Roland AlphaJuno-01

I don't think the alpha juno is that hard to use as they all say it is, If you know previous versions of the juno

It's the simple synth (DCO - VCF - VCA with LFO and Env) with classic juno chorus and last night I just discovered the "Unision" thingy! wow it's rocks, also the portamento I like when it's fast. But the best feature for me is the chord mem! has no other synth done this!

It does lush low bass and hoover - me happy with that!

it works fine but it looks like it doesn't hence are large hole at the side of the machine

don't talk to me abot customer support, I thought the whole idea is the people know what a "reply" is and people know how long over a month is!

It beats my crap casio HZ600 synth!

the presets are good starting points... I think by todays standards..you wouldn't think of using any of the guitars or "harmonicas"!!! but Bass, strings, pads and anyhting that is supposed to be done with a synth is usable. Use a computer editor or the Pg-300 hardware editor (if you can find one) Sound Diver is great..but a few freeware editors like EZalpha are out there too and come with banks of presets usually. Its not HARd to program with the alpha dial but Ive always hated adjusting "Time and Length" enveloped thru a menu...
I dont have a hard copy of the manual but the .PDF is easy to find.

CHORD MEMORY... if you don't just love this button then you haven't figured it out yet. You can hold down a couple hittons and play a chord...the Juno remembers the chrod and then you can transpose that chord around with one finger... NOw forget about the obvious use...thats plenty cool... but you can use this button to layer up freaky complex intervals and then slide them around with one finger....combine with portamento.. this is what phat mean
No velocity or aftertouch on the keyboard..but it does respond to velocity and aftertouch ... so hook it to some thing for gawds sake it can be much more expressive if you can throw your weight into it


Im not going to give this thing a bad rating just cuz it doesn' t do 20 things.. it does one thing...sound good.. like any "organic" instrument.. its has one purpose..one use that it does well. it "Juno-fies" and there are only a few peices of gear (junos) that can do that.. so if you see one and you like it buy it.. cuz you'll never get close enough with an emulation on your bigass triton or whatever and they are cheap.. I bought mine for 60

The only built in effect is chorus and really you'll probably have it on all the time if you've read this far into the review. You want to HOOVER right.... how can you not.. but dude hook it up to the a real keyboard.. with aftertouch and really throw yourself at it ass. make it hurt... its analog...abit tainted..but analogue... it will freak out if you push it hard...(at least mine does). run it hot on the desk with some verbage. and you'll be in a dream.

For you freaks that are still reading..... start withe the "what the" preset and modify a more responsive patch..... put the Amplifer envelope to DGATE and so on and so on.... Record your stabs into a sequencer using the junos enresponsive keyboard.. arm a second track with the input being your more responseive aftertouch equiped keyboard and filter out the notes.. now record aftertouch passes for you r juno ... I beat the fucking shit out of some drum pads using this setup and end up modulating to places unkown..

its a tank...well a plastic tank... but it will not die.. mine was cracked up when i bought it and is duct taped together rightnow. it has never lost memory. It will on occassion get whack nastay....but this is momentary state and its a good thing ... unless I suppose its right in the middle of your "Heart must go on" solo...pussy!!@#$%

who cares this thing is old... if its broken take it to a repair shop
plenty of users out there willing to "support" this synth. WWW,Synthzone.com has sooo much stuff.

Im giving it a 10 becuz I can..

Id buy another one if I come across one.. that goes for an alpha juno 2 or a mk-50 rackmount-- its all the same ..mo' or less

another opportunity to be obsene...alrite then
Porno Pornro Porno

again a 10

I believe that this synth was made in 1986, which explains why it sounds like it was used on a huge number of 80's songs. It seems to be pretty easy to use without a manual. Editing patches is super easy with the data wheel and paging through the parameters with the parameter button.

This synth is 6-note poly with a decent MIDI implementation for an analog device. You can save and load via MIDI or a tape recorder. There is no on-board sequencer. There are 64 presets and 64 user sounds for a total of 128 presets.

