Roland Alpha Juno 1 (1985)

 

The last of the Classical Juno series mainly aimed at low-cost target.

It features some interesting hybrid analog / digital characteristics with Midi interface... stilll worth a buy?

KEYBOARD featuring 49 keys with no Velocity / Aftertouch.
The main plastic panel has 28 membrane buttons and a big wheel encoder called "Alpha Dial" that edits all Parameters values on the LCD blue display.
Just a few knobs: edit is definitively NOT an easy task! however there are four "shortcuts" functions called "TONE MODIFY" for direct access to Envelope Attack / Brilliance VCF Cutoff / Modulation Depth / Modulation Rate.
The left side board has a Joystick that works as Pitch bender and Modulation (pushing forward). Just nearby some buttons dedicated to performance acting labeled "Octave Transpose", "Portamento Switch" and "Chord mode memory" (outputs also MIDI notes).
Behind the synthesizer there are these connection: Midi I/O, Tape I/O, Stereo output, headphones jack and three pedals inputs for Volume pedal for expression (Volume, Aftertouch and Dynamics), two footswitches for HOLD and an assignable functions (between Patch UP / Portamento / Chord memory).

AC is external with OLD 2-prongs connectors.

VOICE main core CPU Intel 8032AH manages six voices.
Each voice has one DCO with variable octave range from 4' to 32' based on custom Roland IC MB87123P-G which is able to layer and mix these waveforms:

- Pulse from three different shapes, the last one has Width adjustment.
- Sawtooth from five different shapes, with PWM.
- Sub-oscillator Pulse or Saw waveforms with one or two octave lower.
- White noise just control on mix Volume.

The resulting sound is bit quite weird producing a "raw-dirty" sound with some digital background, not necessary a bad point.

LFO one single Low frequency Oscillator with Frequency rate, Delay / Start assignable to VCA and VCF- each destination with individual Depth but share same rate frequency.

FILTER Multimode analog resonant filter with CPU quantised values based on IR3R05 (like Jx10/8/mks70). The JU-1 filter has four poles with Low-Pass and four preset rates High-Pass level.

ENVELOPE just one EG for Amplitude and Filter with Polarity inversion or driven by Dynamics (expression pedal). EG has four stages segments and three time levels called "A/A/B/B/D/S/R" with Key Follow (keytracking) function for Amplitude compensation over octaves.

EDIT Full Midi Exclusive system with a computer software or directly use the dedicated optional programmer called "Pg-300" . Sadly PGs seem to be hard to find and sometimes could reach higher price than the Alpha Juno itself.

FX analog stereo Chorus based on traditional MN3101 - MN3009 (like Juno 60 or Jx3p) with adjustable rate in a good old Roland fashioned way! the chorused sound floats around your speaker using stereo outputs.

MIDI very very basic Control Changes and a pretty decent Midi buffer, you need it, especially when dealing with PG-300 to avoid data overflows,

MEMORY 64 ROM sounds and 64 RAM ones- no way to expand memory in any internal or external media. All internal settings are memory backup on a lithium CR-2032 soldered to the mainboard. Nota: alpha Juno II have cartridge facility called "M64-C" (the same found on tr-707, jx10, mks-80).

ALPHA JUNO FAMILY MODELS :

- Alpha Juno 2 -bigger! with a five octave Velocity and aftertouch sensitive keyboard (INFO PAGE)
-HS-10 - Basically an alpha juno1 with different case (INFO)
- MKS-50 one rack mounting unit with some enhancements like Detuning, Portamento and a double RAM memory.
- PG-300 programmer compatible with all the JUNO series (INFO)

"Sanxion" theme all sounds by A juno and with Roland TR-606 drum machine.   The famous HOOVER gabber sounds

 

- cute, easy to carry
- still a Juno !
- strange DCOs

- editing
- EG / LFO
- no arpeggiator

It always been a "near classical" but non classical. Still a little good analog with good bassess but pretty limited.However the oscillators have something weird and "digital". Try it before buying , it can be an original cheap of analog sounds.

Second hand price: 200 euro