| Roland Juno-60 |
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The Roland Juno-60 was a popular digital/analogue 61-key polyphonic Synthesizer produced by Roland Corporation in the early 1980's. This instrument was succeeded by the Roland Juno-106 in 1984 . FEATURES AND SYNTHESIS ARCHITECTURE Tone Generation The Juno-60 synthesizers were six-voice Polyphonic synthesizers. The single digitally-controlled oscillator (or DCO for short) gave the Juno-60 a high degree of stability in maintaining tune; most analogue voltage-controlled oscillators ( VCO s) of the time would tend to drift in pitch and require re-tuning of the oscillator. The DCO provided sawtooth and square/pulse waveforms as a sound source, in addition to white noise and a square-wave suboscillator pitched one octave beneath the key played. Both of these additional sources could be mixed in with dedicated sliders. The filters and envelope on the Juno-60 relied on control voltages sent by depressing the keys on the keyboard and were thus analogue. The Juno-60 featured a rather distinctive-sounding -24 dB/octave Lowpass Filter with resonance. Unlike some synthesizer lowpass filters of the day, the Juno-60's was capable of self-resonance and thus could be used to some degree as a tone generator in and of itself. The filter section also featured controls for envelope amount and polarity, LFO modulation, and keyboard tracking. In addition, a three-position non-resonant Highpass Filter was provided to thin out lower frequencies. The signal was then sent through a voltage-controlled amplifier (or VCA ) and a simple four-stage ADSR filter envelope. The Juno-60 provided limited options for modulating the audio signal. A single triangle-wave variable-rate LFO was provided as a modulation source; this could be mixed into the DCO to create Vibrato or into the lowpass filter to generate a Tremolo effect. The LFO could either be triggered manually by the left hand using a large button above the pitch bend lever or set to engage automatically whenever a key was pressed. Other Features The Juno-60, like the other Juno synthesizers, carried an on-board stereo Chorus Effect which, while noticeably noisy, added a rather distinctive character to the sound of the instrument. In addition, the Juno-60 featured an on-board up/down/up-down Arpeggiator capable of spanning three octaves. The arpeggio speed could be controlled by either using a slider or an external trigger source. The Juno-60 also contained 56 memory slots to retain and instantly recall patch settings. Interestingly, the Juno-60's memory could be dumped to (or loaded from) a magnetic Cassette Tape simply by plugging a tape recorder into the appropriate jack in the instrument's rear. Patch information was transmitted as an audio signal similar in quality to that produced by a Computer Modem . Juno-60 was controllable with Sequencers using proprietary DCB protocol, similar to MIDI , but different. Roland produced several DCB-enabled sequencers, or, alternatively, MIDI-to-DCB converters can be used to drive DCB-enabled synths. In Juno-60's successor, the Roland Juno-106 , DCB support was dropped in favor of MIDI. Finally, the Juno-60 has a hidden unison mode. To turn it on, turn off the Juno-60, put the arpeggiator in the 'up' mode, press and hold the transpose button while turning on the Juno-60. Unison mode is now active. Notable Juno-60 users Vince Clarke, A Flock of Seagulls, Howard Jones, Eurythmics, The Cure. |
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