Bad Gear - Roland JX03

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Welcome to Bad Gear, the show about the world's most hated audio tools. Today we are going to talk about the Roland Boutique JX-03. Why did they emulate the Roland JX-3P, a nerdy, mostly knobless distant relative of the legendary Roland Juno-6, Juno-60 and Juno-106 and are the added knobs of the PG-200 controller an advantage over the original?

Chapters:
00:00 Intro tune
00:58 Overview Roland JX03
01:06 Presets
01:23 History of the Roland JX-3P
02:10 UI, polyphony, note stealing, patch memory
02:49 Oscillator Section, cross modulation (sync, metal, ring mod)
03:26 Filter, hi pass
03:44 Modulators (envelope, LFO)
04:22 Chorus, noise emulation, hidden chorus
04:35 Delay
04:43 Sequencer
05:11 Hidden parameters
05:20 Manual, unofficial user guide, dual voice mode, portamento
05:44 What else??? (Boutique stuff, pricing,...)
06:02 Hate
06:30 Jam 1
07:26 Jam 2
08:24 Finale
08:55 Verdict

[pableau]

you know your studio is complete when every piece of gear you own has a bad gear episode dedicated to it

[SecondhandKidMusic]

After carrying round the JX3P and PG200 in giant flight case since 1991 I love having the JX03 in my life. Yes, the 1/8 jacks, the power input and the sliders are a bag of shite but so is the molecular structure of my right knee. It is also so very cute and great for my small home studio. Cheers. Love your work.

[tesseracht]

I bought an og JX-3P with the PG-200 controller way back in the late 90s and it blew me away with how great it sounded. A few years ago I got it modded with the KiwiXP mod that brought the MIDI up to spec, modernized the sequencer, buffed the envelopes, and expanded the patch memory. It's a synthwave monster now. The JX-3P is such an underrated synthesizer.

[parek]

Gotta love Roland for providing so much to work with.
I hope they continue releasing synths to keep this show going.

[tatsuhirosato]

I bought into the Aira and Boutique stuff a few years now all you do is review all my gear every Friday. It's been a love/hate relationship with Roland. The stuff is neutered and cost too much, but sounds amazing and is useable for what I need.

[SynGirl]

To be fair, the JX-3P is excellent bad gear material. It's a very deep polysynth with innovative features like a sequencer and midi, that was slammed for its crappy 80s dial-less design. Also, it sounded just as good as its overrated Juno cousins. In essence it's the cooler Jx-8p, so I'd love to see what you do with it.

[AlexBallMusic]

On the original JX-3P you could use the PG-200 controller OR you could use MIDI.

The MIDI was note on/off only.

1983 was a cruel time to be a synthesist on a budget.

[natbvm]

I have one. I kind of hate it but also I love it. I begrudgingly made it part of my setup because it’s the only polysynth I have that I’m not afraid of breaking at shows. And it kind of totally sounds amazing.

[lo-firobotboy]

Ah, the boutiques never disappoint on this channel!

[ezion]

By making the jx03 4 voice Roland gave a whole new meaning to "limited-edition".

[JJohnkkttran]

Very happy to see the JX03 on this show. The epitome of "Bad Gear". A slimmed down, less capable version of an already controversial synth. I own the original JX-3P and am a die hard. It shares a filter with the Jupiters and older Junos, but also has a lot of the Juno-106 parts within. Where it differs is in the oscillators, which you mentioned. It can do circles around any Juno with its second fully programable osc.

Once modded to Kiwi-3p, it's essentially a budget Jupiter-6. That being said many still hate on this thing, but in my opinion both the boutique and original are some of the best made synths from a functionality standpoint. From a design standpoint? Not so much, and that's why they will never be worth anywhere near as much as a Juno or Jupiter. Think Windows vs Mac.

[benjaminbrand]

Okay but I LOVED that second track! Especially loved the added depth you got by slowly panning the high hats. A small detail, but it's things like that that make your pieces so fun to listen to!

[jamesr]

Finally, a piece of gear I own made it onto Bad Gear. Much love AudioPilz from NYC!

[dvdny]

All your little ditties are just tops! Agreed - I’d be intrigued what they would do with e D-02 reissue.

[Patriotic_Eagle]

There are more Roland products in this series than there are Roland's official YouTube channel

[foxholeartist]

Hey, that additional hystory section is great! Glad to see you experiment with this show)

[misterjonestech]

I owned a JX3P w/PG200 programmer. Bought it for $200 at the end of 1998 from a used instrument shop and it ended up being my second favorite synth of all of them that I had at the time (my favorite being the Sequential Multi-Trak). The one thing about the JX3p that really bummed me out was that the programmer's functions couldn't be accessed via MIDI. Still, the sounds I could pull out of it were pretty good and it was a great addition to my studio.

[ironinquisitor]

More Boutique! Can never get enough of you reviewing these little boxes of fun!

[kierenmoore]

No matter what kind of week I’ve had, this Friday fix always makes me happy. Thank you! 😎👍🏼

[scottg]

You are the synth and pop culture king. Great channel.