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Why didn’t Roland do this first? The only thing they have left is their legacy, and they’re pipped by some small company that operates out of a cupboard in SoCal and does it better than all that AIRA babbledeboop. As always I don’t really care if it’s authentic, I care that I can use it in some music. You can use these in some music.
Mercury 6 🧻🧻🧻🧻🧻
Back in 1983 I was in Venue Music with a choice: buy the DX7 or the Jupiter 6 for about the same price. An entire period of sizzling music followed on my buying the DX7, which was ‘futuristic’ back in the day. Graeme from SPK went for the JP6 and lamented they’d removed the JP8’s ability to overdrive the amplifier stage (which came back on the Boutique). That made it less nasty and he was going to get it modded. The Roland seemed a little texturally limited to me, I’d need some guitar pedals. Had I bought the JP6 I’d be richer now – but I really think my music would not have been as distinctive.
Years later I got an MKS80 – not a JP8 or JP6, it’s a bit between. Cherry’s M6 does seem near to that – more robust than my memory of the JP6, certainly more interesting. As always it’s the changes in software they make that are significant. With 16 voices you will always want to stack two layers – 4 oscillators and ENVs, two filters etc. puts it way above the old beast. And it’s a pleasure to manage compared to the Roland Jupiter-X – no menu diving, everything on the front panel. The only Roland hardware that has this approach to sound is the JP8080, which is capable of a five voice stack attack but needs a lot of EQ boost to get the gruff on.
I liked the whiskey in their Mercury 4, but this is gin and tonic. At the prices they’re asking you can have both.
Mercury 4 🧻🧻🧻
Never did have one of these, but hell, I’ve had a lot of Roland. Immediately it announces itself as the Good Roland, the we-let-you-turn-it-up Roland. I’ll tell you what, I do own a MKS80 Super Jupiter, and I got the same vibe out of this straight away. It’s as grumpy as fuck and where’s my goddamn whisky? Really the MKS80 has only one spectacular facility and that’s unison mode with all the oscillators drifting all over the place. The Mercury 4 does that, but it does more and you will think of many helpful places you can use it in your music.
I also have an authorised J4 installed in my System-8, which is more “realistic” – that is, severely limited. The M4 is not realistic – they probably did measure all the settings in that one guy’s old keyboard. But they added stuff. Once you add stuff you may as well go hog crazy.