From the mouth of the owner himself! I;ll have to get it back to redo this once it's serviced. Quite interesting to see if it makes a significant difference to the character.
A friend who lives locally has just had his caliberated, comparisons are important here. If after calibration they all have different charecter then that's cool. If the Cherry version is carved in stone then at least it is a go to reference the world over. I am sure Mr Carr will come back with a definitive update. @starskycarr
@@AtonalMeasureRecords while i havent played a jupiter 6, i find a lot of people really like to split hairs unnecessarily when it comes to other things so probably will be the same in this case. This test sounded pretty close to me. If someone told me they couldn't make a solid piece of music with the cherry audio filter compared to the hardware filter i would be... concerned, to say the least. Haha.
@@jamescuttsmusicjcm5013 sounded close to me too, its some years since i had a jupiter 6 but that cross mod is unmistably good to my memory, just perplexed by the filter nit picking going on.
The Roland has more mid range. I remember from mine back in the 90s when I thought, it could have more warmth. Now the Cherry Audio has that - cleaner and warm. I think they nailed it. Thanks for this video!
Longtime analog madman. To my “snobby” ears, this sounds damn good. Yes there will be differences but this both sounds good AND inspiring. Will be grabbing this for sure! Thanks for the effort here Starsky!!
Does it sound like a Jupiter 6? To my tired old ears, it's pretty good if not perfect. And be honest, how many of us can afford an original both to buy and maintain and have the room to accommodate one? Well played to Cherry Audio for another in a long line of very good instruments and to Starsky for his usual high quality review.
Thanks… this one was very stressful tbh 😂 having someone else’s synth dying in front of you isn’t the best! And I’d planned to do so much more, but hopefully got across the most salient points. It does do the Jupiter 6 special turns … if not identically, enough to please my inner yearnings for my own!
Agreed. The prices they ask nowadays for the hardware are nuts especially considering their age and the risk of faults. You can't find all components anymore and you need a shop that can maintain them. No thanks. I'd rather have the plugin tbh. It sounds awesome
Haha it’s the only truly realistic modelling. And one day it won’t turn in and you’ll have to pay £200 and wait 3 months before you can use it again… plus a couple of days out driving across the country 😂
You should try Roland Cloud, there's the constant background anxiety that one day you'll go to use your synth and it just won't work. Nobody else captures the experience of owning a vintage analogue so accurately 😉
As a hardware owner I wanted a software version for a long time. I bought it right away yesterday and was impressed when playing the first sounds. I didn't compare, just played around with the software to see if it just feels right. And yes, for me it does. Perhaps not 110% but no J6 would sound exactly like another anyway. Cherry Audio did a great job. A while ago I wrote to Cherry Audio, asking them to do the Jupiter-6 and not the 8, as there are so many already.. Glad to see, they decided to do the Jupiter-6. And they did well also GUI wise. Showing the Roland Cloud synths how it's done.
The filter just sounds so much more real and alive on the original, particularly at high resonance. The cross mod is impressive but it's always the filter that gives it away.
This is where I find the Oversampling making a massive difference. It really feels alive once it's kicked up to the 3x level. Not sure if it's accurate, but you can hear the harmonic overtones floating around when engaged. When disengaged it feels like a VST. This is especially evident when the detuning is kicked in. I guess I'm extremely sensitive to this but it really is the deal breaker here, and makes the Cherry Audio stuff cream of the crop.
The Jupiter 6 filter picks out those harmonics like a surgeon. I played with one in a store a few years back - OMG I'm glad it can be replicated in M6 by oversampling.
I'm quite impressed. As a former owner of the hardware I didn't think anyone could nail the crossmod of the real synth. This comes extremely close. The filters are a smidge brighter (maybe more resonant too) I feel in the hardware, but honestly without a direct comparison it would be extremely hard to tell. Excellent job to the Devs. I miss my original so I'll be picking this up!
@@StarskyCarr yes it's those two things that are unique on the JP6. Osc sync while bending 1 osc is the crazy sound here. Similar to a filter sweep but way more raucous! I had one for decades. Am excited for a VST finally! We'll see how well it pulls this off. Just the straight tone of a JP6 is pulled off very well by the original Korg minilogue. It really can do the bright oscillators through the liquid filter thing which is at the core of the JP6 sound. Not every analog has to be thick, rich, and warm sounding. The JP6 can really cut through and make very lively strings!
you can write a masterpiece on the emulator and a dogs dinner on the original.. it really comes down to how good you are at making music and no amount of vintage equipment is gonna change that
Nah you're missing the point, no one says that one has to make music with an instrument especially with a synth. With vintage gear, if you have a trained ear, you can enjoy by just funning around with the sounds, the programming, making patches etc... there are users who only make patches cuz they hate making music. In addition with an analog gear good sounds are achieved straight out of the box, with digital as you can see here you have to "make it" sound real by applying all sort of nuances... I have a Prophet 6 and whenever I touch it it gives me soothing sounds, digital if not programmed well just hurts your ears.
