Uploaded March 2024 | Updated September 2026, 1 week ago
Yesterday I received a Roland JD-990 and was completely unimpressed with editing it (compared to the JD-800). I thought "Why would I want this???" even though I knew it wouldn't be as good to edit. But... wow, I guess folks were right who championed the 990 over the 800. It *IS* better, in pretty much every conceivable way, except the interface, and the interface itself isn't really that bad once you know what you're doing. Now I will sit here and wonder, knowing how much better the 990 is... do I keep the 800? I could use it as an editor I guess, but that seems unnecessary for the most part. I guess I should try it first and see what I think.
FXM (crossmodulation?) adds some character.
"Structures" on how the tones interact is nice.
Tone panning
Better FX (I can go up to like 3 seconds for delays). Somewhat trivial.
Analog feel (cannot be overstated how much this adds to the sound).
I'm actually considering the 990 to be better than my D50, not too sure about that yet, but I like how the 990 can get much more grit than the 800, through the different tone structures, that it can start being more D50 like.
The biggest problem? The JD-800 ISN'T the JD-990. Roland could have made the ultimate digital synth if they made a keyboard JD-800 that had the 990 guts. I guess I can see why folks own both.
Of course - take all of this with a grain of salt. I did JUST get this synth yesterday and there's a honeymoon phase to every purchase. The only difference here is that I'm fairly familiar with the internal synth engine and I truly expected to be disappointed. But to everyone who bought a 990 and sold their JD-800, I get it.
No external FX used at all.
Yesterday I received a Roland JD-990 and was completely unimpressed with editing it (compared to the JD-800). I thought "Why would I want this???" even though I knew it wouldn't be as good to edit. But... wow, I guess folks were right who championed the 990 over the 800. It *IS* better, in pretty much every conceivable way, except the interface, and the interface itself isn't really that bad once you know what you're doing. Now I will sit here and wonder, knowing how much better the 990 is... do I keep the 800? I could use it as an editor I guess, but that seems unnecessary for the most part. I guess I should try it first and see what I think.
FXM (crossmodulation?) adds some character.
"Structures" on how the tones interact is nice.
Tone panning
Better FX (I can go up to like 3 seconds for delays). Somewhat trivial.
Analog feel (cannot be overstated how much this adds to the sound).
I'm actually considering the 990 to be better than my D50, not too sure about that yet, but I like how the 990 can get much more grit than the 800, through the different tone structures, that it can start being more D50 like.
The biggest problem? The JD-800 ISN'T the JD-990. Roland could have made the ultimate digital synth if they made a keyboard JD-800 that had the 990 guts. I guess I can see why folks own both.
Of course - take all of this with a grain of salt. I did JUST get this synth yesterday and there's a honeymoon phase to every purchase. The only difference here is that I'm fairly familiar with the internal synth engine and I truly expected to be disappointed. But to everyone who bought a 990 and sold their JD-800, I get it.
No external FX used at all.
