Roland JUNO-1

(Originally written by vanpet/translated from Audiofanzine FR)
Analog synth with 6-voice polyphony, three digitally controlled oscillators (digital/analog hybrid synth)? Basic routing and sound possibilities. It's a minimalist synth. No encoders (except the big alpha dial) only buttons (DX7-like)...

The keyboard is not velocity sensitive but you can control the velocity via Midi with a master keyboard... same thing regarding aftertouch.

UTILIZATION

Bothersome sound editing. You'll have to be patient. There's a PC editor software available (PG300 Emulation), which works very good and is easy to use as VST plug-in. It works fine for me.

Thanks to the endless alpha dial that allows you to accurately control parameters and the fast access buttons, you can even use it live (especially for the cutoff). The alpha dial is accurate and pleasant.

SOUNDS

The sound is the main asset of this synth. It sounds great and the chorus effect is nice. You'll only get simple but quite effective sounds (few modulation possibilities).

The presets are a bit outdated so I deleted them (except the famous "Hoover") to create my own presets.

OVERALL OPINION

Good sound. Good value for money (the secondhand price is rather low, it was even cheaper than my DX7!). What else do you want?

It's a good deal.

Less compared to Juno 2:
4-octave keyboard instead of 5, no vlocit or aftertouch.
No memory cartridge
The "plus" jacks backup to tape.

USE

See opinion on them? Juno 1 and 2.

SONORITS

See opinion on them? Juno 1 and 2.

NOTICE GLOBAL

The purpose of my review is to attract the attention of buyers might apply Juno.
I do not dnigre Juno 1. But if the opportunity presents, prfrez Juno 2. At the time I write o (27/11/2010), the dimension Juno 1 is 150 euros while that of Juno 2 is 147 euros (???). This may be the rarity of the Juno 1.
Juno 1 exists only because Roland wanted to launch a keyboard "analog-digital" at a cost of 100,000 yen in 1985. Rsultat: a nice little portable keyboard, but that did not allow to fully exploit its synthesis (not vlocit.
Here's a link to the history of Juno: http://www.roland.com/synth/JUNO/history.html

ALPHA JUNO-1 is an analog synthesizer 6 voices of polyphony, monotimbral.
His memory is organized into two groups of 8 banks of 8 tones or 64 sounds in preset (ROM), 64 in internal memory (RAM).
Connection:
The outputs (mono) and R, headphones, 6.35
Pedal inputs:
-Assignable expression pedal volume, aftertouch or dynamic
Sustain pedal / hold
Pedal assignable to incrementing programs (1-8 within the same bank), activation of portamento or memorandum of understanding.
Jacks tape backup.
MIDI IN, OUT and THRU.
LCD 16 characters
Dimensions: 802x240x79 mm - Weight: 5.4 Kg

The synth has a very clean lines and unadorned, enhanced by its narrow width and small depth impression. The keyboard is soft, nice, but a bit noisy.

UTILIZATION

This is an easy to use synth. It has very few parameters. Alpha-dial dial (endless) is used to select parameters and change the values. Just like its big brother, the Juno-2, it is editable by sysex programmer PG-300, PC-EZ Alpha editors, PG300emu and other control surfaces and keyboards master managing sysex. ..
It has a big advantage over the Juno-2 in gaming: the opportunities the expression pedal. This, assigned to the dynamic, can be used to offset the lack of keyboard velocity, but more importantly, assigned to aftertouch, finally can have a pitch control or filter opening the pedal . As long as one is clever enough to use the pedal, it has a much more expressive than the Juno-2 synthesizer, including aftertouch is not qualified.

SOUNDS

The sound generator of the Juno-1 is identical to those of the Juno-2 and MKS-50. You can read my opinion on the Juno-2 for details.

OVERALL OPINION

I had quite a priori on the Juno-1 before I was given the opportunity to try one for a month, I imagined as a sub-2 Juno.
The existence of the Juno-1 seems to be only one thing: the desire to leave the manufacturer at the time a polyphonic synth briefs symbolic price of less than 100,000 yen (source: Roland JUNO microsite). Roland is part of a JUNO-2, and removed an octave, velocity and aftertouch keyboard, and replaced by a tape storage cassette interface.
Of course, the absence of dynamic keyboard removes the expressivity in the game, however, far from making a JUNO-2 at a discount, the result is quite successful and different from its predecessor: an appealing little synth, and instead focused lead (also the first preset in this direction), with the surprise of the expression pedal can control aftertouch assigned to the filter or pitch.
And controlled via MIDI, it offers all the possibilities of Juno-2.
It is still cheap, enjoy!
With that, I promise, this is my last opinion on the Alpha series JUNO/MKS-50 (unless the HS-10 and 80 do not fall into my hands)