Roland Juno-60

Roland Juno-60 Image

Among the first in Roland's amazing Juno family! Six analog voices of polyphony and patch memory storage!! The Juno-60 sounds great, however, like the Juno-6 it lacks MIDI control. The Juno-60 includes 56 patches of memory storage. The Juno-60 is still popular due in part to opinions that it sounds better (punchier) than the Juno-106. The Juno-6 and 60 are very rich sounding synthesizers and are great analog machines as long as you can withstand the absence of MIDI control. The JSQ-60 sequencer is an external sequencer controller for the Juno-60 and is usually worth acquiring. Of course nobody can deny that the wooden side panel look is a true sign of Vintage status! Junos have been used by Enya, The Cure, Sean Lennon, Faithless, Astral Projection, Vince Clarke, Rabbit in the Moon, Men at Work, Flock of Seagulls, Olive, Dee-Lite, Howard Jones, Locust, Eurythmics and Add N to (X).

Cool Tips:
The Juno-60 can have 76 patches. By pressing down nr 5 and 1 or 2, at the same time, you get access to patch 57 to 76.

To access patches 80 to 98, (dead-patch) plug a cord into the PATCH SHIFT connector. Now you can access the test-programs 80-98: Keep 5 down and press 3 for bank 8, 5 and press 4 for bank 9.

Fire the Juno up with the KEYTRANSPOSE button pressed and the arpeggio mode-switch up to enter MONO-MODE. All 6 voices will be assigned to the last key pressed.

106 Visitor comments
Paul Soulsby
March 20, 2010 @ 5:01 am
Possibly my favourite synth of all time, simply because of the versatility and sound all for a cheap price (well mine cost £250 in '97). Built like a tank, it can do every classic analogue sound you could want, has memories and is great for live as well as in studio. Obviously it'll never do Moog bass as well as a Moog or fat brass as well as Oberheim or crunchy moduated sounds aswell as Sequential, but if you want a bit of everything this is the one! There's a few hidden features to be found too!
Analog Judy
March 12, 2010 @ 11:02 am
Yet another commentator with only a vague clue what they're talking about when it comes to DCOs. The chip you refer to is a digital counter that produces pulses at a rate divided from a master clock. It does not produce any sound you hear, only the timing for it. The audio is produced by a charged capacitor as in a traditional VCO. The Juno 106 and 60 are sawtooth core oscs, but instead of the cap being told to discharge by a voltage comparator, it is instead signaled by the pulses produced by the aforementioned (very stable) counter. The cap itself is charged by a voltage produced by the CPU through a D/A convertor. THIS IS BEFORE THE AUDIO SIGNAL PATH. The ANALOG output of the DCO is a saw wave (same as VCOs) which is then shaped to produce the other waveforms (same as VCOs). You're right about the timing, but that's about all you're right about. There is a charge capacitor, and the audio path is entirely analog. Half an education is worse than no education at all, IMAO. Cheers;)
Eric Crapton
February 22, 2010 @ 4:52 pm
Firstly I'm a guitarist and not a very good one and although I took piano lessons at school, that seems a universe away. I managed to get my hands on an as new Midi converted Juno60 a month ago. I bought it locally for £300 from a bloke who doesn’t have a computer and probably never even heard of Ebay!!! (Ebay purchasers eat your heart out!)

She (because she is sexy beyond belief) blows my mind every time I power her up, which is only once a day as she is working overtime helping me keep my creative juices flowing all day every day, well for sixteen hours at least.

This is only the second time I’ve been in love and the first time ‘till death us do part’ actually means just that! Need I say more?
ricky prime
February 3, 2010 @ 2:00 pm
I own a juno 60 and a juno 106 i love them both !! I would have to say ones not better than the other but both have unique personalities , and i would say they are only limited to your own creativity !!!
jonthan
January 30, 2010 @ 6:30 pm
This was used extensively by Avey Tare of Animal Collective. It seems he/they have replaced it with a Korg M3 though.
 
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  • Demos & Media
  • YouTube Thumbnail
    Video 1
    - ROLAND JUNO-60 Analog Synth 1982 | DEMO

    YouTube Thumbnail
    Video 2
    - ROLAND JUNO 60 DEMO

    YouTube Thumbnail
    Video 3
    - Roland Juno 60 Vintage Analog Synthesizer Overview

    Audio Clip 1 - A little track showing what the Juno can do (including the drums too), submitted by Christiaan Lippmann from Holland.

    Manual - Roland has made manuals for most of their products available as free PDF downloads.

  • Specifications
  • Polyphony - 6 voices
  • Oscillators - DCO: pulse, saw, and square
  • LFO - rate and delay
  • Filter - non-resonant high pass and resonant low pass
  • VCA - level, ADSR and gate
  • Arpeg/Seq - External JSQ-60 Sequencer
  • Keyboard - 61 note keyboard (no velocity or aftertouch)
  • Control - DCB Roland to Roland sync/interface (Roland MD-8 converts DCB to MIDI for MIDI control)
  • Date Produced - 1982

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