Roland Boutique: New Jupiter 8, 106/60 and JX3P on the way?

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deastman wrote: I've had two chips replaced in my Juno-106. But what I've seen is mostly that if the chips are going to fail, they already would have by now. Also, there are these replacement chips:
http://www.analoguerenaissance.com/AR80017A/
Yes, I'm aware. But did you check the price? For the price of the chips alone, you almost can buy a second hand unit, and one of these new JU-06. I have one of my MKS-30s broke, and I am trying to recover the chips by dissolve the cover substance and cleaning them. If that fails, I will have to consider buy thse, but I am not sure I want to do that.

BTW: There is also a kit that provides a MIDI upgrade, adding, among other things, Sys-Ex capability to the unit.
Fernando (FMR)

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fmr wrote:
deastman wrote: I've had two chips replaced in my Juno-106. But what I've seen is mostly that if the chips are going to fail, they already would have by now. Also, there are these replacement chips:
http://www.analoguerenaissance.com/AR80017A/
Yes, I'm aware. But did you check the price? For the price of the chips alone, you almost can buy a second hand unit, and one of these new JU-06. I have one of my MKS-30s broke, and I am trying to recover the chips by dissolve the cover substance and cleaning them. If that fails, I will have to consider buy thse, but I am not sure I want to do that.
In my experience, even the replacement chips fail. That's why I sold my 106 (and welcome the JU-06)...I want to make music, not fiddle around with soldering kits and the like. Also, my 106 had an unusably noisy chorus, temperamental ADSR controls and - contrary to what vintage Roland romanticists state - had very average build quality anyway. I paid £750 for that, so £300 for an almost indistinguishable replica with a much smaller footprint in my tiny studio space suits me fine.

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[/quote]
In my experience, even the replacement chips fail. That's why I sold my 106 (and welcome the JU-06)...I want to make music, not fiddle around with soldering kits and the like. Also, my 106 had an unusably noisy chorus, temperamental ADSR controls and - contrary to what vintage Roland romanticists state - had very average build quality anyway. I paid £750 for that, so £300 for an almost indistinguishable replica with a much smaller footprint in my tiny studio space suits me fine.[/quote]

Not sure why anyone bothers with the 106 when you can get an Alpha Juno for far cheaper and teamed up with a Behringer controller is far more versatile than the 106 and probably better built. £750 for an unreliable 106, goodness me I got a Jx3p, Alpha juno, Juno6 and Jx8p combined for that.

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grabme, you must have got a killer deal on your Juno 6 then. They're double the price of a 106 now, at least.
"I was wondering if you'd like to try Magic Mushrooms"
"Oooh I dont know. Sounds a bit scary"
"It's not scary. You just lose a sense of who you are and all that sh!t"

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grabme wrote:
Not sure why anyone bothers with the 106 when you can get an Alpha Juno for far cheaper and teamed up with a Behringer controller is far more versatile than the 106 and probably better built. £750 for an unreliable 106, goodness me I got a Jx3p, Alpha juno, Juno6 and Jx8p combined for that.
I had an Alpha Juno & Zero SL (which has a built-in AJ template - I also had the PG300 but it was rubbish) at the same time. Preferred the sound of the 106 by far. The Alpha Juno's filter doesn't break up sweetly like the 106.

And how on earth did you get a Juno 6 anywhere near cheaper than a 106?

Also, the 106 wasn't unreliable when I bought it. The voice chips had been stripped and replaced.....but they can fail again.

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Mushy Mushy wrote:grabme, you must have got a killer deal on your Juno 6 then. They're double the price of a 106 now, at least.
I agree. A JX-3P, Alpha Juno, Juno-6 and JX-8P for 750,00 pounds? You gotta be kidding. The Juno-6 has not the chip problem (nor does the Juno-60). They are also better synths, IMO. The chip problem is confined to the Juno-106 and the MKS-30 (not sure about the JX-3P).
Fernando (FMR)

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shadowdancerbnr wrote:And how on earth did you get a Juno 6 anywhere near cheaper than a 106?
Juno 6's and 60's used to be considered fuzzy sounding junk by most people. I don't think they're that bad but I also don't understand all the new interest in them.

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Uncle E wrote:
shadowdancerbnr wrote:And how on earth did you get a Juno 6 anywhere near cheaper than a 106?
Juno 6's and 60's used to be considered fuzzy sounding junk by most people. I don't think they're that bad but I also don't understand all the new interest in them.
Because the internetz.

