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April 10, 2026
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"Like the D-50, the JD combined sample-based oscillators with a fairly typical signal path that included a resonant filter, envelope generators and the like. However, the JD-800 offered something not available on any other sample-based synthesizer: a bucket load of sliders. Yep, the JD harkened back to the analogue era, offering scads of real-time control (that, alas, could only be transmitted via SysEx). It was big, impressive and utterly sexy, even if it was made mostly of plastic. More than that, it sounded out-of-this-world. At a time when manufacturers were doing their best to cram as many grainy 8-bit low-rate samples into an instruments' ROM as possible, Roland used only hi-res stuff, resulting in outstanding sound quality."
"The JD-800 was released a decade too soon. The analogue revival was still years off and sales fizzled (at least by D-50 standards). However, Roland knew what it had, and the technology behind the JD-800 would pop up again and again in its best-selling series of rack-mountable MIDI modules."
Young though he was, his radiant energy produced such an impression of absolute reliability that Hedgewar made him the first sarkaryavah, or general secretary, of the RSS.
- Gopal Mukund Huddar
Largely because of the influence of communists in London, Huddar's conversion into an enthusiastic supporter of the fight against fascism was quick and smooth. The ease with which he crossed from one worldview to another betrays the fact that he had not properly understood the world he had grown in.
Huddar would have been 101 now had he been alive. But then centenaries are not celebrated only to register how old so and so would have been and when. They are usually celebrated to explore how much poorer our lives are without them. Maharashtrian public life is poorer without him. It is poorer for not having made the effort to recall an extraordinary life.
I regret I was not there to listen to Balaji Huddar's speech [...] No matter how many times you listen to him, his speeches are so delightful that you feel like listening to them again and again.
By the time he came out of Franco's prison, Huddar had relinquished many of his old ideas. He displayed a worldview completely different from that of the RSS, even though he continued to remain deferential to Hedgewar and maintained a personal relationship with him.