@@experimentalme7438He does have a point. 99.99% of people making music only create trash, and an expensive synth doesn’t do anything for them. Even most professional musician who know how to play really well don’t actually create anything worth while..
watching now, I get the same results on my JP6 (the cross mod on the JP6 goes about 15% further than the mercury 6) but man what a great software. really close emulation great video Starsky
Great overview. I was very impressed how close it got, especially the cross mod (which really makes this synth come to life). I got to play a real Jupiter 6 at NAMM 2020, was a lot of fun but I'm really happy they've made this VST version. I don't have 4 grand to drop on a dying synth.
The resonance sounds less "liquid" and organic and is more blended with the sound. Especially with basslines and chords at 7:35 you can hear the magic.
I've got a few Cherry Audio synths now - I got the CA2600 free with a sample pack not so long ago - and they really do the job. I reckon this is going on the wish list too. They're hitting the mark every time.
All we need now is for cherry audio to come out with the Jupiter 8. Jd-800. D50. Jd-800 and a good jx-8p. What do you think folks? Everything I've heard from cherry audio sounds amazing and if you got their voltage modular package as well? You can use all these synths within that as well. Just imagine the possibilities then. You could do all kinds of modulation paths and you could put a step sequencer and an arpeggiator on all their instruments as well. What's not to like? Starsky Carr. Thank you for this superb video upload. Pure.
Owned a 6 for a couple of decades (was a go-to for meaner harder lead tones), am very familiar with the sound, and it’s impressive how similar they sound. Cherry does a great job. Maybe not Softube-level accurate (the audio-rate LFO for example), but certainly useful and would be indistinguishable in a mix.
Yeah.. there’s no escape. I do love these though. I like the limitations, quirks and unique features… plus they’re usually a lot easier to use than stuff with a million options.
Thanks for this. So helpful as always. I've only ever experienced Junos and cheaper synths in reality. So helpful to hear the original ( even if it is struggling a bit) next to the software.
@8:30 😳😳😳 woah great cross mod comparison ...overall i'm totally sold...edit and it's so funny by the time you get to sync you're trying to find some way to find a difference and it's just not giving up any difference 😂😂😂...already got it and just in awe...i'll keep revisiting this comparison as also one can learn a lot from how you test the parameters
For years I made a living with the Jupiter 4, and then the 6 along with a Rhodes Suitcase. One time, on an important gig the JP6 would not tune to A440. I had to tune down and transpose the entire set on the fly. Analog was great except when it wasn't so great.
Whenever I make a video with the vintage stuff they always go out of tune. I can spend hours getting stuff to sound the same and as soon as I'm recording everything's drifted. There's a reason the Junos were so successful!
A lot of the vintage synths I own have been cloned, I wondered why nobody did the Jupiter-6 until now, since it's one of my favourite polysynths. I have a JP-6 (which I would never sell - unless someone offered me 10x market value for it), but would love this inside the DAW too. Great to see a fellow logic user, I'd like to see how it works in bi-timbral mode with the arpeggio, clock sync, etc.
Theres something very special about this emulation. Im incredibly picky and didn't own a cherry audio vst. I tried this though and fell in love, its very warm and such a great synth to play, so much fun. I have a new M1 mac studio and it runs very well but it has occasionally crashed , not sure why but will I contact their support team at some point.
Wow this is one of the best plugin emulations in a looong time. The differences are very minor and not a single soul will be able to tell the difference in a blind test imo.
Great video. I really like the sound of this plugin. Reading the comments, I'm struck by how similar the hardware vs. software argument is to guitar players with hardware amps vs modeler software. Some people said they sound completely different - no, they don't. Completely different means nothing in common. In a mix, most people wouldn't be able to tell a difference unless you coached them. I'm more in line with the people in the comments who think this is a great sounding plugin from a great company. But I get where people who invest a lot of money in old hardware don't like the idea that a $50 piece of software can sound fairly close to their synth. If I had unlimited money and space, I'd rather have the real thing, too. They're works of art.
Well they pretty much nailed it, except probably extreme filter resonances. I noticed that the difference between hardware and software becomes really audible when you start heavy signal processing: eq, saturation and compression. Its like the hardware signal has more information and streches a lot better. That may justify the cost difference for some.
