The Original Internal Sound Demos

Here’s how to hear the “ROM Play” demo songs built into the JD-800.


Each mode (Single/Multi) has one demo song.


Select Single mode Or Multi mode.
While holding EXIT, press INC/YES.

Press YNC/YES and playback will begin.
Press DEC/NO and playback will stop.


Press EXIT once again to return to Single mode.


* During ROM Play in the Single mode, the informations of phrases are appeared in the display.

* It is not possible to play the keyboard during ROM Play.
* The ROM Play data is not transmitted from MIDI OUT.

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Bellow a record of the demo songs.


The sound files here are recording from the Roland JD-800 internal sound demos. Copyright  by Roland Co.

The JD-800 have two good internal demos, one for each mode (single or multi-timbral).

Mode			Server 2  (Ok, at Google Docs)	Size	Time
Single Mode			Part 0	977 Kb	1:02
Single Mode			Part 1	707 Kb	0:45
Single Mode			Part 2	1097 Kb	1:10
Single Mode			Part 3	641 Kb	0:40
Single Mode			Part 4	566 Kb	0:36
Single Mode			Part 5	533 Kb	0:33
Multi Mode			Multi Demo	660 Kb	1:36

Note: This are 128kbps mp3 files, so I reduced the overall quality. I want upload better quality sound files, but have been short in time. Anyways, the sounds are great.

See the movies in the other posts. They have great samples of what great sounds this synth is capable.


Edited:


SynthMania posted a nice video with the the 64 classic factory patches! Thanks!

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Links for other JD sites, stuff and foruns. Permanent list

The links are unordered. Some sites may requires translation like translate.google.com


Notes:
1-Some sites may be no more available, so please notify me as my time is limited.
2-If you own a website with technical material (no sales promotion please) send me a message so I can add it here.



The two best foruns for the Roland JD-800 and JD-990:

• JD-800_Tech Yahoo Group. This is a group covering technical, repair, performance, and programming aspects of the Roland JD-800 synthesizer. The group is active and the spammers removed.
• Roland_JD-990 Yahoo Group. For all users of the Roland JD-990. This group is intended for the sharing of links, Useage info, Tips/tricks, & user patches.

Tact Switch Black - up/down, decr./incr

(replacement for 13169696)

vintageplanet.nl  - Parts Service for Vintage Synthesizer - They have parts for JD-800 and JD-990.





VintageSynth One of the most famous reference for every synth.


Harmony Central  This is one of the best site and foruns for musicians.

• Roland JD-800 Review
• Roland JD-990 Review
• Keys, Synths & Samplers Forum
• KSS Roland JD-990/JD-800 competition

Polynominal JD-800 This guy have good tech specifications material and some JD800 stuff.


www.bluesynths.com A detailed guide to keyboards and their musical aspects by synth lovers. good stuff, very nice pictures and great sound demos (not the internals) of the JD-800!
They also have very interesting sound at their Myspace profile: Roland JD800 Long Mix.

SynthMania.com Information and Demos of Synthesizers. Great material or the Jd-990, sound demos for original and card patches . Must see and listen!



retrosound.de  Vintage Synthesizers Page.


synrise.de This site turned to pay mode, but have some o the best material about synths I have seen.



Don Solaris  A great musician and a JD-master with the JD-800 and JD-990. His site have some interesting and very usefull technical material.

Midiox Sysex utility program for sending/receiving bulk dumps from your synth (Win 9X.. and later.

Pro-Rec's JD-800 & jd-990 page  3rd party patches for your JD-990.

Sonicstate.com  Great synth site!


MatrixSynth Great everything synths blog!



Sonic Plug- Roland JD-990 Great tribute page to the JD-990.


http://www.synthzone.com Great synth tech info.

• Synthzone JD800 patches some assorted patches  for the JD-800.
  
• Synthzone JD990 patches some assorted patches  for the JD-990.
  

MEMI-Makers-Soundpool Free JD-990 Sounds.

Kid Nepro's Home page 3rd party patch creator/reseller. Good stuff, I have their demo for the 990 in the file section.

Dancetech.com  Good review.

JarreLook  Great Jean Michel Jarre Tribute Band from the UK.
If you want Jarre patches, see their download page for JD800 patches and other synths




JD-800.tripod.com  - Good info and description of the JD-800 Sound Libraries cards and waveforms.


