Iconic JD-800 riffs you know—Faithless, Prodigy, Depeche Mode, Prince, Genesis—plus hardware vs plug-in A/B comparisons and patches programmed from scratch.

Take a tour through the punchy, glossy world of the Roland JD-800 with a stack of iconic riffs and signature hooks you’ve definitely heard before… but maybe didn’t realise were JD-800.

You’ll hear Faithless, The Prodigy, Depeche Mode, Prince, Genesis—plus a few deeper cuts. For this episode I programmed most of the sounds from scratch (very few factory presets). My original JD-800 is working great, but the YES/NO buttons are dead, so I can’t easily tweak/save lots of edits on the hardware.

To solve that, I built many parts using a JD-800 plug-in that sounds scarily close to the real thing. And where the track uses a factory preset (unedited), I play it on both so you can compare hardware vs plug-in.

Question for you: Which riff surprised you most—and can you hear a difference in the A/B tests?

🎧 More Synth Icons episodes:

· Hohner Clavinet D6 – Famous Riffs You Instantly Know

· Roland Jupiter-4 – Famous Riffs You Know (But Didn’t Realise Were Jupiter-4)

· Korg M1 – Famous Riffs You Know (But Didn’t Realise Were M1)

🔧 Work with Andy

· Production, mixing & mastering: https://www.andywhitmore.com/

· Studio: https://greystokestudio.com/

📲 Connect with Andy

· YouTube: @AndyWhitmore

· Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/andywhitmore2014/

· Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AndyWhitmoreMusic

· TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@andywhitmore9583

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