Roland cloud Juno 106

[Lbdunequest]

Im surprised that people are shitting on DCO-06, its a better emulation of Juno then Roland cloud is.

If you mean DCO-106…no. It's really bad. Not even close.

And why do you say that? i argue that you are very wrong.

[IvyBirds]

I have rebuild Roland patches in Arturia, Tal and Softube - they sound identical but the other companies are cheaper and use much less resources.
Every Roland plugin uses 10 percent cpu consumption without playing any note

That's true. Roland's ACB emulations are not as CPU-efficient as other plugins. My guess is they're using an emulation layer so the plugins can run exactly the same code that runs on their custom DSP chips (BMC/ESC2) in the System-1/8 and boutiques, to ensure identical sound and behavior.

The Zencore Synths run the same BMC chips and the Zenology based plugins probably have the same emulator

My guess is this is how the new GALAXIAS works also it's just built on top of the emulator and has all the underlying code from ACB and Zen Core

The actual plugins are just a GUI for the emulator

[harddaysnight]

Yeah, I trialled Roland Cloud last night and was surprised at how much CPU usage they have. Already cancelled. Just wanted to compare the 106 to other similar emulations I have.

Bit odd that it doesn't have much character! Every other emulation has a bit of charm, the Roland one feels a bit cold/sterile - you could add character yourself, I suppose that's what people are talking about with regards to Roland not capturing the imperfections, instead aiming for a perfect unit which doesn't work out of the box.

It needs some tape saturation and a bit of warble to come to life.
CPU usage is way too high though - it jumps about 14% in Live 12 for me, whereas other similar competitors that I have add between 0-1% CPU. Which means Roland's version is completely unacceptable.

[Arashi]

Im surprised that people are shitting on DCO-06, its a better emulation of Juno then Roland cloud is.

If you mean DCO-106…no. It's really bad. Not even close.

And why do you say that? i argue that you are very wrong.

• I know what a Juno-106 sounds like. I've spent lots of time with the actual hardware.
• I have multiple other emulations to compare it to, and have compared them all extensively. I've copied many patches from each one to all the others and done my best to get them all to sound the same. I have no problems getting Roland's Juno-106 plugin and Softube Model 84 to sound exactly the same. They also sound just like the hardware that I know very well.
• No amount of tweaking will get DCO-106 to sound even remotely the same as the Roland or Softube emulations. Nor does it sound anything like the hardware. The chorus is wrong. The filter is wrong. It's not even close.
• Roland knows their own hardware better than anyone else. Hideki Izuchi, the original Juno-106 engineer, still works there, and was involved in making sure the emulation matches the hardware. (Takeshi Tojo: "This series is based on ACB (Analog Circuit Behavior) technology, so we modeled the circuitry of the originals, and took it as far as we could by ourselves first. But even then, we would come up against things that we couldn't figure out, so we would go speak with our seniors.")
• Softube is one of the best, most meticulous developers of analog hardware emulations.
• The Roland and Softube emulations sound very much the same. DCO-106 doesn't sound like either one of them, nor does it sound like the hardware.

If you actually have an argument, let's hear it. (I mean your own argument, not a link to a Starsky video. The guy zooms in on oscillator waveforms for 15 minutes and misses the big picture.)

And just so we're clear, as I said earlier in this thread, I like Cherry Audio. I have all their plugins. A lot of them are really good, but DCO-106 is not one of the good ones.

[Gam456]

Yeah, I trialled Roland Cloud last night and was surprised at how much CPU usage they have. Already cancelled. Just wanted to compare the 106 to other similar emulations I have.

Wich one ?
Roland have a Juno 106 based on Zencore using ABM (analog behavior modeling)
and a Juno 106 based on ACB (analog circuit behavior ) way more cpu usage and accurate

[N 4 LIFE]

both emulations sound fantastic. the only problems they have are no response to knobs unless you use midi learn, and they do not respond well to midi 2.0 (high def midi) so you have to disable that on your controller while using them.

