{"id":2362,"date":"2024-09-23T07:08:44","date_gmt":"2024-09-23T07:08:44","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/?page_id=2362"},"modified":"2025-12-01T05:20:44","modified_gmt":"2025-12-01T05:20:44","slug":"roland-by-cherry","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/roland-by-cherry\/","title":{"rendered":"Roland, by Cherry."},"content":{"rendered":"\n

This page has Roland reproductions<\/strong> only. For their original titles<\/strong> please go here<\/a>. For other brands go there<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mercury 8 \ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

There is absolutely no need for another Jupiter 8 clone. Roland, Arturia, TAL, Softube, Juniper, Benzo the Wonder Dog whatever … it’s a nice machine but c’mon it’s like the Mona Lisa – it’s the crowd pleaser, the show pony… what we need is some daring, someone to push it too hard. And this is what has happened.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Look up at the top left – there’s a MOD MATRIX. We knew that we could cross modulate VCO 1 and VCO2. But now we can feed that right back in a loop in the matrix. You can send modulation wherever the hell you like and the keyboard howls like an exorcism. Does it sound like an original Jupiter 8? No Thank God it’s more than that.<\/strong> It’s everything that the Jupiter 8 could and<\/em> couldn’t do and that makes it worthwhile.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Mercury 6 \ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Why didn\u2019t Roland do this first? The only thing they have left is their legacy, and they\u2019re pipped by some small company that operates out of a cupboard in SoCal and does it better than all that AIRA babbledeboop<\/a>. As always I don\u2019t really care if it\u2019s authentic, I care that I can use it in some music. You can use these in some music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Back in 1983 I was in Venue Music with a choice: buy the DX7<\/a> or the Jupiter 6 for about the same price. An entire period of sizzling music followed on my buying the DX7, which was \u2018futuristic\u2019 back in the day. Graeme from SPK went for the JP6 and lamented they\u2019d removed the JP8\u2019s ability to overdrive the amplifier stage (which came back on the Boutique<\/a>). That made it less nasty and he was going to get it modded. The Roland seemed a little texturally limited to me, I\u2019d need some guitar pedals. Had I bought the JP6 I\u2019d be richer now \u2013 but I really think my music would not have been as distinctive.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Years later I got an MKS80 <\/a>\u2013 not a JP8 or JP6, it\u2019s a bit between. Cherry\u2019s M6<\/em> does seem near to that \u2013 more robust than my memory of the JP6, certainly more interesting. As always it\u2019s the changes in software they make that are significant<\/strong>. With 16 voices you will always want to stack two layers \u2013 4 oscillators and ENVs, two filters etc. puts it way above the old beast. And it\u2019s a pleasure to manage compared to the Roland Jupiter-X \u2013 no menu diving, everything on the front panel. The only Roland hardware that has this approach to sound is the JP8080<\/a>, which is capable of a five voice stack attack but needs a lot of EQ boost to get the gruff on.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I liked the whiskey in their Mercury 4<\/em>, but this is gin and tonic. At the prices they\u2019re asking you can have both.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"<\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Mercury 4 \ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb<\/h2>\n\n\n\n

Never did have one of these, but hell, I\u2019ve had a lot of Roland. Immediately it announces itself as the Good Roland, the we-let-you-turn-it-up Roland. I\u2019ll tell you what, I do own a MKS80 Super Jupiter,<\/a> and I got the same vibe out of this straight away. It\u2019s as grumpy as fuck and where\u2019s my goddamn whisky? Really the MKS80 has only one spectacular facility and that\u2019s unison mode with all the oscillators drifting all over the place. The Mercury 4<\/em> does that, but it does more and you will think of many helpful places you can use it in your music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

I also have an authorised J4 installed in my System-8<\/a>, 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.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This page has Roland reproductions only. For their original titles please go here. For other brands go there. Mercury 8 \ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb There is absolutely no need for another Jupiter 8 clone. Roland, Arturia, TAL, Softube, Juniper, Benzo the Wonder Dog whatever … it’s a nice machine but c’mon it’s like the Mona Lisa – it’s […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","footnotes":""},"tags":[4],"class_list":["post-2362","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry","tag-virtual-analogue"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2362","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2362"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2362\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2723,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2362\/revisions\/2723"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2362"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2362"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}