This article is getting a lot of updates!
The timing couldn’t be worse. Just as Airwave went on sale, the Usual Suspects’ emulation of the Roland JP8000 became available through multiple sources. Airwave is a replica of the JP8080, whereas JE-8086 is virtual hardware based on the original code, an emulation for free. The latter is still beta, has bugs and issues and will need a powerful CPU to keep up. So the question becomes – is it worth paying for the replica? (OSX users need not apply – it’s Windows only.)
I’d like to say yes or no. I’ve got my hardware JP8080 – I’ve got Airwave and the JE-8086. It took a lot of fussing but I can now be absolutely sure…
What a Performance!
I want to move my hardware performances over to both titles. Roland made a small tool to back up your patches. It sees the instrument, it plays a loaded sound when asked. But the transfer doesn’t proceed. Windows 11, no action. Bugger.
I tried doing a MIDI sysex dump from the JP8080 hardware, which seemed to work. But when I loaded that sysex into Airwave I got only the single patches, not performances. The JP8080 is very clever in that it can have performances – arrangements of two patches – but these are not references to your single patches, so that you don’t damage them by accident. It seems however (it’s not clear in the manual or interface) that performances aren’t included in Airwave, at least in a clearly labelled form. That would be a bad mistake but right now I’m not sure I’ve got this clear.
When I first tried loading my sysex dump into JE-8086 it didn’t appear in the patch browser. But with a few more goes at it I discovered it’s a matter of just where you drag and drop the file in the bank browser. Once you hit the target it’s ready to load, taking over the contents of both patch and performance banks. The result is perfect – my hardware is now in an uncomfortable position!
Eventually finding a sysex file that works with both software instruments I’ve been able to A/B a bunch of patches. In general Airwave sounds exactly like the JE-8086 emulation. If that really is accurate (which seems the case) then so is Airwave. But I’m still not happy about there being no obvious performance mode. If it’s there then I want to see it detailed in the manual. Until then 3 toilet rolls.
I must mention the Arturia Jup-8000V which for some idiot reason emulates the JP8000 so {play yakety sax here}. There’s an enormous difference between the two. Why on earth pick the smaller machine? If they catch up it’ll become interesting.
Why go back to the JP8080 anyway?
Does the JP8080 hardware still have relevance? Well it’s a fun machine to make sounds just a little more recent than the old analogues. Here’s the first super saw and the feedback oscillator (polyphonic on Airwave but not JE). It has lots of wibbly 90’s modulation features as well. But as I say in the hardware review it needs a lot of EQ to sound more like the older machines.
Later Roland machines often include the features of the JP8080 – notably the V-Synth which has obvious crossover (plus samples), and more recently the System-8 is able to do very similar sounds while having far more options. Any software like the Mercury 8 that stacks up voices is also a contender.