Mark Smart have great material:

• Mark Smart JD-800 page -Using the JD-800 As A Giant MIDI Slider Box 
• Mark Smart Choir Sounds Without Samples - Excelent page about about creating choir patches for the JD-800, based on the classic VP-330. Choir Patches and sound Demos avalilable.

Bobby Blues JD800/JD990 page A vintage 80's-90's synthesizers site with a good JD area with synthesis description, collection of patches, links to the comercial patch sites, some examples of famous artists, etc.



Synthony Music´s Synth & Amp; Midi Museum


Dragonkiller  Good japanese page with links for more stuff, movies, etc.


Sysex Database Sysex messages for the JD and other synths.

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Roland JD-800 Filters and Aftertouch

Two videos by moretacos1. Visit is page at Youtube, there are lots of good material.

Mean while, I selected two:

Great Filters. Program or just move the sliders as you want.




Atertouch:

Much more than the demo, much more than pads

If you want to listen some other uses of this synth, like playing some guitar leads and stuff like that then watch this until the end.

Roland JD-800 Synth Demostration, performed by S4K (Space4Keys)
Note: The the keys of his JD are broken, so he uses other keyboard as master controller.

Roland JD-800 and JD-990 Movies and great sounds at Youtube

Youtube have many movies with the Roland JD-800. Some have best sound qualiy, others not.

Remember, the JD-800 is a massive sound machine so don´t be cheated if some video have not all that quality we expect. Go after the best demos you can and use the best audio players, like headphones or good speakers.

Of course, the JD-800 is a fine top level synthesizer. You can listen to other machines, like the JD-990 module, or similar quality machines, like the Roland V-Synth and Phantom, the Korg Triton, the Nords, etc.

I will start with a good movie from that great people from Retrosound.de.



Vintage Roland JD-800 synth demo by RetroSound. See the machine in action. Some typical sounds from the Roland JD-800 Synthesizer. Not so good audio quality, but very impressive.

See more Youtube synth videos from Retrosound.





Next, two better audio demos:

Audio part I - Analog and digital type pad sounds:




Audio part II - Wow! Some of the JD like pads!:

Manuals: JD800 and JD990 (Updated)

The Roland JD-800 and the JD-990 have strong sound features and the user manuals are a "must have" to anyone who wants to use in depth all resources and to learn about sound synthesis.

Roland has made manuals for most of their products available as free PDF downloads.
This material is @ Roland Corp.

Note: All "Google Docs" links must be working. I can't assure the external Roland links are still active.

English Language Manuals	Size	Sources
JD-800 Owner´s Manual	8.982 Kb	Roland US		Google Docs.
JD-800 User´s Guide		Roland US		Google Docs
JD-800 Midi Implementation	424 Kb
JD-800 Turbo Start Guide	62 Kb
JD-800 Service Manual	39.2 Mb			Google Docs
JD-990 Reference	28,5 Mb			Google Docs
JD-990 Owner´s Manual	7.675 Kb	Roland US		Google Docs
JD-990 User Guide	6.333 Kb	Roland US		Google Docs
JD-990 Turbo Start Guide	62Kb
JD-990 Service Notes Manual	62Kb			Google Docs
JD-990 Patch/Waveform/Rythm List	1.348 Kb	Roland US		Google Docs

The Original Japanese manuals:

Japanese Language Manuals	Size	Sources
JD800 User´s Guide	2.622Kb	Google Docs	Here the 3 manuals from Roland.jp site
JD800 Reference Part 1-4	3.953Kb	Google Docs
JD800 Reference Part 5	2.486Kb	Google Docs
JD990 User´s Guide	1.043Kb	Google Docs	Here the 2 manuals from Roland.jp site
JD990 Reference	6.315Kb	Google Docs

From www.bluesynths.com:
"We HAVE TO add this user manual to the literature list. It's simply a
great piece of synthesizer literature. Contains not only detailled
explanations, drawings and graphics about each part of the JD-800, but
also lots of background information (music theory, how to create
realistic string sounds, about using effects, etc). 200 pages."

RIP Geocities

Geocities has gone and all material the original we had collected.

Has I´m really short in time, I will be posting here almost as possible.

Thanks for visiting and support this great synth!