I had to stop for a second and think "Wait, is this new?" Actually, yes. But last year they did the "Mercury-4" which is the Jupiter-4 recreation (which, of course, can do 6 voices and more). But the real Jupiter-6 is different enough from the Jupiter-4 that it makes sense to do both. So it's great that they went ahead and created it. Both of them are worth buying, especially at Cherry Audio's prices.
A commenter on another video I think pointed it out... The Mercury-6 filter is a bit too refined and lacks a bit of the original's character... as such it doesn't quite make it stand out... but it is still quite good. And I think your video shows just how impressive Cherry Audio nailed the settings - as you were very easily getting the same sounds out of the original and the plugin. Thanks for showing an original next to the plugin... Now I'm even more impressed - even if they aren't 100% the same. Great video as always.
Thanks, yeah I think perhaps the units CA had access to may have been more refined than this one in general, which is why it didn't make much sense to spend too long A/Bing every function at length and I concentrated on the JP6 'specials'.
Awesome! That Jup6/Merc6 is a naughty beast, innit? So characteristic! The bad behaving lil' brother of Jupiter 8 ;) Cherry Audio really nailed it as close as you can get without building the actual hardware. Behringer don't bother cloning this one hehehe!
@@futureworldmachines4407 Might be cheaper than Arturia if you buy just one synth but the amount of synths and keyboards you get in the V collection for the money is ridiculous with it sometimes going as low as $299. The reason to buy Cherry Audio isn't the price, it's because you like their style. I do. Also Cherry audio does have their "Synth Stack'" which is a fantastic deal! At the prices of either Synth Stack or V Coll, the price of individual synths is so low it's barely worth calculating. No reason to not get both of these bundles. Roland Cloud is another deal entirely. Cheap to sub, expensive to own a lifetime key. Best way there is the $10 sub which does give you access to everything albeit a little cumbersome from having to use the pro access selector and not more than 2 legendarys at a time.
So you think Roland will eventually reissue analog gear? That ship seems to be sailing farther out as time goes on and their modeling gets better. I wish Roland would make a new analog Jupiter. But not a recreation of anything before. Instead I'd like to see the intuitive Jupiter slider layout with new features, and its own character. I dunno, we've done 4,6, 8 ... so maybe 10.
This was impressive! I already have the Mercury 6 but never played a Jupiter 6, so this video was very useful. In the end I have to agree with someone else in the comments saying that it comes down to what you do with it, not whether it's a one on one clone of the original, whatever that may mean in this case since not two devices sound the same anyway.
Hi Starsky, killer demo as always. Just wondering what Oversample rate did you do this at? I noticed on the M4 the oversampling made a massive difference in the real analog sound. Looks as if you had it off in most the video. Would love to see how it compares at the higher rates. Gives it a ton more depth.
I did change to the max 4x at some point - can’t remember where but don’t think I edited that bit out. And no, it doesn’t make a huge difference to the character (if any under ‘normal’ use).
@@StarskyCarr yeah actually I had a chance to watch the latter half and you did. To me it makes a ton of difference in the dynamic range of the voices. Kinda the difference between modern brickwall mastering and their 80s counterparts. From what I understand a lot of people are just not sensitive to that, but the ones that are like me go nuts because of it lol. Just glad they included the option to destroy my CPU. Thanks again for all the awesome content, and doing a legit real hardware comparison!
Ive been fortunate enough to have had no less than x4 jupiter 6's pass my way over the past 20 odd years and each one sounded quite different as they were in various different component decay states, and depending on who has services your jupiter can make that vary drastically too (all mine were serviced by Tony Allgood up in cumbria) not all service engineers do their servicing the same, nor do you tend to take them in for a complete refurb of all components, so i wouldnt worry too much on getting that A+B perfect personally, i couldnt even get 2 different jupiter 6's to recall my old saved patch dumps from cassette sounding the same, so as for the plugin i think it sounds good enough, having had a long time making records with these back in the day i think this will fit that gap nicely. As for value of these things i was very fortunate to be able to buy and sell these during a time 20 plus years ago where they really were not that popular at all.
Yeah I agree, there's only so close any emulation can be especially with something like the JP6 which has a notorious tendency for decay! Some comments saying then filter sounds nothing like the OG - no, but neither would another I suspect. I've had 2 and have access to this one - you're right, it depends on servicing, age of components etc. I think perhaps CAs were in better condition than the one in front of me.. Literally 4 oscillators died across 3 voices while I was making this!