Everybody wanted the 106 but the reliability issues soon got around and people then sought a reliable alternative with a very similar sound.

My theory anyway.
"I was wondering if you'd like to try Magic Mushrooms"
"Oooh I dont know. Sounds a bit scary"
"It's not scary. You just lose a sense of who you are and all that sh!t"

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Uncle E wrote:
shadowdancerbnr wrote:And how on earth did you get a Juno 6 anywhere near cheaper than a 106?
Juno 6's and 60's used to be considered fuzzy sounding junk by most people. I don't think they're that bad but I also don't understand all the new interest in them.
Maybe because, being so simple, they allow the user to produce a significantly broad palette of sounds, much more than one could expect at first sight. And, when they were launched, they were the first truly affordable polyphonic synths.
Fernando (FMR)

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Uncle E wrote:
shadowdancerbnr wrote:And how on earth did you get a Juno 6 anywhere near cheaper than a 106?
Juno 6's and 60's used to be considered fuzzy sounding junk by most people. I don't think they're that bad but I also don't understand all the new interest in them.
Yeah, I understand that much. If you bought one 25 years ago it probably was dirt cheap. But, when I talk about buying the 106, I mean around 4 years ago. I doubt the 6 (or 60) would have been so inexpensive by 2011.

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fmr wrote:Maybe because, being so simple, they allow the user to produce a significantly broad palette of sounds, much more than one could expect at first sight. And, when they were launched, they were the first truly affordable polyphonic synths.
That makes sense. I would much prefer a JX-8P or JX-10 but they lack that immediacy you're talking about.

I just noticed how much Jupiter 6's have shot up so I guess I'm behind the times. I'll have to sell mine before these new Boutique modules make the price drop back down. ;)

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I picked up an ajuno-1 rather than the 106 years ago due to the unique sounds (hoover, teknostrng) which are impossible to reproduce without that filter and the additional waveshapes the alpha has.

I hadn't heard of the trouble people are seeing now (this was ~2000) with the paper+glue chips peeling apart or soaking up moisture. I am very glad I didn't bother to pick one up though because of that.

Today, I would still be interested in a JX-8p which is approximately like a hardware version of Xhip with a few less features and an analog filter + chorus.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TKpC13qdnbQ

One thing the alphas are sorely lacking is part of the trade-off of the unique filter timbre. Although it sounds very unique and allows you to create a lot of those HHC/hardhouse/trance sounds from the early and mid-90s, it just can't do the same simple pads and basses the original juno series can do. The filter can not self-oscillate and can not be tweaked to do so, unlike the original junos.

(For anyone curious, this is because the ajuno filter is two 12db filters in series. The Q is set to sqrt(desired total Q), and the Q from both filters is multiplied together because they're in series. If the Q were high enough to make the filter oscillate, the multiplication of the two would clip. This is what gives the filter its weird timbre and makes it oscillate a lot longer for the same settings and interact with harmonics differently than a typical 4-pole cascade as in the SH-101 or other junos.)

The alpha having only a single oscillator also can't do any of the detuned sounds. It part-way makes up for this by offering interesting timbres due to the waveshape variations, although you have to remember all the sound coming from the alpha is sourced from a single digital pulse at a single frequency and divisions of that frequency by octave.

The original junos are essentially simplified SH-101s in polyphony.

The alphas are something different.
Free plug-ins for Windows, MacOS and Linux. Xhip Synthesizer v8.0 and Xhip Effects Bundle v6.7.
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alpha is a bit like having a 101 with patch memories.

but yeah the filter never quite gets you there.
more parameters, less 'pure' sound, is how i reasoned it.
but it's the one i ended up keeping -before selling also, i'd
gone all the way round it with pg-300 - it's the one i wanted
to get back, but i wouldn't bother with a 106/60 now,
mainly bcs of size.

i bet everyone has been checking their VAs for JU/JP sounds.
Last edited by mztk on Fri Oct 09, 2015 2:18 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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a competent demo of a real jx3p - would like to hear more range
from new demos

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C9rAkqeBKGE
Last edited by mztk on Fri Oct 09, 2015 2:17 pm, edited 1 time in total.

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let's hear this on Aira + Boo-teek, please:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=864fhWrrnFA

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