[briefcasemanx]

I own a Juno 106. I thought people were smoking crack when groupthink made everyone say the Roland Cloud Juno 106 was super accurate a few years ago. It doesn't sound like my 106, sounds pretty digital. An aside, but I think most people spend 2 minutes testing the filter and decide their entire opinion on a synth based on that, which is completely insane. Or most people have bad ears, I dunno.

The Softube version is much better and actually reminds me of my Juno. Softube's Prophet sounds more like an actual analog synth than the other prophet emulations as well, including Repro-5. The Roland's Juno Chorus sounds very nice though, I think they did a good job with the chorus which sounds more like the real thing than Arturia's (which isn't bad but lacks some juicyness).

The Cherry Audio synth doesn't really sound like a Juno but it sounds cool and has some wicked presets so it's worth the cheap price on its own merit.

[Lbdunequest]

Im surprised that people are shitting on DCO-06, its a better emulation of Juno then Roland cloud is.

If you mean DCO-106…no. It's really bad. Not even close.

And why do you say that? i argue that you are very wrong.

• I know what a Juno-106 sounds like. I've spent lots of time with the actual hardware.
• I have multiple other emulations to compare it to, and have compared them all extensively. I've copied many patches from each one to all the others and done my best to get them all to sound the same. I have no problems getting Roland's Juno-106 plugin and Softube Model 84 to sound exactly the same. They also sound just like the hardware that I know very well.
• No amount of tweaking will get DCO-106 to sound even remotely the same as the Roland or Softube emulations. Nor does it sound anything like the hardware. The chorus is wrong. The filter is wrong. It's not even close.
• Roland knows their own hardware better than anyone else. Hideki Izuchi, the original Juno-106 engineer, still works there, and was involved in making sure the emulation matches the hardware. (Takeshi Tojo: "This series is based on ACB (Analog Circuit Behavior) technology, so we modeled the circuitry of the originals, and took it as far as we could by ourselves first. But even then, we would come up against things that we couldn't figure out, so we would go speak with our seniors.")
• Softube is one of the best, most meticulous developers of analog hardware emulations.
• The Roland and Softube emulations sound very much the same. DCO-106 doesn't sound like either one of them, nor does it sound like the hardware.

If you actually have an argument, let's hear it. (I mean your own argument, not a link to a Starsky video. The guy zooms in on oscillator waveforms for 15 minutes and misses the big picture.)

And just so we're clear, as I said earlier in this thread, I like Cherry Audio. I have all their plugins. A lot of them are really good, but DCO-106 is not one of the good ones.

But you dont have the hardware now to compare?
Maybe you have blown out speakers? in uncalibrated studio? hearing loss? because Model 84 and Roland Cloud 106 sounds quite different here both in studio with proper setup and headphones.

[Arashi]

But you dont have the hardware now to compare?
Maybe you have blown out speakers? in uncalibrated studio? hearing loss? because Model 84 and Roland Cloud 106 sounds quite different here both in studio with proper setup and headphones.

If you want to claim Roland's plugin and Model 84 sound "quite different", show your work. Let's see the presets you used to come to that conclusion. Maybe one's just louder than the other. Maybe the filter cutoff doesn't match. Which one sounds similar to DCO-106? Are they both wrong? Post the actual presets if you can. If they're included with the plugins, which ones did you use?

As for me, I have a few presets I like to use to get a sense of how good a Juno emulation is. A great place to start is "A72 Pluck Sweep". It's one of the original factory presets on the hardware, and it's a really good demonstration of the character of both filters (LPF and HPF), envelope timing, the delayed LFO, and the type II chorus.

You'll find "A72 Pluck Sweep" in the factory presets of Model 84 and DCO-106. In Roland's plugin, it's called "1984 Pluck Sweep", but whoever made the patch didn't quite get it right, so I've attached my tweaked version. I'm not using any effects or tricks — I just tweaked the filters and volume. It's a bank with just one preset (there's no way to export individual presets), which you can import into the Roland plugin.

Load up all three synths and try them out. Play single notes — low ones and high ones. Play chords. Turn up your amazing "proper" headphones so you can hear the way the sound flutters as it fades away. It's a great preset.