@@StarskyCarrpretty drastic stuff voices going down. and yes i get where they are coming from, the multi mode filter on the original was absolutely superb. I reckon if roland eventually do it, they have a museum condition jp6 to reference to as well as all the factory data to hand, but having said that cherry have done a smashing job without the cost. Hopefully this is a kick up the backside Roland needed. It sure will do me for now, nice review by the way as always.
Thanks for the video. In a few years these classic 80s synths will be harder to find in a working condition and in a few more years become obsolete. soon all we will have is software and RU-vid videos like this to remember them by. Thanks for posting.
Very close Starsky it seems. Nice demo as always. Will be getting this one. This synth has a little more options from the emulation gang. Cherry are starting to think about the aesthetics of the GUI. Something Arturia have already done. Cherrys gui have been a bit flat and functional. I am wondering wether they will give all us users now pretty gui's with an update across the range.
Yes they said so in the 2 hour plus presentation the guy who worked on the M6 GUI has been tasked and even suggested to CHERRY AUDIO if they’d let him have at it to redo / update their stock synths GUI’s to be like this one so we’ve been told he’s working on it and to expect it in 1-2 years
The keyboard tracking on the filter is set differently on both software and hardware examples, that might be the reason why there is a difference as it completely changes the filter response. But the plugin does seem to sound great!
Yeah I was tuning the cutoff to be the same on both and laying a single note so the tracking wasn’t impacting on the tone. I did realise and change it later, but as I was sticking to the one note (because the voices were dying!) it won’t have affected anything.
I fell in love with the Jupiter 6 a few years ago when I was at my buddy Nick's studio in Bath and played it for a few days. Sadly I had the opportunity to buy one of these for $2000 USD about 5-6 years ago but bought an OB6 instead. I love the OB6 but there ain't no way I'm going to find a JP6 for that price today so I'm stupid.
I played with one in a store, fantastic sounds came out of it. I'm glad I didn't get it as maintenance can be a horror story. Starsky lost 3 voices filming this. Now we have this VST, in the future we might get modern hardware rerelease. Plus even better VSTs
@@StarskyCarr ok. It's been a long time coming for this one. Ther was a sort of 6 voice there but it doesnt have the sound. Now this one has it. Kind of. I could have bought one ten years ago when they were under 2k but now forget it. 4k?? No I dont think so. I just have to content myself with the jx10 jx8p and alpha Juno 1. I know that sucks. 😖
They need to update the filter model, it's not right. Good first effort, but needs a bit more work... Having owned a 6 myself, I know it well.. This I hope will prompt Roland to implement in ACB/System-8 and maybe in Boutique form. Great oscillator modelling for sure, but as said (and I think you'd agree) that filter isn't a JP-6
For a first stab, it's nice... but compared to the JP-8 (TAL/Roland System-8 etc), Cherry can call it whatever they like, but that filter is not right. In other synths, they're closer for sure... Owned a 6 for years... and an 8...for ref
yeah the filter is a bit magic on the jp6, ex owner.. so also know the score. i think its could be this thats taken roland so long to model it, roland told me some years ago they were working on it, but its never seen the light of day.
Nice demo. Instead of using the mouse to change the parameters on the software and making the countless viewers who don't understand software VST's think you need to use a mouse & keyboard to do real time adjustments in VST's, I'd recommend using MIDI CC and assigning the parameters to the knobs & sliders on your MIDI controller. So many people are misinformed on how VST's work. I think the biggest advantage to hardware synths is largely the labeling of the parameters. So to make this easier, I recommend assigning the same parameters to the same controls on the MIDI keyboard for various synths. This way you don't have to memorize it differently for dozens of VST's or however many you many have. For example, most synths have settings for filter cut off, attack, portamento, release, etc. Just keep them consistent VST to VST and it's a lot easier to understand and memorize the more commonly used controls.
I use the mouse so you can track what I’m doing on screen. With a controller stuff moves imperceptibly and I have complaints about not knowing what’s happening. In other words, I do it this way because of so many requests. I have to say you’re the first to request the other way round! Haha I get your point though. But I can’t win 😂
@@StarskyCarr I get ya, I just see a lot of posts from people that don't understand software VST's and assume you are required to use the mouse and keyboard instead of tweaking the knobs in real time. Maybe an explaination at the start of the videos so those who insistant on hardware don't think the basic operations work differently?
Cherry Audio did an amazing job with this. I think so far the one that is least like the original is their version of the ARP2600, which sounds a bit too generic compared to most of their other offerings. But then again, at these prices, who can complain at all??
I don't think I have OCD, and probably this has been mentioned before. But the LFO-1 label on the Mercury-6 is missing the dash and is spelled "LFO 1", while LFO-2 is spelled out "LFO-2". Hoping for an update before I buy. #justkidding
I bought Synth Stack 3, it would be great if this would be added. Not that I think $49 is in any way expensive, but I just didn't really fall for the sound immediately (even on the hardware unit, seems hard to fit in a mix) and find myself just loving the Elka-X, even over the GX-80. Great comparison, tho.
