Not a post of huge importance... just saying I'm quite impressed with this little synth.
Fully analog, patch memories, 24db filter, VERY nice pulse width modulation, aftertouch...$200! The sound is surprisingly beefy, definitely in the kind of old-school Depeche Mode / Yazoo kind of space. Interesting how you can call up a preset and go "ah, that's the rezzy bass sound from New Life".
Lotta fun, lotta fun, indeed...
Loving my Alpha Juno 2
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- KVRian
- 926 posts since 15 Mar, 2004 from Tokyo, Japan
Eion Flow: Lush, cinematic electronica from the urban galaxy that is Tokyo, Japan. More on eionflow.com | Facebook | Soundcloud
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- KVRAF
- 16835 posts since 13 Oct, 2009
Not to rain on your parade, but, the Alpha Junos are NOT fully analogue. They have an analog filter/VCA, but, they have a hybrid oscillator. There's nothing wrong with that, they're fine little instruments. In fact, the Roland DCO has a nice sound to it, and you're right, very late new waveish. On the cusp of digital with all the features that a budding new-wave artist was looking for back in the day, heh!tranel wrote:Not a post of huge importance... just saying I'm quite impressed with this little synth.
Fully analog, patch memories, 24db filter, VERY nice pulse width modulation, aftertouch...$200! The sound is surprisingly beefy, definitely in the kind of old-school Depeche Mode / Yazoo kind of space. Interesting how you can call up a preset and go "ah, that's the rezzy bass sound from New Life".
Lotta fun, lotta fun, indeed...
It looks like someone already pointed out the programmer to you, if you stumble across a PG300 for cheap, it does make them more fun.
YMMV
gs
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- KVRian
- Topic Starter
- 926 posts since 15 Mar, 2004 from Tokyo, Japan
ghettosynth wrote:Not to rain on your parade, but, the Alpha Junos are NOT fully analogue. They have an analog filter/VCA, but, they have a hybrid oscillator. There's nothing wrong with that, they're fine little instruments. In fact, the Roland DCO has a nice sound to it, and you're right, very late new waveish. On the cusp of digital with all the features that a budding new-wave artist was looking for back in the day, heh!tranel wrote:Not a post of huge importance... just saying I'm quite impressed with this little synth.
Fully analog, patch memories, 24db filter, VERY nice pulse width modulation, aftertouch...$200! The sound is surprisingly beefy, definitely in the kind of old-school Depeche Mode / Yazoo kind of space. Interesting how you can call up a preset and go "ah, that's the rezzy bass sound from New Life".
Lotta fun, lotta fun, indeed...
It looks like someone already pointed out the programmer to you, if you stumble across a PG300 for cheap, it does make them more fun.
YMMV
gs
NOT FULL... I will sell it immediately! I thought it sounded thin and brittle, without warmth and fullness. That is what I meant with my original post, maybe the wording was a bit unclear.
Isn't a DCO simply an oscillator where the pitch is controlled digitally but the sound generation itself is analog?
And thanks for sharing the programmer... but it's already so easy to program from the front panel (not a very deep synth) so I have a feeling I'll just keep doing that.
Eion Flow: Lush, cinematic electronica from the urban galaxy that is Tokyo, Japan. More on eionflow.com | Facebook | Soundcloud
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- KVRAF
- 16835 posts since 13 Oct, 2009
Yes, that is the most common implementation of a DCO and is precisely the case for virtually all DCO based synths that anyone cares about. The devil's in the details, however. There's a reason that they weren't originally marketed as all analog synths and a reason that they are marketed that way (all analogue signal path) today.tranel wrote: NOT FULL... I will sell it immediately! I thought it sounded thin and brittle, without warmth and fullness. That is what I meant with my original post, maybe the wording was a bit unclear.
Isn't a DCO simply an oscillator where the pitch is controlled digitally but the sound generation itself is analog?
DCOs sound different than VCOs because how the frequency of the oscillator is determined matters quite a bit. Now, in the case of the alpha juno, it, in fact, matters very little because there is only one oscillator. It matters a little bit for chords, but not as much as it matters when there are two or more oscillators per voice.
There are very very very longwinded discussions of this here and elsewhere and I've recently cropped some of my own contributions to form an article on my blog. It's not quite an article yet, however, check back in a month if you're still interested.
The upshot is this: A DCO uses a VERY PRECISE AND STABLE crystal controlled clock to generate the reset pulses for the integrator. This results in a very stable oscillator frequency. A VCO uses the output of the integrator itself, usually via an analog comparator to reset the integrator. This means that the stability of the VCO is dependent on factors that matter in terms of the character of the oscillator.
Really, the correct way to think about a DCO, at least all those that KVR is likely to argue about, is that it's a digital oscillator followed by an analogue waveshaper. It takes a very precise and narrow digital pulse and converts it to a very precise sawtooth wave.
I agree that it's simple, but, with a programmer, it's REALLY fast to program. I used to use an MKS-50 with a PG-300 in my live shows and you really can reprogram it on the fly.And thanks for sharing the programmer... but it's already so easy to program from the front panel (not a very deep synth) so I have a feeling I'll just keep doing that.