# Roland Jupiter 6
“You may be wondering, what is version 6 software, so I will explain. Back around 1984 when the Jupiter 6 was made, it was one of the very first synthesizers to implement the MIDI protocol. It only transmitted and received on two channels; channel 1 was the upper voice (upper half of the keyboard) and channel 2 carried the lower voice ( lower half of the keyboard). In December of 1984 Roland offered a software upgrade to Jupiter 6 owners, Version 6, that installed a new PROM chip on the CPU board. This upgrade made it possible to now transmit and receive on any of the 16 MIDI channels. By holding down the tune button you assign a MIDI channel by pressing the bank button ( A or B ) and the number button (1 to 8 ). So for instance A-4 is channel 4 and B-8 is channel 16. (It’s real easy to do by the way!). The Lower Voice will always be the “base” channel you assigned plus 1, so if you selected channel 4 with the tune button procedure, the Upper Voice will be channel 4 and the Lower Voice will be 4 + 1 = 5 . In this fashion you can have the Jupiter 6 send and receive on any MIDI channel.
I am the second owner of his great synthesizer. I purchased it from ED SCHAEFFER of the Keyboard Exchange in Denver on 8/25 /1986. It was shortly after this I had the new ver. 6 software professionally installed, as I determined that it would be useful in the music I was creating at that time. I have played several other Jupiter 6′s since, and none of them had this upgrade. I beleive that it is a pretty rare and not too well known item in the world of the JP-6.
Anyway, now that I’ve explained the upgrade, let’s get on with the description of this particular instrument. I’m going to assume that if your reading this you are already familiar with the specs, you can do your own research through Google or Yahoo.
It has never been gigged (by me) but was used for many hours by me over the years for fun and music creation up untill about 4 years ago when I started using mostly software synths.
The pictures I have included should tell most of the story. The front panel has some scuffing here and there. The worst of these is near the top of the B and C keys in the last octave of the keyboard which you can just make out in the pictures. It’s not a dent, just a scuff. There are a few other very minor scuffs that are so small and insignificant that they don’t show up in the pictures. There are, as I mentioned no dents anywhere on the synth. The sides, back and bottom are near perfect. I did sign and date the bottom with a permanent ink pen as was my practice at that time with all my gear. Sorry about that, but I wanted some way to identify it in case it was lost or stollen. Other than than that, it is in remarkable condition for it’s age.
As far as functionality it is perfect. All functions work as ther supposed to and the synth sounds great. I tested it during the picture taking session and it brought back many memories of the times I have spent with it in the past. The manual control section is in fully working (Bender, LFO button ect.) The keyboard is near perfect, no chips or cracks. When testing it, some notes required several attempts to generate sound but this went away after repeated striking. The new owner would probably get the key contacts cleaned, or more cheaply, just play the hell out of it and it will be fine. It’s been leaning against my bedroom wall with hefty bag over it for a long time, so it is normal that some keys required several hits to start sounding again, as anyone with knowledge of these matters could tell you.” Link