Roland Juno-106 6 Voice Analogue Synthesiser

The Roland Juno-106 is the last of the classic Juno synthesisers released by Roland.  There have been other keyboards that Roland have released that have tried to capitalise on the Roland Juno name, but these were not really Juno synthesisers.

To be honest in my opinion the only latest release of the Roland Juno-X can claim to have the look, feel and sound of the original classic.

The original Juno synthesiser line started with the release of the Roland Juno-6.  This was released in early 1982 and set the standard for the instruments that were to follow it in the next two years.

The Roland Juno-6 is a 61-note keyboard with a single digitally controlled oscillator (DCO).  This started the trend in the keyboard world to introduce more control over the analogue circuitry that generated the sound.  This was different to the Jupiter-8 that was launched the prior year in 1981 which was entirely analogue.

The Juno came an arpeggiator and the chorus that would define the sound that the Juno what would be known for in the years after launch.  The negatives of the Roland Juno-6 were no MIDI or patch memory, requiring you to dial in each sound when you wanted to play it.  Great for a studio artist, but not so great for the gigging road warrior of the era.

The next Juno synthesiser to get released was the Roland Juno-60 which was released towards the end of 1982 and took over from the Juno-6.  Production of the Juno-6 ceased pretty much as soon as the Roland Juno-60 was launched.  The oscillator architecture was the same as the previous keyboard.  According to various sources Roland did tweak the way sound was generated between the 2 versions of the synthesisers based on artist feedback.  This led to comments like it was brighter than the previous version.

The arpeggiator persisted as did two versions of the chorus.  Roland introduced a proprietary DCB interface which was the same as several other Roland instruments and could use to connect the instruments together.  MIDI was still not native to the instrument as it was still being defined during the synthesisers development.  MIDI was achieved by using a DCB to MIDI hardware converter.  The other upgrade that was welcomed by the musical community was the inclusion of a patch memory which allowed the instrument to be taken out of the studio and on the road.

If you heard a Roland Juno on an early 1980's pop track it is likely it would have been the Roland Juno-60 as opposed to the previous synthesiser.  This was because Roland Juno-60 was more useable due to the instant patch recall.

And then we come to the last of the classic Roland Juno synthesisers to be launched.  The Roland Juno-106 launched in 1984.  At the same point the previous Juno-60 synthesiser was discontinued.

I have never owned a Roland Juno-106, although I do own the Roland JU-06 and Roland JU-06A boutique synthesisers which are very close to the Roland Juno-60 and Roland Juno-106.  I did some comparisons between the original Juno-106 and boutiques when I borrowed a Roland Juno-106 from fellow musician and restorer (Richard) who lives along the coast from me.

Again, Roland made some updates to the Roland Juno-106, but here many musicians differ on whether the tweaks to the sound generation were to the good or bad.  The chorus endured and the patch memory was increased from 64 memory slots to 128 memory slots.  A native MIDI interface was added meaning that you didn't need the proprietary hardware to use this keyboard in your MIDI rig.

I like the Roland Juno-106 because the user interface was simple. It used knobs and faders to dial in a sound and then you could save it to a memory slot.  Everything was there on the front panel, no menu diving or requirement to use an external programmer to programme it.

The one thing that many friends who have owned or own a Roland Juno-106 have said is that the voice chips randomly fail.  These original chips are relatively difficult to get hold of, although there are a couple of outlets now making substitutes, but this must alter the sound the instrument makes subtlety.

Several alternate Roland Juno-106 sound sources have been released since Roland discontinued the original synthesiser:

• Roland Juno-X - A modern synthesiser released by Roland based on the XEN-core technology.  Designed to look like the original Roland Juno-106, but also capable of loading other Roland XEN-Core engines.  I have the Roland Jupiter-X version of this synthesiser which also has the Roland Juno-106 engine.

• Roland Boutique JU-06A - A boutique sound module which in my simple sound test was very close to the Roland Juno-106 keyboard I had on loan that you would struggle to tell the difference in the mix.

• Roland System-8 with the Juno-106 plug-out which I own and enjoy playing.  But because the way the controls are mapped to the System-8 controls programming is a little involved.

• Roland Fantom Juno implementation.  Again this is the Roland Juno-106 XEN-Core engine.

So, Roland have made 5 different versions of the Roland Juno-106 (if you include the orginal).  But then Behringer has released a couple of synthesisers based on the Roland Juno-106;

• Behringer Deepmind 12 - While not a direct copy of the original Roland Juno-106 the architecture and signal generation are based on the same architecture principles.

• The Behringer Deepmind 6 is built on the same technology, just smaller.

Behringer has also released the Behringer JN-80 which is styled after the Juno range, but modelled after the Roland Juno-60.

While there are no precise numbers in the public realm, it is understood that across the three original Juno synthesisers released in the 1980's, around 116,000 units were sold.  About 30,000 of these were the Juno-60.  The short manufacturing window of the Juno-6 is it through that there are substantially less than 30,000 units made. What does this mean, you are more likely to see a Roland Juno-106 for sale than the other two.