Notice the Roland and Softube plugins sound really, really similar. You can pick out some subtle nuances, depending on which notes you play, but they are very close. Now play the same note(s) on DCO-106. It's immediately obvious that it sounds dull (because the filter is not modeled correctly) and lacks stereo width (because the chorus is not modeled correctly). The release curve is wrong too. Go ahead and try to fix the DCO-106 preset. You can try increasing the cutoff, or give it a bit more resonance, or adjust the ENV/KYBD amounts, but the filter character is still wrong. And of course there's nothing you can do about the chorus.

So this is just one example, and it's actually one of the ones where DCO-106 is sort of in the same ballpark (I picked this one because I'm trying to give it a fair shot). Now try "A46 Dark Pluck" — aka "1984 Dark Pluck" in the Roland version (in this case Roland's preset is close enough). I think this one speaks for itself.

There are a lot more examples, but I thought I'd start with those two and see if you want to keep going with this. If you still think I'm wrong, show me why.

[Ancientbehemoth]

Is the Arturia an actual emulation or is it purely sample based. Not sure why but I had the impression that their "synths" are sample based. Maybe the multi gigabyte size of them threw me off when I tried it 5 years ago

[beely]

Arturia don't make a Juno 106, they only do a Juno 6, which is a different instrument. Yes, their emulations are modelled, not based on samples.

[zvenx]

.....

I don't like any of the Roland Cloud Analog Synth (not drums) emulations either, and for sure much prefer the Tal ones than both Arturia and Roland Cloud.
But I agree with you about the softube one... they just have some magic sauce in their model series.

rsp

So after reading Arashi's comments about the Roland emulations, I went back to listen to them..
He is right, soundwise they do match Tal and Softube's excellence to me.. when I first got them I was on an intel macbook pro and they use to kill the cpu, but now on an apple silicon they play much better (well except for the xv 5080 but I digress from the analog emulation convo), it is their features and workflow I dont' like... arps that dont' work properly, no dual layer in the Jupiter 8, a now improved preset browser but one I sitll don't much like etc.

rsp

[Lbdunequest]

But you dont have the hardware now to compare?
Maybe you have blown out speakers? in uncalibrated studio? hearing loss? because Model 84 and Roland Cloud 106 sounds quite different here both in studio with proper setup and headphones.

If you want to claim Roland's plugin and Model 84 sound "quite different", show your work. Let's see the presets you used to come to that conclusion. Maybe one's just louder than the other. Maybe the filter cutoff doesn't match. Which one sounds similar to DCO-106? Are they both wrong? Post the actual presets if you can. If they're included with the plugins, which ones did you use?

As for me, I have a few presets I like to use to get a sense of how good a Juno emulation is. A great place to start is "A72 Pluck Sweep". It's one of the original factory presets on the hardware, and it's a really good demonstration of the character of both filters (LPF and HPF), envelope timing, the delayed LFO, and the type II chorus.

You'll find "A72 Pluck Sweep" in the factory presets of Model 84 and DCO-106. In Roland's plugin, it's called "1984 Pluck Sweep", but whoever made the patch didn't quite get it right, so I've attached my tweaked version. I'm not using any effects or tricks — I just tweaked the filters and volume. It's a bank with just one preset (there's no way to export individual presets), which you can import into the Roland plugin.

Load up all three synths and try them out. Play single notes — low ones and high ones. Play chords. Turn up your amazing "proper" headphones so you can hear the way the sound flutters as it fades away. It's a great preset.

Notice the Roland and Softube plugins sound really, really similar. You can pick out some subtle nuances, depending on which notes you play, but they are very close. Now play the same note(s) on DCO-106. It's immediately obvious that it sounds dull (because the filter is not modeled correctly) and lacks stereo width (because the chorus is not modeled correctly). The release curve is wrong too. Go ahead and try to fix the DCO-106 preset. You can try increasing the cutoff, or give it a bit more resonance, or adjust the ENV/KYBD amounts, but the filter character is still wrong. And of course there's nothing you can do about the chorus.

