Hello JX-3People!
I’ve owned the JX-3P since it was released. I bought it (oddly) at Down Home Guitar in Anchorage, Alaska as a freshman in high school. I own many synths, but have kept and played the JX-3P since that time.
I’ve always wanted a way to easily save patches to my computer. But the JX relies on outdated tape dump technology — think, the hiss, chirp and screech of an ‘80s dial-up modem + audio cassette tape as memory! None of the programs I used were great so I decided to build my own. This was also an excuse to figure out how to “vibe code” — something I knew nothing about until I began.
Fast forward a month and I have a beta version of JP Patches, my JX-3P companion app. It works on macOS 12+ on Apple Silicon (arm64) at the moment. It doesn’t yet support MIDI — the primitive stock JX-3P MIDI does not support SysEx. I’ll wire up support for the Series Circuits MIDI Upgrade Kit in a future release. It operates through tape dumps using a single cord.
What I need now are computer literate Mac users to download JP Patches from GitHub for testing. I’m not a programmer or IT support person so this would require a person(s) who can navigate the world of GitHub. Specifically, this is an “unapproved” app that a user must permission onto their computer. Until I get an Apple Developers license, it will remain a little tricky to download. Installing involves bypassing macOS’s Gatekeeper warning — sometimes just a right-click → Open, sometimes a one-line command in Terminal on newer macOS. download JP Patches here
Friends have successfully loaded JP Patches, but none are synth people so they just say, “looks cool dude — congrats!” If you are a JX-3P enthusiast and good with computers, I’d invite your feedback.
I’ve been using JP Patches for the past few weeks. It works fantastic—but it’s just me using it. I send C/D banks back-and-forth between my computer and JX. I send sequences. I edit sequences within the app, save ‘em, and send back to my JX. I create custom names for my personal JX C/D banks. I turn knobs on the PG-200 onscreen because it’s fun (it’ll be more fun when MIDI is working). I went ahead and seeded JP Patches with my personal patches and a sequence I wrote so a new user of the software will see something upon initial download. In the future I envision JX users easily trading patch banks, sequences, and enjoying the JX-3P with the modern conveniences of software.
You’re either a JX-3P owner or terribly bored if you’ve read this far. I’ve never written software, let alone software for a 1983 relic that has somehow held my attention all these years. If it’s not obvious at this point, this is personal passion project (3P!).