Roland Jupiter-50 Instruction Manual

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© 2012 Roland Corporation U.S.
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced in
any form without the written permission of Roland Corporation U.S.
JP50RNSL1i
JUPITER-50 ReleaseNote
Previewing and Importing
Synth Legends, Vol. 1 for the JUPITER-50
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The JUPITER-50 Synth Legends Collection
Roland is proud to introduce the JUPITER Synth
Legends Collection, a series of free sound libraries
for the JUPITER-80 and JUPITER-50 synthesizers.
Featuring all-new tones, live sets, and arpeggio
patterns, the collection uses the powerful and
flexible SuperNATURAL sound engine to capture
the essence of a number of historical synths. We’ve
utilized the live set architecture and multi-effects
capabilities of the modern JUPITERs, layering
and processing the classic sounds to create a huge library of “dream
sounds” built upon the most legendary Roland synths ever produced.
Synth Legends Collection Volume 1, the initial release in the series,
features the sounds of seven of Roland’s most revered synthesizers,
including the original JUPITER-8, the JUNO-106, D-50, and others.
Future volumes will include other sought-after analog classics.
Each collection consists of single tones that capture the iconic preset
sounds from legacy instruments, along with live sets that enhance
these tones with modern processing. The live sets combine legacy
tones in a number of expressive ways, using layers, powerful effects,
and more. Also included are many new arpeggio patterns.
The emulations in the JUPITER Synth Legends Collection provide
you with a large selection of authentic vintage sounds to use
alongside the advanced synth and acoustic capabilities already in the
JUPITER-80/-50. These classic voices from the past will inspire you to
create exciting, all-new sounds with the powerful, modern JUPITER
instruments.
Each volume in the JUPITER Synth Legends Collection is available
as a free download for owners of the JUPITER-80 and JUPITER-50
synthesizers.
What’s In Vol. 1 of the Synth Legends Collection
This collection honors Roland’s historic synthesizer past with
representations of seven legendary instruments from the 1980s. The
inspiring sounds made by these classic instruments have helped
shape modern music, and now you have access to them all inside your
JUPITER-50.
The synth emulations included are:
• JUPITER-8 (1981) • SH-101 (1982)
• TB-303 (1982) • JUNO-60 (1982)
• JUPITER-6 (1983) • JUNO-106 (1984)
• D-50 (1987)
Each of these classic synths has between 10 and 20 iconic factory
preset sounds that distinguish its character, and they’re all represented
among the 123 newly created single tones for the JUPITER-50.
It’s important to note that no two examples of a particular vintage
synth sound exactly alike, even when all their settings are identical.
This is due to the variable performance characteristics in the original
analog circuitry, among other factors. While this collection emulates
the sounds of these historic synths with a high degree of accuracy, you
may hear some subtle differences when comparing them side-by-side
with actual vintage synths.
The collection also features a total of 512 new live sets and 60
registrations. Most of the live sets combine the historic synths in
a variety of fresh, contemporary ways using layers, multi-effects,
and more. There are also live sets that feature single legacy tones,
enhanced using modern effects. 8 of the registrations are “best of”
registrations that give you an overview of the collection’s sounds.
Rounding out the collection are nearly 300 new arpeggio patterns that
are perfect for a wide range of contemporary electronic music genres.
You’ll find a detailed explanation of Synth Legends Vol. 1 in the other
included booklet, Understanding and Using Synth Legends Vol.1
for the JUPITER-50.

