The JD-800 was a digital synthesizer released by Roland Corporation in 1991. The synthesizer featured many knobs and sliders for patch editing and performance control - features which some manufacturers, including Roland, had been omitting in the name of 'streamlining' since the inception of Yamaha's DX-7. The JD-800 became very popular with musicians who wished to take a 'hands on' approach to patch programming. In the introduction to the manual, it is stated that with this synthesizer, Roland intended to 'return to the roots of synthesis': Today, fewer and fewer people actually create their own sounds, and simply play presets or sounds created by programmers. However, the original purpose of the synthesizer was to "create sound". It's easy to simply select a preset you like, but that sound will always be "someone else's sound". We at Roland asked, "Why don't we return to the roots of synthesis; the enjoyment of creating original sounds?" We considered many different ways in which we could bring back the fun of creating sounds, and the result is the JD-800 before you. "Creating sounds" may seem like a highly technical process, but it's actually just a matter of moving a slider to make the sound change! This is easy for anyone, and the sounds that you get will always be your very own. The JD-800 is designed to make it fun to create sounds. So please go ahead and move those sliders! We hope you will make lots of different sounds; original sounds with which to play your original music. —From the introduction to the JD-800 manual The synth was expandable by the inclusion of slots for PCM and RAM cards. The former increased the number of waveforms available to the user, the latter increased the number of patches that could be used. Roland produced a number of expansion kits for the synth (and other compatible models) comprising a pair of cards - a PCM card containing new samples, and a RAM card containing a bank of new presets. PCM add on cards: Roland later released 8 add on cards for the JD 800: # SL-JD80-01 Drums & Percussion STANDARD # SL-JD80-02 Drums & Percussion DANCE # SL-JD80-03 Rock Drums # SL-JD80-04 Strings Ensemble # SL-JD80-05 Brass Section # SL-JD80-06 Grand Piano # SL-JD80-07 Guitar Collection # SL-JD80-08 Accordion In 1993, Roland produced the Roland JD-990 (or Super-JD), an expandable rackmountable version of the JD-800 with enhanced capabilities.

The Roland JD-800 has been used by:

Alan Christiansen, Vangelis, Scooter, Milk Inc