KVR Audio

Korg Supporter · Post by **Korg Supporter** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 11:19 am

https://kayrock.org/kr106/

It contains a 1982 mode (based on circuits) and a 1984 mode (based on calibrated firmware). It is not meant to be completely accurate, but it's still cool for a freebie!

"Ultramaster Group was born in the year 2000, in a loft in Brooklyn, NY. Our bold mission: professional-grade audio software for the Linux ecosystem. We were young, idealistic, and perhaps a little bit ahead of our time.

Life eventually pulled us into different orbits. Karl went on to found the art and design powerhouse Kayrock Screenprinting, while Dave joined the engineering teams at Google. But the music never truly stopped.

Twenty-five years ago, we were targeting the Pentium Pro, working without the luxury of oscilloscopes, service manuals, or community hubs like ModWiggler and Reddit. Today, after decades spent designing Kayrock Powertools and scaling global infrastructure, we’ve returned to the Juno source code.

A lot has changed since the late 90s. Hardware is exponentially faster and DSP methodology has evolved. We have spent time heavily recalibrating and refining the engine for the modern era. While the interface remains intentionally familiar, the internal architecture has been overhauled for better performance and precision.

We are rereleasing Juno as an open-source project under the GPL to give back to the community that inspired us from the start. Our goal is to make this as accurate as humanly possible, and we would love for you to help us get there."

Teksonik · Post by **Teksonik** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 12:42 pm

Well it certainly has a 2000-ish quality GUI but at least there is resize up to 200%. No built in patch handling, relies on the DAW's system.

The sound is equally outdated as well although the string patches are nice enough.

All in all it's kind of a retro plugin of a retro hardware synth and a throwback to the early days of the VSTi world.

But it's free so thanks to the authors for their generosity.

zfyy · Post by **zfyy** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 1:50 pm

Vibecoded slop. the saw and sub-oscillator are aliasing like it's 2000. At least it matches the UI.
We only have one life, I'll choose to spend it with quality software.

Check this out lol, ridiculous: (warning: loud and unpleasant sounds) https://whyp.it/tracks/339518/aliasing

Cuauhtli · Post by **Cuauhtli** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 3:07 pm

Yeah, it's free and you can make music with any sound I guess. Even farts (see: Roger Waters Music From The Body), but this is pretty bad. The old Synth1 and krakli synths sound much better than this.

Korg Supporter · Post by **Korg Supporter** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 3:15 pm

Cuauhtli wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 3:07 pm Yeah, it's free and you can make music with any sound I guess. Even farts (see: Roger Waters Music From The Body), but this is pretty bad. The old Synth1 and krakli synths sound much better than this.

And so does Charlatan tbh

zfyy · Post by **zfyy** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 4:00 pm

Cuauhtli wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 3:07 pm Yeah, it's free and you can make music with any sound I guess. Even farts (see: Roger Waters Music From The Body), but this is pretty bad. The old Synth1 and krakli synths sound much better than this.

it's the same with that vibecoded OpenWurli thing that just got released (which discoDSP incorporated in their new RetroSlop thing), claims to be the best open-source wurlitzer and it has all this fancy ai-generated technical documentation
so i was ready to be blown away and when i test it the low octaves are basically f**king sine waves... there were better wurlitzer emus back in the synthedit days. i bet they believe their bullshit too.. i wish i could see their chat history with the ai

CapnLockheed · Post by **CapnLockheed** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 5:44 pm

AI....is bad Mmnnk?

autodafe · Post by **autodafe** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 6:13 pm

I made a comparison video yesterday (many updates since then!) and compared it to Roland own Juno-106 and Cherry Audio DCO-106, if you are interested

Tubeman · Post by **Tubeman** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 8:37 pm

autodafe wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 6:13 pm I made a comparison video yesterday (many updates since then!) and compared it to Roland own Juno-106 and Cherry Audio DCO-106, if you are interested

I think Roland slays both the free and the Cherry Audio one in this comparison. Quite a huge difference.

Korg Supporter · Post by **Korg Supporter** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 9:14 pm

Tubeman wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 8:37 pm
autodafe wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 6:13 pm I made a comparison video yesterday (many updates since then!) and compared it to Roland own Juno-106 and Cherry Audio DCO-106, if you are interested

I think Roland slays both the free and the Cherry Audio one in this comparison. Quite a huge difference.

And how does it fair with the Softube One? Model 84 sounds super gorgeous and has very drippy filter resonance!

Vortifex · Post by **Vortifex** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:00 pm

Edited: My mistake!

During my demo I experienced lots of clicks and distortion. Mono mode is borked. With so many other good Juno VSTs already I don't really need this.

Tubeman · Post by **Tubeman** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:46 pm

Korg Supporter wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 9:14 pm
Tubeman wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 8:37 pm
autodafe wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 6:13 pm I made a comparison video yesterday (many updates since then!) and compared it to Roland own Juno-106 and Cherry Audio DCO-106, if you are interested

I think Roland slays both the free and the Cherry Audio one in this comparison. Quite a huge difference.
And how does it fair with the Softube One? Model 84 sounds super gorgeous and has very drippy filter resonance!

I have no idea. Perhaps someone with the Softube and the Roland plugins should make a comparison video. The best would be of course to compare them all to the real Roland hardware.

Tubeman · Post by **Tubeman** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:50 pm

Vortifex wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 10:00 pm
autodafe wrote: Fri Mar 20, 2026 6:13 pm I made a comparison video yesterday (many updates since then!) and compared it to Roland own Juno-106 and Cherry Audio DCO-106, if you are interested

Would've been better if the Roland wasn't an octave lower than the other plugins for most of those examples...

From listening the audio and looking at the video visuals of the MIDI clips it does not look like the Roland is an octave lower. There just seems to be something missing from the two other emulations at least in these examples.

autodafe · Post by **autodafe** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 11:01 pm

The MIDI parts in my video are exactly the same (copy/paste), and so are the presets. To me it sounds like the Roland has almost always a louder sub-osc, so it seems an octave lower, but I can assure you that the MIDI notes sent to the 3 synths are exactly the same...

Vortifex · Post by **Vortifex** » Fri Mar 20, 2026 11:17 pm

Yeah you're right. My apologies for doubting your demo skills

I'm playing the Roland and the Cherry Audio synth right now and the sub osc on the Roland comes through much stronger. The Cherry synth sounds horrible in comparison tbh, really mushy and weak.

I think on the Cherry synth they didn't add the low frequency bump when the HPF is at 0.

Ultramaster KR-106 - Open-Source Juno 106 Emulation