have some overlap with the mks-80, especially when doing those industrial skinny puppy style dark electronic sounds...they can both do those dark sounding stabs and what not cause I guess that was popular at the time or something, everyone wanted to sound like a dx7. They're pretty different architecturally though, the crazy every-possible-mode filter in the xpander/matrix12 is pretty cool, and the whole matrix idea makes them almost semi-modular.

Jupiter 8 revision doesn't really matter that much. They replaced the interface board with a 14bit board and switched vendors on the DAC chip. It's actually easier to find the old 12bit chip than the later 14 bit one if it ever goes bad, you can still hunt down the 14bit ones but they are pricey.

All the voice boards are the same between jp8 revisions - it's not like the prophet 5 where they practically made an entirely different synth from scratch for rev3, completely different voice architecture from the rev2, etc...

The only real thing to look for is that the first 500 units are harder to calibrate since the boards had some errors and didn't have all the test points that the later boards had. I'd honestly say get one WITHOUT DCB, so you can add Encore Midi. DCB kinda sucks, trust me, it'd be better to invest into encore midi than to invest into DCB to midi converters, it's near impossible to get your money back on those kenton dcb things if you decided to ditch dcb and go with encore later, where as encore usually adds some value to jp8...some things you get with encore: double the patch memory, full control over the full range of keys via midi when in split mode (dcb can't do that, you can either control one full half or have it split like the keyboard would be, but you can't control each half entirely separately with full key range on separate midi channels like you can with encore)

For the prophets, the rev2 is just preferred sound-wise overall for me, the filter and oscillators are just significantly better sounding to me. I used to be one of the ignorant rev3 owner's claiming the difference was minor until I got frustrated enough that I bought a rev2 as well. Some famous prophet 5 rev1/2 strings/pads = in the air tonight by phil collins, the string pads in what a fool believes by doobie brothers (though lead is cs-80 in that song, don't be mistaken!) etc...if you have any real questions about the prophet revisions see my thread here, i've made numerous comparisons between them both:
https://www.gearslutz.com/board/elect...-vs-3-3-a.html

I listened to your Soundcloud page recently and very much liked what I was hearing so I would be very interested in hearing why did JP-8 leave you underwhelmed. I have owned only Juno-60 and 106 and remember that 60 sounded particularly good. However this was at the time they still were reasonable priced. Today it would be much more difficult for me to buy a synth without midi including cc control, velocity sensitivity etc. when considering the high price tag. Was that the reason you didn't like the JP-8?

As i have no soundcloud, you can't have listened to my stuff there. All on my personal HP.
Maybe someone stole my "name" to open a SC account with? heh

Anyway, i was underwhelmed by the JP8 because it just sounded polite and well behaved at all times.
Great quality sound, absolutely recordable and all, but in the end just rather boring to me. Basically a JX10 with VCO's, it isn't really a tool for sonic exploration like quite a few other analogues can be.

It will however do the soft pads that the OP seems to look for, and will do them nicely.

Maybe it was someone else from Denmark with great deep house tracks on SoundCloud. Can't really remember. Anyway thanks for the input, I would probably agree, JP-8 seems almost like an overkill, but if you're up to perfection (for the Roland sound) it might be a good choice.

mmm...having listened to this track, posted by Mr beers a while back..I would have to say that is complete nonsense.

haha, you can definitely get pretty far out with the jp8....

like that time it was speaking to me....paired up with an unlikely partner the mks-50? or maybe more likely than you'd think. the jp8 is doing the high pitched sound in the background as well as the...groaning? I think it even purrs at 7:03...haha. mks-50 doing it's hoover thing with the extra long sustain....



oh man listening to that resonance puts me on a trip sometimes....yeah the jp8 can be pretty amazing.

Ooo nice Xero !...I think that settles the 'sonic exploration' question !

lol

Indeed they will! heh

Seriously, though, I don't believe the differences are overstated. What I do find unfortunate, however, is that because of all the praise heaped upon REV 2s, REV 3s can seem inferior when in fact they are not! It's just a different sound, nothing more.

Plus, as I say almost every time it comes up, there are things like micro-tuning you can do with a REV 3 that you can't with a REV 2. And then, there's the Prophet-10: two REV 3s in a single instrument with a double manual keyboard -- an absolute MONSTER of a synth!

I wouldn't trade either for a REV 2. Ever.

There's probably ~5000 rev3's out there and most of them have a home so there's no denying the rev3 is still a huge contender in the polysynth world. Comparatively speaking, rev2's are probably about as rare as synthexes, and rev1's even more so, quite rare indeed. I think dougt here has a rev1 in good shape.

I do think it's pretty relevant to mention the rev2/3 differences when comparing to a jupiter 8 though. When it comes down to it, I'd consider the rev2 filter closer to the jupiter 8's filter than the rev3's. They've both got that syrupy resonance and a very pleasing tone overall, rev3's just comes off much harsher.

I don't think a jupiter 8 can do microtuning either, so if you really truly needed that feature you'd probably be stuck with a p5rev3 anyway, only other vintage synths that supported that kinda thing would prolly be the korg ps-3x00 series, you could tune each key in the octave manually with little knobs!

I completely agree. Very often people looking for a P-5 are wanting a specific sound -- like what they've heard on famous recordings. And very often those were done on a REV 2. In such cases, a REV 3 might be a disappointment. So yes, discussing their differences is totally relevant.

In my own case, I purposefully sought out a REV 3 because of the micro-tuning feature and not because I wanted a particular sound from any recordings. I was, however, definitely influenced by recordings in my choice of a Prophet-10. From Vangelis to John Carpenter, Genesis to the Pet Shop Boys, some of my favorite tracks were recorded with a P-10.

As a scrawny teenager in the early 80s, I thought the P-10 was the most awesome keyboard ever. But at the time, only famous rock stars and film composers could afford them.

How do I get it to micro tune? I know it could but never tried it so far

If you don't already have it, you should download the manual for the REV 3 P-5. It does a much better job of explaining how to do it than I could do here. You will need to sacrifice a preset slot in order to store the tuning patch. Then, whenever you want that specific tuning you call up that patch using the procedure out-lined in the manual. All of your stored patches will then play with that tuning until you either change it or power-down the instrument.

For alternate tuning freaks like myself, having such a feature on a vintage analog poly-synth as amazing as the Prophet-5 is heaven on earth! The sound of pure 3rds, 4ths and 5ths is simply glorious!

I don't know. Being that there are so many more rev 3's most of what people probably like was done on a rev 3 not rev 2.
As for the sound i tend to think of
Rev2-pop, disco, funk
Rev3-new wave, horror soundtracks, and techno

Yeah well, something like that can be done on a JX-10 with a Wedge too.
Granted, it doesn't have VCO's but yes, all the traditional synth controls are there.
Any synth with two oscillators and a reasonable set of controls can do those types of sound. Nothing adventurous there.

The JP8 is a bog standard polysynth, that does nothing out of the ordinary except for having a very nice quality Roland sound.

At least that is my personal opinion.

ehh, that's only sort of true. a lot of times it's more by year:

late 70s were all rev1/2 because that's all that was out.

rev2 = new wave just as much as rev3. but early new wave especially, like The Cars, Oingo Boingo, first few japan albums, etc. but yes the rev2 has that disco funky mojo :P

heh putting my name in the same post as "deep" house would almost be an insult if it wasn't so funny heh