I am currently borrowing a Roland Super Jupiter MKS-80 with the option to buy. This is the first time I have been able to experiment with one of these instruments. Unfortunately this one has some technical problems. First of all the tuning knob doesn’t work. The potentiometer looks fine and moves smoothly, but the pitch doesn’t change and it’s always about a quarter tone flat as if the tune knob was all the way to the left. Secondly, the unit does not respond to velocity. This might be due to a bad dynamics sensitivity slider, which is visibly bent. Finally the memory area switch is not working consistently. When set to the internal memory, the unit responds with the message “INSERT CARTRIDGE” when trying to change patches and no cartridge is available. Fortunately I have been able to intermittently coax it into patch changes with a MIDI controller. Other than being out of tune and not responding dynamically it sounds great. I have recorded lots of examples, unfortunately they are all out of key, so I can’t use them for anything official, but it’s giving me a good idea about what the instrument is capable of. I made this two part microtrack with a couple of presets already programmed into the MKS-80.
Out of Tune 119
Awesome! Regardless of its demise. For a second I felt like I was a kid again.. watching an episode of Cosmos.
I know. There’s something about those dual VCOs that get you right in the gut. I hope I don’t have to recap this thing. There’s “billions and billions” of capacitors in there. :P