Juno-106 Bad Voice Chip Glitch

Posted on January 12, 2011 by John C.S. Keston

As I mentioned in my last article, I was quite disappointed that my Juno-106 arrived with a bad 80017a voice chip, not to mention a laundry list of other technical and cosmetic problems. However, in some ways I enjoyed the challenge of getting it back in working order. All the research, soldering, and fussing with the electronics was kind of rewarding in the long run.

Another thing I wanted to explore were the glitches I could get out of it while the voice chip was bad. So, I recorded 20 minutes of crackly, warbled, weirdness while adjusting sliders and pressing buttons. I’ll be sharing more bits and pieces of this in upcoming articles. For now, here’s an excerpt of glitches from the first few seconds of my experimentation.

Roland Juno-106 Glitch from Bad Voice Chip

Roland Juno-106 with Bad Voice Chip Restored

Posted on January 11, 2011 by John C.S. Keston

Back in November I wrote an article titled What is Your Favorite Poly Synth? discussing mostly vintage polyphonic synthesizers. One of them that kept coming up was the Roland Juno-106. Researching these popular synths, I found that they are fairly easy to come by, and usually reasonably priced. I found a great deal on one and snapped it up only to discover that it had the dreaded voice chip problem. Fortunately the seller agreed to refund part of the purchase price to help pay for the repairs. Six weeks later I have finally got it up and running, but it took some doing. Read on for more, and the the synth sound of the day.

Continue reading →

Roland D50 Microtrack No. 5

Posted on January 10, 2011 by John C.S. Keston

This microtrack was made with a D-50 factory preset called Twilight Zone. The D-50 is quite capable of generating sophisticated special effects. Still looking for a PG-1000, but might start using some librarian software specifically designed for the D-50 to at least be able to use a mouse or track pad to program patches.

Twilight Zone

Roland D50 Microtrack No. 4

Posted on January 9, 2011 by John C.S. Keston

The D-50 factory preset, A Fifth of Space, used in this microtrack sounds remarkably analog, a result of the unique linear arithmetic synthesis model that Roland debuted in this instrument.

A Fifth of Space

Roland D50 Microtrack No. 3

Posted on January 8, 2011 by John C.S. Keston

This is the third in my series of Roland D-50 microtracks. Once again I used an evolving factory preset. This one is called Soundtrack and Hold. What I like particularly about this sound are the harmonic textures and the spacial qualities presented. There’s some serious ping pong going on if you listen on headphones.

Soundtrack n Hold