Vintage Synth Explorer

Roland • Alpha Juno 1

Roland Alpha Juno-1

The Alpha Juno is a great sounding Juno type synth! Not quite as warm in sound as the previous Juno's but still a nice addition to any techno synth rig. Sliders and buttons were replaced by membrane buttons and the Alpha Dial which is used to edit and browse through the extensive selection of parameters: DCO digitally controlled oscillators, LFO, bend, ENV, pulse, waveforms, noise, PW/PWM, high pass filter, VCF filter with freq/env/res/LFO/kybd, VCA envelope, chorus, and more. The PG-300 synthesizer programmer gives you traditional slider control of each parameter for much easier and faster editing.

Other nice touches include better MIDI implementation than previous Roland synths, 64 presets and 64 user patches, a nice LCD display, an LFO capable of a very slow rate for some cool sweeping effects, and a great bass sound (especially nice for acid basslines) and noise effects! It also has chord memory which is perfect for rave & techno, portamento and keyboard transposing. The Alpha Juno 1 was soon replaced by the Alpha Juno 2 which added a few MIDI & keyboard enhancements. The MKS-50 is an upgraded rackmount version of the Alpha Juno. The Alpha Juno is used by Mundo Muzique, Vince Clarke, Matt Megaton Haines, Paul Hardcastle, Massive Attack, Bomb the Bass, The Prodigy, Youth, Joey Beltram and Human Resource.

Roland HS-10

The HS-10 Synth Plus 10 is an Alpha Juno for the casual home user, with a slightly less appealing cosmetic appearance, and the HS-80 was a similar repackaging of the Alpha Juno 2.

VISITOR COMMENTS (27)

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Posting Rules: Please keep your comments relevant! Do not post requests for help, do not use for sales, do not post unless you have something interesting to say about this instrument, or we may delete your post.

 

AQ

Posted 31 days ago

My first "real" synth and forever. My precious. If You can - just buy one to get little-big, simple, fat and stable analog synth. Warm Pads, Freaky and Agressive Leads, Giant Bass and Subs, FXs, noise - JU-1 is a very flexible instrument with lots of abilities. Great analog filter and chorus. Instead of all pluses - Alpha Dial is actually teribble thing, but You can edit patches with software editors or some new hardware machines. PG-300 is a real unique stuff at all...

Mike

Posted 37 days ago

I think you should change the specifications, there are no 3 DCO´s per voice. Just one per voice with 3 simultaneous waves.

Anyway, great synth, just bought an Alpha Juno 1 for 150 €, and it sounds terrific.

P6

Posted 94 days ago

Strange this site gave this ONE more star than the JX-3P when the 3P is 'as good' as Juno 60 in some respects (namely filter).

This is a nice basic synth, but 3P is far more - so 3P should have 4 stars also imo. ;)

Mark

Posted 147 days ago

very underestimated synth. there's a steep learning curve compared to other synths, but if you spend some time with it there are a lot of possibilities.

i recently considered selling mine off after not touching it for a year. i ended up going playing around with it again on a whim, and decided to keep it after getting some really interesting sounds out of it.

it's potential isn't strictly limited to hoovers, acid, house, and techno either. fans of the "italians do it better" label take note. this is your machine on the cheap.

jaume torres

Posted 215 days ago

I had one of this little toys, -alfa juno 1- and sold it!. Warm and soft sound, one of this factory presets- juno strings- was my prefer strings sound for a several years. Biggest sound in a little keyboard!

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