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The Big Picture—A JUPITER-50 Memory Refresher
The Way the JUPITER-50 Works
To fully understand the contents of Synth Legends, you have to
understand a little bit about the JUPITER-50’s sound architecture.
Tones
The JUPITER-50 is powered by Roland’s
SuperNATURAL®technology. SuperNATURAL’s
a unique hybrid of sampling and modeling that
produces amazing, living sounds.
In the JUPITER-50, everything is built from two kinds of SuperNATURAL
sounds: synth tones and acoustic-instrument tones. In this collection,
the emphasis is definitely on the JUPITER-50’s synth capabilities.
Each SuperNATURAL synth tone, is, to put it simply, a synthesizer with
three digital oscillators, which are called “partials” in the JUPITER-50.
All of the synth settings you’d expect to find in an traditional synth are
here, from LFOs, to multiple waveforms, to great-sounding filters.
Live Sets
You don’t select and play SuperNATURAL tones
directly—you play them within live sets. Each
live set can have up to four tones layered, split
across the keyboard, or both.
Registrations
Live sets are combined in super-sounds on the JUPITER-50 called
“registrations.” Each registration has three “parts” that hold a full
live set—called the “Upper” part—plus an additional one-tone Solo
part, and a one-tone Percussion/Lower part, for a total of up to 6
SuperNATURAL tones playing at once.
Tone
Tone
Tone
Tone
Live Set
Tone
Solo
Tone
Tone
Tone
Tone
Upper Live Set
Tone
Perc
Lower
Of course, each registration has a rich effect-processing system, an
arpeggio setup, as well as its own realtime control settings.
We’re Recapping All This Because...?
You can see that each registration uses a bunch of live sets which
in turn use a bunch of tones. Synth Legends Vol. 1 contains 60
registrations. When you load them into the JUPITER-50, the 512 live
sets and 123 tones that they use are also loaded. Fortunately, the
JUPITER-50 knows this, too, and takes care of all the housekeeping
for you.
Time for a Strategy Session
The JUPITER-50’s memory for registrations, live sets, tones, and
arpeggios is big—it provides plenty of room for factory sounds, and
your own, too—but everything in life has its limits. If you’ve already
been filling up your JUPITER-50 with your own sounds, you may not
have enough spare room for Synth Legends. Even if you do, you don’t
want to use up all the memory you have—you may need it for loading
more new sounds down the road. In a nutshell, the concern is that
you’ll just have too many great sounds to fit in the JUPITER-50 all at
once. This is a nice problem to have.
So. We recommend dealing with the sounds and arpeggios in Synth
Legends in two steps:
• First, preview the entire collection—by backing up your current
data, and then loading a special Synth Legends backup file.
• Second, import Synth Legends sounds you want to have on your
JUPITER-50—whether that’s the entire collection or just certain
sounds.
Tone

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If you’re really not concerned with memory management, you can
just grab any JUPITER-50-formatted thumb drive—or format one
as described below—and go straight to loading Synth Legends.
Click here to jump to “Preparing the Synth Legends Thumb Drive.”
However, we really do recommend using this booklet’s two-step
method.
Thumb-Driving
As we noted earlier, you’ll need a USB thumb drive for backing up the
current contents of your JUPITER-50’s memory, and another for the
Synth Legends installer files.
The reason you need a separate thumb drive for your User data is
that a drive can only contain one backup, and Synth Legends has its
own backup data file.
If you’ve already used either of these drives with your JUPITER-50, it’s
already properly formatted. If it’s a new drive—or if you’ve used it with
some other device—you’ll need to format it.
Formatting a USB Thumb Drive for the JUPITER-50
Formatting a thumb drive completely clears it of data. Make sure
there’s nothing you want to keep on any thumb drive you’re about to
format.
Here’s how to format a thumb drive for use in the JUPITER-50.
1 With the JUPITER-50’s power off,
connect a thumb drive to the jack in

RECORDER compartment.
2 Turn on the JUPITER-50.
3 Press the MENU button to display
the Menu window.
4 Select Utility from the displayed list, as shown above and press
the ENTER button.
5 Use the button once to highlight “Format USB Mem,” and
then press ENTER.
6 When the JUPITER-50 asks if you’re sure, press F5 (OK) to
format the thumb drive.
Preparing the Synth Legends Thumb Drive
When you’ve downloaded and expanded the Synth Legends file, you’ll
have a folder called “SL_VOL1_JP50.” Inside this folder are two folders

the contents of this ROLAND folder.)
1 Mount the thumb drive on your computer’s desktop.
2 Drag both the  and ROLAND folders out
of the SL_VOL1_JP50 folder and onto the thumb drive’s desktop
icon—this places the two folders at the root level of the thumb
drive.
If you just want to skip straight to loading sounds, click here to jump
to “Importing Individual Synth Legends Sounds” on Page 6.
3 Safely eject the thumb drive from your computer as you would
any removable drive.

