RolandJu-06A Sound Module, The Sound of The 80'S

Me gusta este sinte. Es muy completo, no le falta nada.

Very happy, it's a beautiful synth and easy to program it..

Les sonorités de ces deux synthé mythiques sont ici fidèlement reproduites. Alors que les Juno 60 et 106 coûtent une fortune d’occasion et sont aussi fragiles en raison de leur âge, Roland offre un petit système facile à emporter et connectable sur un ordi pour s’offrir un vrai voyage musical vers le passé. On apprécie sa finition tout en métal , sa modularité, ses réglages intuitifs, son arpegiateur… Au rang des reproches on peut regretter un haut-parleur mono qui reste peu puissant. Il faut donc impérativement le brancher à des hauts parleur ou un casque pour en profiter pleinement. A part ce point, c’est un vrai plaisir !

Roland have done a great job with this sythesiser module to make it portable (very much unlike the originals, which had keyboards to give them a size and weight problem) and yet also make it very close to the originals in sound. If 80s music is calling to you, you are probably better served with this than an original, with all those unreliable and well-used parts.What's more, with a single switch you can move between the Juno 60 and the Juno 106, which had a sound similar but just different enough to be something new.The controls are a lot more fiddly, as you'd expect from a far smaller form factor, so dialling in a particular sound can take a lot more care than a quick twist of a knob or slide of a fader control. However if you hit on a sound you really like you can at least save it in the patch memory. There are other synths on the market, notably the Behringer clones of classic monosynths such as the Moog Model D or the Sequential Circuits Pro-One that make wonderful sounds but, being fully analogue, no patch memory! At least with the JU-06A you can save the settings of a fantastic patch rather than taping all the controls in place and buying a new copy of the Pro-1!Although digital, there's a reasonable heft to the sounds that come forth, and it sits very well in a mix without hogging all the sonic spectrum. With four voices there's limited polyphony compared to the originals, which all had 6's in their names because they were six-voice instruments. This is not a huge disadvantage for me, with other instruments to create bass and lead, but for those interested in complex chords or doubling up notes across octaves, this might be a more serious limitation.It's ability to run on batteries, or be powered over USB, is a good touch even though I won't ever use it "on the go" but, for those that do, there's also the nice option of being able to sequence notes using the patch selection buttons low on the control surface, to enter step notes in the absence of a keyboard.It's nicely thought through and an improvement on the earlier module, the JU-06, although the JU-06A is missing the bend and modulation sliders of the former - although since many will use this with a controller keyboard such as the Arturia Keystep/Keystep Pro the JU-06A will respond to pitch bend and modulation from the keyboard. It would have been nice to think that Roland would have opted for Behringer's approach and make an affordable contemporary version of their own classic synths using components available back in the day, but the digital recreation is close enough to make discrepancies very hard to pick out.What's nice about it is what also endreared me to the older synths (I have played a Juno-60 in the past), the interface is simple and it's quite hard to get into a position where there's no sound being made. With the classic analogue monosynths you need to know a lot more about what the synth is doing, and know which of several parameters you need to tweak to get your sound back. The JU-06A is much more forgiving in that way. I like it, it's moderately priced, and it's a nice authentic if slightly retro sound.

Juno 60 entrò in commercio nel 1982, quando avevo 16 anni ed ero troppo piccolo per apprezzare le sue qualità timbriche; mentre Juno 106, uscito un paio d'anni dopo, non mi aveva mai particolarmente interessato.Della serie Boutique ho sempre criticato la scelta di Roland che ha limitato la polifonia, ragion per cui ho scelto inizialmente solo D-05 e SE-02 che non sono scesi a compromessi. Con JU-06A, ho chiuso un occhio sul fatto che avesse solo 4 voci di polifonia al posto delle 6, perché emula due strumenti diversi invece di uno e perché suona veramente bene. La programmazione è semplicissima, in virtù di una catena di sintesi abbastanza elementare, però l'aggiunta del delay arricchisce non poco il suono. La replica del suono è talmente fedele che pure il chorus è molto rumoroso, però entrando nel menù apposito è possibile ridurre a metà il fruscio o escluderlo del tutto.Per il prezzo che ha JU-06A, volendo se ne potrebbe acquistare un altro e collegarlo al primo via MIDI per ottenere una polifonia a 8 voci e, comunque, si spenderebbe meno di acquistare uno strumento vintage come Juno 60 o Juno 106 che hanno frequenti guasti e richiedono costose riparazioni.