The sounds are great!!! Admittedly, the pianos don't sound like real pianos but do you really want them to? I sure don't. I have an XP-60 for the "real" piano sounds. My favorite sound is the noise blips which can add a lot to a rhythm track. The sweeps are good and the bass that can be produced blows away my MS2000 and Vintage Synth expansion card. There are a lot of great strings, pads, sound effects, etc. It's all very techno sounding.

It's 15 years old, missing the modulation joystick and still working just fine. I don't like to use the pitch bend/modulation effects when I play anyway. It's built pretty solidly so I don't think there will be a problem with it.

It's probably not available from Roland for a 15-year old synth.

If lost or stolen I would look for another one on EBay. This is a great synth for the $$$. I've got some pretty cool digital gear but the analog Alpha Juno 1 will complement my setup very nicely!

The PResets are fine, but you could come up with some wikked sounds by tweking the paramters of the presets. Dont have a patch editor, but the alpha dial makes it a gem to program. No manula, you can figure it out very easy, easy to save sounds and make sounds.

I think its like 4 or 6 polyphony? Only effect Ive noticed is the classic roland analouge chorus. Its not really expandable and it has no sequencer, but it has FULL MIDI capabilites..full analouge and full midi what mroe do you want from life?!?! I let me freind borrow this keyboard and he just bought a jx-3p. He loved this keyboard and almost shed tears when I took it back. He said the Jx-30 had "prehistoric" midi and only cma up on one channel and he wished he had this as his analouge machine opposed to his jx-3p just for the midi functions. 13 midi channels in all. I use it as a controller for my akai s2000 and for my Cubase sequencer.

Really well for techno and electronic, dance music. Classic techno noises from the early days of rave and techno. Makes the infamous "Dominator." Perfect for those classic "Hoover/Reece/Trace" basslines found in Ray Kieth, Trace and old Ed Rush and Optical track(with some distrotion added, mind you)
The sound is a little noisy, meaning theres some airy sounds, but when you filter the sounds, it sounds kinda nice.
If your into techno, more htan likley youve heard this keyboard, used by Joey Beltram,Program 2, Prodigy, Trace etc etc.
It is touch sensitve and can create quite a different noise when hitting the keys harder.

Yes, veyr light, perfect controller, once again analouge AND full midi!! Only thing thats happned to it is the pitch bend wheel got off track..easily fixed, IMHO. Other than that, the perfect keyboard, fit son my computer desk and easy to take everywhere.

No need for an upgrade and dont need a manual...not sure hwo roland support is?

If it were stolen, id get back on ebay and try to find another. If I couldnt get another I dont knwo what I would do. Ive had it about 8 months and tweak a new noise almost once a day. Its perfect for me as aI cna get near 303 noises and silky analouge strings. Its perfect with my Berhinger dsp1000 and great for d&b. I use it as my controller for my akai s2000 and my cubase sequencer on my macintosh g4. One of the best keyabords I have come in contact with for ease of use, capabilites and sounds for the price. get one if you can, FULL MIDI FULL ANALOUGE!

Dont worry about the presets, although there are some classic patches from the dayz of rave. This synth is so easy to programme. I had tried one out before with the pg300 programmer and was worried about getting one without, but its fine without.....one of the easiest to programme, i cant believe it! I will admit that it is even better with the programmer, but if you dont have one it wont hold you back.

Polyphony is 6, which is fine,the only onboard effect is the chorus which is really nice.The keyboard on the alpha juno 1 hasnt got velocity or anything but the unit itself responds to velocity and aftertouch so asume that you will use this as more of a sound module than a performance keyboard (its 4 octave...check the alpha juno 2 for a better keyboard).
No onboard sequencer but it has a really nice chord memory which alows you to playback chords from just one key. You wouldnt believe how much fun this is.