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Previewing Synth Legends Vol. 1
Backing Up the JUPITER-50’s Current Memory
To preview your new sounds, we’re going to use the Synth Legends
Vol. 1 backup file. This is a simple process, but it will replace all of your
user data, so before proceeding, you’ll want to back up everything
currently in the JUPITER-50. This way, we can easily return all your
data to your JUPITER-50 after checking out Synth Legends Vol.1.
(Backing up is a good thing to do on a regular basis anyway.)
Be sure to use a thumb drive that doesn’t already hold a backup file,
since you can only have one on each drive. If you back up to a drive
that already contains a backup, the new one replaces the old one.
Here’s how to perform a backup.
1 Press the MENU button to display the Menu screen.
2 Select Utility from the displayed list, and then press ENTER.
3 With Backup already highlighted, press ENTER.
4 When the JUPITER-50 asks if you’re sure, press ENTER again to
reform the backup of the contents of the JUPITER-50’s memory.
Installing the Synth Legends Backup
1 Turn off the JUPITER-50 and insert the Synth Legends Vol. 1

jack.
2 Turn the JUPITER-50 back on.
3 Press the Menu button to display the Menu screen.
4 Select Utility from the displayed list, and then press ENTER.
5 Use the , , , and or buttons to highlight “Restore.”
6 Press ENTER—when the JUPITER-50 asks you if you’re sure,
press ENTER again to load Synth Legends Vol. 1. The process
takes a few minutes.
7 When the JUPITER-50 displays “Completed. Please Power Off,”
turn your JUPITER-50 off and then back on again.
Listening to the Synth Legends Sounds
The 60 Synth Legend registrations are now in place starting in the first
registration bank, [01]A.
Try out all of the registrations, noting the name of each one you’d like
to incorporate into your everyday JUPITER-50 sound set.
It may be that you’d like to import some of the Synth Legends live
sets and/or tones for use in your own registrations. Go through the
individual live sets and tones to see if there are any you want. Later
on, when you’re importing sounds, you can grab any that aren’t
already being imported with registrations.
Don’t forget to try out the Synth Legends arpeggios. To learn more
about them, see the Using and Understanding Synth Legends Vol.
1 for the JUPITER-50 booklet.
Back to Zero—Restoring Your User Data
1 Power down the JUPITER-50, insert your backup thumb drive
      
then turn the JUPITER-50 back on.
2 Repeat Steps 3 through 7 in “Installing the Synth Legends Vol.
1 Backup” above.
At this point, Synth Legends Vol. 1 has been completely removed from
your JUPITER-50, and you’re back where you started. You’re now
ready to start loading the things from Synth Legends you want to use.

