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The last of the Roland Jupiter analogue polyphonic synthesiser series of the 1980's, the MKS-80 Super Jupiter certainly lived up to it's name!!! Many people regard the Super Jup as a Jupiter 8 in a rack however it's internal voice architecture has far more in common with the later Jupiter 6, using much of the same VCO circuitry. The four voice Jupiter 4 and it's eight voice big brother, the Jupiter 8, were never fitted with MIDI by the factory and the six voice Jupiter 6 had a very spartan MIDI specification. The MKS-80 inevitably had a far more comprehensive spec, designed as it was to be played by a mother keyboard or a remote keyboard such as the Roland AXiS, the forerunner of the AX1 (and lately the AX7) which Jarrelook and JMJ himself use today.

If you want to see pictures of the Jupiter series then follow our Jupiter link and when you have finished hit your browser's BACK button to return to this page. But in the meanwhile, what can the Super Jupiter do...?

Well, with 16 true VCO's on board it's big and to coin a phrase much in use today, it's PHAT!

Eminently capable of producing lush pads, hard edged brass, ripping solo sync leads and dissonant clangs and bangs, the MKS-80 is a thoroughbred analogue and a worthy forerunner of it's 1990's descendant, the JP8000, reviewed elsewhere in our kit list. Indeed the JP8K has a very similar timbral quality. With two VCOs per voice, crisp filters, LFO modulation, ring modulation, a noise source, split keyboard capability allowing two voices simultaneously...... it's little wonder Himself uses this instrument so much - check out the sleeve notes on his albums.

But even the best synths can have negative points too and this is no exception. The concept of mounting a synthesiser in a 19" rack has the inevitable drawback that what you gain in portability and ergonomics by size reduction you lose exponentially in user friendliness. And sadly the SuperJup suffers greatly in this area. Having very few controls on the front panel tweaking a sound patch is a menu ridden nightmare surpassed only by those inscrutable stalwarts of menu driven madness, the Yamaha DX7 and the Roland D50/550. Imagine trying to reach something as simple as your filter cut off but having to navigate your way through more levels than a London Underground station and you can begin to grasp the enormity of editing this synth.

But Roland were well aware of this problem and built an add on editing unit, the MPG-80. Connected to the MKS-80 by a cable this interface allows easy tweaking of all the Super Jups parameters with real twiddle-able knobs thus restoring the fiddle-feel-good factor once more. Sadly the MPG-80 was an additional expense many people felt they could not afford so this unit is as rare as rocking horse poo and twice as pricey. A decent MKS/MPG 80 combination may set you back as much as £1700 in this period of revival of all things truly analogue.

So, to cut a long story short we started looking for one when we got the MKS and lo and behold, we finally found one recently through Sound On Sound classifieds at an address on the Portobello Road "darn sarf" in La Londra!

Keep checking this page to hear some sound bytes from the beast......!