Disagree for some exceptions : Their Buchla Easel and Synclavier emulations, to me, sound pretty unique compared to their other synths.

But yeah, with the right amount of tweaking you could make their Moogs sound like their Rolands.

 

I have mixed feelings about this. Some of the presets are really cool and take me back, but the overall "edginess" and character that you can feel and hear with JP6k and Navira is missing.

Overall this release was a bit of a disappointment. Nice effort from Arturia though and I can still imagine using this to make tracks.

 

I fail to see what all the excitement is about.

The JP-8000 was a nice synth at the time and yep, it was the first to do a supersaw, but that was very quickly followed and improved (imo) by Novation and Access. Ever since then the supersaw is a stock option in hundreds of synths, both hardware and software. What is it that people think functionally differentiates it from the unison feature that you see absolutely everywhere?

Not that the JP-8000 is just about the supersaw, it's capable of a whole lot more interesting output than that, but for some reason it's endlessly referred to purely on that aspect. It is an OLD synth though and therefore much less functional than a modern instrument. If you want a JP style patch, just go build one in the multiples of capable synths like Serum, Vital, Falcon or even Arturia's own Pigments, you'll never tell the difference in the context of a track and you'll increase your options tenfold.

As for Arturia's effort at this: For me it's pretty useless without the ability to import/export JP SysEx. It could have made a nice editor for the hardware as the Misery Islands editor is almost unusable it's that buggy. I can't comment on the actual sound yet as I've not yet checked it out, but I'll grab it at some point and do an A/B against the hardware and see how it compares to the real thing.

 

I suspect that other companies either can't replicate it, or that the software version doesn't generate enough revenue.

That brings us back to Arturia, who will likely be bringing all the old hardware synths that can be monetized for the next 40 years or so. Cherry Audio will then serve the lower price segment. Arturia's competitor in hardware will likely be Behringer. I think that some developers like ASM are more likely to satisfy the needs of more musicians with the HydraSynth and represent real progress.

As Haze already mentioned, the quality of today's plugins like U-HE is usually much better than the products of the 1980s. I'd rather get a sample library from JP-8000 if you like the sound. The result is a lot of hype and little substance.