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Importing Individual Synth Legends Sounds
1 Power down the JUPITER-50, replace your backup thumb drive
with the Synth Legends Vol. 1 thumb drive, and then turn the
JUPITER-50 back on.
2 Press the Menu button to display the Menu screen.
3 Select Utility from the displayed list, and then press ENTER.
4 Press F6 (>) to display “Import.”
5 Highlight “Import,” and then press ENTER.
The File Information area shows you the number of registrations,
live sets, and tones in Synth Legends Vol. 1.
6 Select the JP50SL_Import.SVD file, and then press F6 (Select).
7 Mark the registration(s) you want to import. To import
• all of Synth Legends Vol. 1—press F5 (MARKALL) so that all
of the registrations become asterisked if they’re not already.
• individual registrations—touch F4 (MARK) to unmark
everything, and then highlight each registration you want
before pressing F4 (MARK) so an asterisk appears to its left.
To unmark any registration, highlight it and press F4 (MARK) again.
To unmark them all, press F5 (MARKALL) a second time.
If you want to import individual live sets or tones, touch the
appropriate F button, and then mark any live set or tone you wish
to import so it’s asterisked. (Anything that’s used by a registration
you’ve marked will already be automatically asterisked.)
8 Press F6 (IMPORT).
If you’re
• importing all of the Synth Legends Vol. 1 registrations— the
JUPITER-50’s already picked empty locations for your new
registrations along with their live sets and tones. Proceed
to the next step.
• importing individual Synth Legends registrations— the
JUPITER-50 will select empty memory locations for your
registrations. If you’d like to select your own destinations,
use the Mark button to asterisk the ones you want to use,
and unmark the ones you don’t.
The MARKED ITEMS area
at the right of the screen
shows you the number
of registrations you’re
importing and the number
of destinations you’ve
selected for them. When
you’ve got the correct
number of locations, you’re
good to go.
The JUPITER-50 automatically selects memory locations for imported
sounds. If the Live Set values in the Marked Items area are flashing,
it means that you need to select additional memory locations to
accommodate the new live sets you’re importing before you can
proceed.
Here we haven’t yet selected the
one destination memory location
we need.
Memory
locations
selected
Registrations
to be
imported

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The JUPITER-50 will import your registrations from the lowest-
numbered one to the highest, starting with the lowest-numbered
destination, and continuing to the highest.
If you want to import individual live sets and/or tones, you can let the
JUPITER-50 find memory locations for you or select the appropriate
Live Set or Tone tab and choose the memory locations you want.
Again, keep an eye on the MARKED ITEMS area to make sure you’ve
marked the correct number of memory locations.
9 When you’ve finished marking destinations, press F6 (EXEC),
and then F5 (OK) to import your sounds.
The first thing the JUPITER-50 does at this point is make sure you’ve
got enough room for what you want to import. If you don’t, you’ll see
“Cannot import! Please mark items,” which means the JUPITER-50
is telling you to select fewer registrations, or live sets and tones, if
that’s what you’re importing.
If you’re importing the entire Synth Legends sound set—and you
haven’t saved any of your own registrations—you’ll find the newly
imported registrations starting in Registration Bank, at [02] 1-1.
Importing the Synth Legends Arpeggios
The Synth Legends arpeggios are available for individual import as
SMFs (Standard MIDI Files)—the JUPITER-50 can convert SMFs into
arpeggio styles. Here’s how to load one.
1 Make sure your Synth Legends thumb drive is still in the

2 While holding down the SHIFT
  
ON or OFF to display the
 
screen.
+
3 Press F2 (ARP).
4 Highlight “Style,” and select a User memory location, from U001
to U016.
5 Press F5 (IMPORT) to display the Arpeggio Style Import window.
6 
In this window, you can go through the arpeggio folders of Synth
Legends Vol. 1 to find an SMF you want to import.
To navigate the arpeggio folders, select the first one you see, and
then press the ENTER button to display its contents. Repeat as
necessary. To back out of a folder, touch the “” button to the left
of the current folder’s name.
7 Once you’ve found an SMF you want to import, highlight it, and
then press F6 (IMPORT) button—the JUPITER-50 gives you the
opportunity to rename the arpeggio. Name it anything you like
or leave it as is, and then touch F6 (EXEC).
8 The JUPITER-50 asks if you’re sure you want to proceed—if you
are, press F5 (OK) to import the SMF as a User arpeggio style.

window.
The End
We hope you’ve found this ReleaseNote helpful. Keep an eye out for
other JUPITER-50 downloads at www.RolandUS.com.