{"id":2849,"date":"2026-06-29T08:04:55","date_gmt":"2026-06-29T08:04:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/?page_id=2849"},"modified":"2026-06-30T05:03:30","modified_gmt":"2026-06-30T05:03:30","slug":"synth-80-%f0%9f%a7%bb%f0%9f%a7%bb%f0%9f%a7%bb%f0%9f%a7%bb","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/synth-80-%f0%9f%a7%bb%f0%9f%a7%bb%f0%9f%a7%bb%f0%9f%a7%bb\/","title":{"rendered":"Synth-80 \ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb\ud83e\uddfb"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Behold – at long last a virtual Super Jupiter MKS-80 and a rev. 4 at that. I mention ‘rev. 4’ as just one part of the mythology behind this analogue rack – supposedly you could have bought a rev. 5 and feel all upset about that. I had a rev. 4 long ago and at one stage had to sell it – much later I bought another one<\/a> that worked well for a while and then had to have all sorts of bits replaced due to overheating. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Legends are expensive pets.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We’ve seen enough virtual Jupiter 8<\/a> keyboards to sink the Titanic<\/em>, but it’s fallen to a self declared enthusiast to software the rack. ‘An entirely personal project’ which became impersonal for some reason. His technique seems unfamiliar – where some developers have recreated the physical innards of their instrument – the filters and wires and so on, this author talks of automating a large body of repeated measurements of sounds that his hardware creates, tweaking his code to match. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is this AI at work? Probably part of it, but then ears are the main thing. For me it is a Good Idea. Only some of the sound is intentional, and some of it is unexpected, so reproducing the unexpected sound that comes up the cables is arguably the reproduction of a particular unit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Now you want me to tell you if this is accurate<\/em>. Seeing as no two MKS-80s sound the same there’s no accurate<\/em>. My first and second MKS-80 were a bit different. Even in a single unit the 8 voices vary a little.<\/em> Synth-80<\/em> makes sounds that I recognise and the adjustments do what I expect.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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

The virtual control panel is definitely better than the original hardware, which uses early clunky and slow MIDI – example being the filter only having 100 steps. The virtual panel offers overlays that show you the signal and control flows – you can turn that off if you like but it’s actually a little helper when you’re twiddling at full speed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

And you get a hell of a lot more polyphony – 24 voices. So when you’re using Unison-2 mode (which you always will) you still get lots of notes. The effects are OK, but I’d not use them unless a saved patch demands it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Is the MKS-80 itself an essential instrument? Well actually no. It does some things (fatty fat bass) well but the Jupiter 8<\/a> is more versatile. If you’re looking for dainty nuance this is not the place. For most people the Cherry Jupiter 8 is your best deal by far.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Would I sell my current MKS-80? I just might.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Behold – at long last a virtual Super Jupiter MKS-80 and a rev. 4 at that. I mention ‘rev. 4’ as just one part of the mythology behind this analogue rack – supposedly you could have bought a rev. 5 and feel all upset about that. I had a rev. 4 long ago and at […]<\/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":[],"class_list":["post-2849","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2849","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=2849"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2849\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2857,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/2849\/revisions\/2857"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2849"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/nilamox.com\/mancave21\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2849"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}