Released in 1982, the Roland Juno-60 was a six-voice programmable polyphonic analogue synthesizer that built on the architecture of the earlier Roland Juno-6 while adding two important capabilities: programmable patch memory and Roland’s DCB digital communications interface. These additions transformed an already straightforward polyphonic synthesiser into a far more practical instrument for stage and studio use, allowing sounds to be stored, recalled and integrated with other compatible Roland equipment.
The Roland Juno-60 uses a 61-key, five-octave keyboard and provides six-note polyphony. Each voice is built around a digitally controlled oscillator, or DCO, combining analogue synthesis with digitally controlled pitch stability. The oscillator section provides multiple waveforms along with a sub oscillator and noise source, while pulse width can be controlled manually or modulated from the LFO or envelope generator. The sub oscillator operates one octave below the main oscillator and can be mixed with the other sources to increase the range of available sounds.
The Roland Juno-60 signal path includes a switchable high-pass filter followed by the main voltage-controlled low-pass filter. The VCF provides cutoff frequency and resonance controls together with envelope modulation, LFO modulation and keyboard tracking. The keyboard follow control can progressively alter the relationship between filter cutoff and keyboard pitch, reaching full tracking when set to maximum.
Amplitude is handled by the VCA, which can be controlled from either the envelope generator or a gate signal. The Roland Juno-60 provides an ADSR envelope generator with attack, decay, sustain and release controls, allowing the same straightforward slider-based approach used throughout the instrument. The LFO provides adjustable rate and delay, together with automatic and manual triggering modes, and can be routed to several synthesis parameters.
One of the defining elements of the Roland Juno-60 is its chorus section. Two chorus settings can be selected individually, substantially extending the range of sounds obtainable from the single-DCO-per-voice architecture. The chorus became an important part of the identity of the early Roland Juno instruments and remains one of the characteristics most closely associated with the Roland Juno-60.
The programmable memory system stores 56 sounds arranged as seven banks of eight patches. Stored data includes settings from the LFO, DCO, HPF, VCF, VCA, envelope and chorus sections, together with the octave transpose setting. Program selection is accompanied by a digital display, while sounds can be edited without immediately overwriting the stored program. A copy function was also provided to simplify reorganising patches.
Roland additionally equipped the Roland Juno-60 with a cassette tape interface for external storage. Patch information could be saved to tape and subsequently loaded back into the synthesiser, with a verify function allowing recorded data to be checked. This provided effectively removable storage beyond the internal 56-program memory at a time when inexpensive digital storage for musical instruments was not yet commonplace.
Performance facilities are unusually comprehensive for the relatively simple synthesis architecture. The Roland Juno-60 includes an arpeggiator with up, down and up/down modes, a selectable range of as many as three octaves and variable rate. The arpeggiator can also follow an external clock signal. A Hold function allows as many as six notes to continue sounding after the keys are released and can also be used with the arpeggiator.
Key Transpose allows the Roland Juno-60 keyboard to be shifted to another key while retaining familiar fingering, while the octave transpose control extends the effective keyboard range by one octave above or below the physical five-octave keyboard. The performance panel also provides a bender lever, separate DCO and VCF bend sensitivity controls, an LFO trigger button and volume control.
Another important feature was DCB, Roland’s Digital Communication Bus. The rear-panel DCB connection allowed the Roland Juno-60 to exchange control information with compatible external equipment such as the Roland MC-4 MicroComposer. DCB appeared immediately before MIDI became the industry standard and represents an important stage in Roland’s development of digitally interconnected electronic instruments.
Historically, the Roland Juno-60 became one of the defining models of the early Roland Juno family. The Roland Juno-6 had introduced the basic six-voice DCO architecture, but the addition of patch storage and DCB made the Roland Juno-60 substantially more practical in professional use. Its combination of stable tuning, six-voice polyphony, direct front-panel programming, onboard memory, arpeggiator and chorus helped make programmable polyphonic synthesis accessible to a much wider group of musicians during the early 1980s.
The Roland Juno-60 also arrived at an important transitional point in synthesiser design. Its DCO architecture retained an analogue synthesis signal path while using digital control to improve oscillator stability, while DCB demonstrated the growing importance of communication between instruments. MIDI would supersede proprietary systems such as DCB shortly afterwards, but the Roland Juno-60 stands as an important bridge between the predominantly analogue polysynths of the late 1970s and the increasingly digitally controlled and interconnected instruments that followed.
Features
- Six-voice programmable polyphonic synthesis
- 61-key, five-octave keyboard with octave transpose
- Digitally controlled oscillator architecture with sub oscillator and noise source
- Voltage-controlled low-pass filter with resonance, envelope, LFO and keyboard modulation
- Two selectable chorus settings
- 56 internal patch memories arranged as seven banks of eight programs
- Cassette tape patch storage with save, load and verify functions
- Arpeggiator with up, down and up/down modes and external clock capability
- Hold, Key Transpose and performance controller functions
- DCB interface for communication with compatible Roland equipment