So this is just one example, and it's actually one of the ones where DCO-106 is sort of in the same ballpark (I picked this one because I'm trying to give it a fair shot). Now try "A46 Dark Pluck" — aka "1984 Dark Pluck" in the Roland version (in this case Roland's preset is close enough). I think this one speaks for itself.

There are a lot more examples, but I thought I'd start with those two and see if you want to keep going with this. If you still think I'm wrong, show me why.

I checked your suggested presets and Model 84 sounds very different then Roland Cloud version. Here is an audio file. Same presets you said, playing midi file. 1st is Softube, 2nd Roland and 3rd DCO. Yeah so here is my argument, i guess im right and you are wrong? I mean i just did what you suggested or i did somehow wrong that it sounds so different?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/m8q28slf ... 1176a&dl=0

One thing i agree on is Chorus, DCO chorus doesnt sound as good.

[chk071]

Discussing about "close or not close" is pretty pointless, as some people simply don't hear subtle differences. Or do or listen to basic sounds.

[D-Fusion]

But you dont have the hardware now to compare?
Maybe you have blown out speakers? in uncalibrated studio? hearing loss? because Model 84 and Roland Cloud 106 sounds quite different here both in studio with proper setup and headphones.

If you want to claim Roland's plugin and Model 84 sound "quite different", show your work. Let's see the presets you used to come to that conclusion. Maybe one's just louder than the other. Maybe the filter cutoff doesn't match. Which one sounds similar to DCO-106? Are they both wrong? Post the actual presets if you can. If they're included with the plugins, which ones did you use?

As for me, I have a few presets I like to use to get a sense of how good a Juno emulation is. A great place to start is "A72 Pluck Sweep". It's one of the original factory presets on the hardware, and it's a really good demonstration of the character of both filters (LPF and HPF), envelope timing, the delayed LFO, and the type II chorus.

You'll find "A72 Pluck Sweep" in the factory presets of Model 84 and DCO-106. In Roland's plugin, it's called "1984 Pluck Sweep", but whoever made the patch didn't quite get it right, so I've attached my tweaked version. I'm not using any effects or tricks — I just tweaked the filters and volume. It's a bank with just one preset (there's no way to export individual presets), which you can import into the Roland plugin.

Load up all three synths and try them out. Play single notes — low ones and high ones. Play chords. Turn up your amazing "proper" headphones so you can hear the way the sound flutters as it fades away. It's a great preset.

Notice the Roland and Softube plugins sound really, really similar. You can pick out some subtle nuances, depending on which notes you play, but they are very close. Now play the same note(s) on DCO-106. It's immediately obvious that it sounds dull (because the filter is not modeled correctly) and lacks stereo width (because the chorus is not modeled correctly). The release curve is wrong too. Go ahead and try to fix the DCO-106 preset. You can try increasing the cutoff, or give it a bit more resonance, or adjust the ENV/KYBD amounts, but the filter character is still wrong. And of course there's nothing you can do about the chorus.

So this is just one example, and it's actually one of the ones where DCO-106 is sort of in the same ballpark (I picked this one because I'm trying to give it a fair shot). Now try "A46 Dark Pluck" — aka "1984 Dark Pluck" in the Roland version (in this case Roland's preset is close enough). I think this one speaks for itself.

There are a lot more examples, but I thought I'd start with those two and see if you want to keep going with this. If you still think I'm wrong, show me why.

I checked your suggested presets and Model 84 sounds very different then Roland Cloud version. Here is an audio file. Same presets you said, playing midi file. 1st is Softube, 2nd Roland and 3rd DCO. Yeah so here is my argument, i guess im right and you are wrong? I mean i just did what you suggested or i did somehow wrong that it sounds so different?

https://www.dropbox.com/scl/fi/m8q28slf ... 1176a&dl=0

One thing i agree on is Chorus, DCO chorus doesnt sound as good.

The DCO 106 sounded very bright compared to the others in this one.

A Emulation has failed if it doesn't sound close to what it is emulating out of the box.
You can shape most synths to sound similar if you add effects and a Equalizer in the Chain.