Thoughts on the Roland Jupiter Xm

Here is a video I just put together with my thoughts on the Jupiter Xm synth from Roland. It’s a long video, a lot of talking, 56 minutes long in total but at the end is a demo song that I recorded exclusively using Jupiter Xm synth sounds. I chose not to use the drum capabilities of the Xm for this song, purely because I am not familiar enough with its drum kits at this stage and prefer to user my own samples.

You can also find the demo song on SoundCloud here:

Addtional Information

There are a few things I forgot to mention in the video or could not fit in due to lack of time:

The Jupiter Xm has a digital audio interface over USB as well as MIDI. You can access each individual part’s audio as a stereo signal, as well as the overall mix of all parts (including master effects) and also you can access the external audio input as a stereo signal as well. So, that’s 7 stereo inputs in total. There is no manual installation of software necessary, just attach your synth to your PC, switch it on, and it sets itself up automatically. It all worked brilliantly and I had no problems recording the audio in Cubase.

The Jupiter Xm has an external stereo audio input, and it also has vocoder algorithms which the audio signal can be used for. When hooked up via USB, you can send that audio signal from your DAW and so access the vocoder functionality that way which is very cool.

Even though you can toggle parts on and off using the buttons on the front panel, those “disabled” parts are only disabled from the point of view of the keyboard. They are still addressable via MIDI so this is something that can cause confusion – a scene you played on the mini keyboard can sound totally different when played via MIDI unless you pay close attention to which MIDI channels you are sending on.

Maximum polyphony is 256 voices which is an amazing amount but you will eat it up if you create massive scenes, especially with loads of stereo partials inside. I tried to get some definitive answers as to how polyphony is consumed but information is very scarce on this topic. Each partial will eat up a voice, stereo will take up double the polyphony of mono, a 24Db filter consumes more polyphony than a 12Db filter, different filter types consume more than others, etc etc etc. And please note – the analog model emulations restrict polyphony to be “authentic” – so for example a Jupiter 8 model part has a maximum of 8 voices of polyphony.

I had a load of problems trying to connect my sustain pedal up to the synth. I have a Roland pedal now on order but I have read of people having issues with the sustain/hold capabilities of the Jupiter Xm anyway. That said, I noticed Roland have been producing firmware updates on a very regular basis – once every two months for the last 6 months at least – and this is very commendable.

I strongly urge you to upgrade your firmware to the latest version and keep checking for new updates. For example, I initially had a lot of voice-stealing issues which disappeared as soon as I upgraded to latest firmware. Roland have released a lot of fixes over the last 6 months including some very welcome enhancements to the user experience when using the front panel and menus. Keep it up please Roland!