As Roland saw fit to drive a bus through the author's house or whatever, it got me wondering how close it is to a real 106 - mine to be exact:
The hardware versus software debate has seemingly raged forever and there haven't been enough of this sort of test in my opinion. The Juno-106 is pretty basic by today's standards, I'm not an expert at programming synths so it was a good test for me to do:
Features:
The first thing that struck me was the chorus effect was missing from the plug-in, as were the range 16' / 8' / 4' buttons and the poly mode selector. All the fundamental stuff was there, although the LFO and PWM sliders are the wrong way around. For some reason, taking the PWM slider all the way up on the plug-in drops the pulse wave out altogether.
Sound:
Trying a few A/B comparisons between the two, I noticed that the saw waveform on the plug-in didn't seem as bright as on the real thing, with the filter wide open on both. The real Juno seemed to have more attack, somehow sounding punchier and more raspy (characteristics unique to the Juno, perhaps explaining why they remained popular with many). In contrast, the white noise seemed too bright on the plug-in.
Patches:
My most burning question was of course "can I replicate my favourite patches from the real thing on this plug-in?", the answer - yes. There are a number of inconsistencies between the position of the sliders and the effect they have on the sound, when comparing the plug-in to the real Juno. However, with some tweaking it was surprisingly easy to compensate for this. The absence of chorus was a bit of a show-stopper, but there are always external chorus effect plug-ins to fall back on. What matters to me is the oscillator and filter behaviour, which aren't exactly the same but near enough for me.
A/B Comparison:
The plug-in comes with a handful of presets, one of which is named "Can't Get Enough" and sounds quite nice. It's a pulse wave with "SUB" oscillator and saw wave, with pitch LFO and quite long release time. It didn't take long to translate this to the real 106, but the slider inconsistencies mentioned above made it a little tricky. I then had a go at playing you-know-what, using the same patch for bass / left hand and lead / right hand. Here's how it sounds. I'm not going to tell you whether it's the plug-in or the real thing you're hearing, it's more fun to see what you guys think. Someone will probably know exactly what's going on in the clip...
Conclusion:
The Juno-106 is regarded as legendary by many (which is debatable), but there's not much it can do that this SynthEdit effort can't. Too bad Roland barred the distribution of the plug-in, with a little more refinement it could have been absolutely spot on. I'm keeping my copy, Mister Roland please note that I own a real one so I'm sort-of entitled to!
Sorry this was a bit quick and dirty but I enjoyed doing it. I'm not about to get offered a job at Sound On Sound any time soon but what the hell.
at what kritikon said