I absolutely love the sounds. Im a big fan of the Juno 106, and these are definately in the same family but i feel the alpha has much more attitude whereas the 106 has more warmth.
Im never too sure of the technical details of whats under the hood of a synth, i listen with my ears and the alpha juno just simply sounds great.You can get sounds ranging from really biting basses to dreamy pads via abstract noise. Its a really flexible synth.

I cant imagine there being any problems with this synth.....just treat it nice and it will be nice back.

simply a great synth! I'll let everyone else spend their life savings on nice looking virtual analog synths (with absolutely no substance) and i'll go around buying up total bargins like this.
This is a Techno/old skool hardcore monster. It's 91/92 in a box,but its also so much more.......i love it.

Turn it on, give the alpha dial a spin, and you'll be producing tripped out sounds in no time. The manual is crap but you won't need it, i think i've spent all of 5 minutes looking at it. The presets are basically crap. Some people seem to like the synth leads, i think they're pretty gross, but i'm not really into stuff like that. Notable exception is for the ambient sounds ("twilite zone", "ufo", etc) which are excellent, that's where this baby shines. Pre-set bass and string sounds are alright too. I don't have a programmer and at the moment i feel no need for one, and I see no disadvantage to using the alpha dial for editing. Some people gripe that this makes real-time editing impossible, this is not true, although it is a bit more difficult. Turning the dial always adjusts the amount evenly/incrementally...call up an organ sound and turn the LFO up gradually with the dial and you'll produce a sound not unlike the start of the Chemical Brothers "hey boy hey girl".

polyphony is 6. not being a keyboard player by nature i have yet to grasp the concept of "action". i don't use any midi either. it doesn't accept a memory card but only a wanker would need more than 64 patches on this thing. no on-board sequencer but who cares, playing it is too much fun.

no realistic instrument sounds whatsoever. but the strings are fabulous, very reminiscent of New Order. Mess around with the envelopes on the strings and you can produce some really haunting and beautiful sounds. On the other hand throw in some LFO and you've got yourself a wonderful noisy mess. Organ sounds suck, unfortunately, i haven't tried manipulating them much yet, however check out the StringOrgan preset for a good idea of some possibilities. Brass is a laughable disgrace, but who cares, its basically only there to laugh at. And why would you use this for the piano sounds..ha! Basically this is a fabulous keyboard for tripped out noises, ambient sounds, effects, hard basses, an all-purpose synth for electronic music. I'm also using it for some Slowdive-type really delayed sounds and it's great, also great for Shadow/Portishead type weird sounds. Especially if you have a sampler, i sample the hell out of this thing then mess around with delay and reverb or reverse the sound, very cool. On-board chorus is not too bad and can produce some cool swirly effects. The PWM rocks as mentioned.

Seems pretty damn dependable. But i've only had it for a few weeks. Hell it's 15 years old and still sounds fresh, it's a workhorse.

never dealt with Roland. hopefully never will.

i absolutely love this synth. you simply can't find anything better for the money and i know if you're reading this review you may be strapped for cash. my advice: buy this, you won't be disappointed! it's all about your creativity in creating wild sounds. you have to be patient, and possibly stoned, but this thing will surprise you. not to mention it is all purpose, hell you could use this for some Kool Keith type beats and it would sound awesome, i would recommend this to anyone unless you're an extreme analog purist - this is a space synth, not a moog. Overall a great synth. Oh and since people often overlook this in favor of the AJ-2 you can find these for next to nothing!! Have fun!!!

I picked this little (4 octave) beast up in '92 and I can't seem to stop using it, no matter what other newer toys I acquire. For anybody that's used anything else, you can pretty much dive in and work it without a manual, which is good, because the manual is crap. This keyboard doesn't try to fool you into liking it with useless bells and whistles; the controls are as simple as possible, and all of the editing is done with sub-menus and the alpha dial. Just dive in and start noodling around with the Alpha, because its completely intuitive. The presets are, well junk if you are looking for anything to sound like something real, and can sound very dated if you just accept them as is. External effects are a must. Get the programmer, I found one for under $50, and it makes life much easier.