There are definite differences. The software went a lot deeper but wasn’t as resonant. More of the original signal comes through and it’s thicker on the software - but I didn’t want to linger too much because I reckon another synth would be closer than this one. I’ve owned a couple and including this vintage one they were all slightly different.
Starsky, entertain me, could you one day do a comparison and then switch the audio from the real hardware with the vst and the other way round…. Curious about the critics 😂
Yeah it’s a great bit of software. Interestingly I tested the analog/digital theory in a little test with some analogs vs the Hydrasynth… not a single person could spot the digital synth in both cases. Literally no-one got it right and there’s only 2 tests. ASM Hydrasynth // Up Against Analog Classics // Dare you take the blind test? ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-TVfDYaKz2XM.html
@@StarskyCarr i agree its a load of nonsense, the better your monitoring and d/a conversion the more you realise its nonsense too. i cant tell any difference between roland cloud and my hardware, and im damn picky
Oddly I thought the Mercury had more presence. But then it’s not as harsh. It was a shame that the hardware was so unreliable, as it would make poking holes in a really detailed look far too easy.
@@Melodic623 yeah… and sometimes they’re right. But often it’s nitpicking nonsense. To be fair, I think William has a point about the HP, it does sound different but I don’t think he’s picking like some do. I also think that another synth might be closer etc.
@@StarskyCarr yeah I would be highly disappointed if I purchased a hardware synthesizer for thousands of dollars that barely sounds better than an inexpensive virtual instrument.
@@Melodic623 haha you’re right. When you’ve got an original hardware version in front of you that’s going wrong and you and the owner have no idea who can fix it… you got names and stories but no-one who actually knows the JP6 … and you’ve an awful Lot of contacts! Then you have something very close for $49 on the laptop it brings stuff into perspective … still I’d love to have a working version in the studio (but not for any rational reason 🤣)
IMO, Oscillators are clearly still too digital/bright sounding and obviously lacking sweet spots when pushing modulations to the extreme. As a fortunate J6 owner, I know which one would be kinder to my ears if listening to one all day. That said, it's 95% there, so relatively great value nonetheless!
Shame the hardware was broken. Would've been interesting to hear if the two are different when playing all 6 voices and the amount of movement between voices. But not 'broken-level' movement!
Great review as always, but Cherry Audio always seem to make vsts with great UI that sound generic and are the lifeless versions of classic instruments.
@@TeslaOsiris The Sequential Vintage Knob is amazing for bringing some character to the Prophet 5, especially when the filter cutoff isn't perfect and differs slightly between voices in a chord.
@@TeslaOsiris lifeless means a lot of people see the interface and think they basically have the hardware. They listen with their eyes. That's how Cherry Audio, Arturia, etc release a new plugin a month... But when you put those plugins in a mix, they disappear... They don't have any presence. They don't break, you're right.
UVI kind of did the Jupiter 6 already with their “Saturn 6” as part of their JP Legacy collection. Not as good as this. Just hoping the MKS-80 finally gets a VST so my real one gets a break (close to the J6 - without multimode but with velocity and both HPF and LPF).
I’m new to synths and have the uvi. You liked this better? Does it seem fatter or ? I’m sure this doesn’t cost a ton but still wondering if since I have one it’s worth the extra money
@@bryanh8630sorry for the delay - notifications were off it seems. This is definitely better than the JP Legacy version. The sounds are close as UVIs is sampled from the original, but with this there’s far more control, more presets etc. and it’s cheap. I have an MKS-80 rack synth which is close to the Jupiter 6 and this feels about as close to the original as we will get (and that’s a ~$5000 synth).
The MKS-80 really is a Jupiter-6 without the multimode filter, and a global bass boost and adjustable HPF on the end. It's actually quite shocking to hear what a small bass boost can do for the JP-6. The low end is there, but it just needs a little help!
The Jupiter sounds like a Ford Escort from 1988 and the Mercury sounds like Dennis Waterman in The Life and Loves of a She-Devil. So you’re right, they are two completely different sounds.
No, you’re right they are… but they’re closer than you get with a lot of stuff, and they do give the overall feel of the synth, which for the price is great. I don’t say they’re identical at any point but I’m also doing some really complex stuff which the JP6 is known for and it’s getting the vibe if not perfect. No-one else has attempted this and I suspect it’s because it’s a difficult one. So for me kudos to CA for getting the character without costing a small fortune.