The cheapest in the JUNO series, often mistaken for a homekeyboard but
a wolf in sheeps clothing! A Drexciyan secret superweapon and an
instant rave classic!
This is the most exotic sounding of all the Juno's, maybe not so warm
and wooley but certainly more juicy and creamy
and tighter..sporting a superliquid funky portamento, a keyboard with
aftertouch and velocity sensitivity and ofcourse, praise the lord, a
CHORD MEMORY! For those who don't know what that is: you can hold a
chord, press the chord memory button and then you can play that chord
with one finger monophonicly with portamento too if you want, instant
deepness!!!!!!!
The Alpha JUNO series (and its module version the MKS50) are pretty
similar in the synth dept. as the 106/60/6; a 1 DCO analog polysynth
with some little extra nicknacks added such as a DCO pitch envelope.
Unlike the other JUNOS there are no sliders and it uses tip touch
buttons, thats probably why its so cheap compared to the other ones but
its easy to edit with the buttons and even easier to connect any
standard MIDI controller and edit from there. Back in the days ROLAND
made the PG300 controller for this series but I dont have that
one but then again I dont really need it.
Roland made a couple of versions of
the ALPHA JUNOs. Apart from their looks they all sound the same:
the Alpha JUNO 1, which has a four octave keyboard and no aftertouch
and velocity
the Alpha JUNO 2 which has a 5 octave keyboard and aftertouch and
velocity on the keyboard.
the mysterious HS10 Synthplus 10 which is an Alpha Juno 1 with slightly
different
button colors and 1 built in speaker.
the even more mysterious HS80 Synthplus 80 a giant homekeyboard version
of the JUNO 2 with 2
build in speakers
the MKS50 a rack version of the Alpha Juno
Like a lot of Roland products of that era the aftertouch doesnt work
anymore on most ALPHAs today but yeah whatchamagonnadoaboutthat...
Listen to
some sounds of the Alpha JUNO:
Pulsewidth pads + some random poly sounds
Soft pads, effects and John Carpenter style bass
Resonant sweeps combined with chord memorized strings
Alpha Juno portamento organ sound filtered and layered with strings
Japan
1986