You can play 6 notes at once, but I have found I have to alter my playing style with this machine anyway. I usually run it through a phaser/distortion or some other noisy goop, and found that keeping it simple with just fifths, or diads, even octaves keeps the sound from getting too dirty. You throw a third in there and it just gets nasty. The only effect is a simulated chorus effect, but if you really want one, use something else. Route it through a good echo box and you have some killer sounds for technoindustrial tracks. The Alpha is bare bones, but that's a plus because it keeps things simple. If you want velocity, use a remote controller (which I would recommend anyway). The one thing I do like is the old Roland pseudojoystick pitch bend+mod control, which is not meant for precision, but for live play, well, I'm just surprised I never snapped the damn thing off.

If you want realism, stop reading this now and go somewhere else. This is a great machine for Techno, Electronic, Industrial, whatever other catchy names you care to add for music that involves low end sub sweeps, grinding saw leads, big fat pulses, what have you. Don't be afraid to get under the hood on this thing, because it's very simple and you have access to some amazing flexibility with just a few keypresses. I remember playing a gig where the industrial act that preceded my band was in shock when the saw that all I was using was this board and 2 stomp boxes.. one of the best compliments I can give. The keyboard sucks, the chord memory feature is actually useful (you can fatten a sound nicely just by doubling the octave, etc.) Get an expresion pedal and use it to change the dynamics, this will open up many more possibilities. I give this machine a very high rating because of what it can do and not for the many things it can't.

I have beaten mine to death. It's had beer on it, raw meat, makeup, blood, and God knows what else. It's been kicked over, dropped, trampled by dogs, moshed into, etc. It still works perfectly. There's no disk drive, no real moving parts, so there's not much to go bad. I've forgotten the power cord in the past and had to jam some shovel connectors on the end of a stripped lamp cord at the last minute, and used it successfully(no wall warts or lump in the line transformers).

Never had a problem.

I would do whatever I could to replace this unit should I ever lose it or have it fail. It's simple to use, I don't have to think about what I'm doing to make a sound, I just start turning the wheel. These are great boards for the sounds you can make. They are like an old analog but with MIDI and an led. If you've ever tried to program the Yamaha DX series, this is cake by comparison.

Couldn't be simpler to use. A few button pushes and a quick alpha dial.
I've heard a few people saying it's hard to program without the Pg programmer. All I have to say about this is
those people must have trouble buttoning their own clothes. The PG
does make the JU-1 more fun as you get a slider for many of the parameters
, but the 2nd hand prices of these is getting ridiculous. Get something
like a Peavey PC1600 Controller, it'll control the ALpha's as well as tons of
other synths.

I believe the polyphony is 6...it's monotimbral anyways, so 6 is plenty
for chords and such....Keyboard action? What keyboard action? The keyboard
is basic, no velocity or aftertouch, but the synth itself will respond to these
messages from an external keyboard or sequencer. The keyboard has an ok feel...very
"synthy" full sized keys. There are no expansion capabilities that I know of...you'll
have to get an AJ2 which accepts patch memory cards...if you can find them that is, haha.
The midi is pretty good, it responds to velocity, aftertouch, etc. There is no onboard
sequencer, thank god. It's a very versatile synth that is often unfairly compared to the
Juno106...the AlphaJuno sounds little like a Juno106, I should know because I owned both.
You may get some similarities in pizzicato tones and such, but the filters are quite different.
The Juno106 is more dominating and harder to mix...the Alphas sit well in a mix with little headache.
While the 106's are proficient in bass tones and fx, the Alphas specialize in melt-like-butter-make-you-
wanna-cry pads and ethereal pads. With a bit of tweaking, the bass tones on the Alphas can easily lay on
the skank as well! Quite versatile!

This is a straight up synth. Don't get this expecting to have a showdown
with the perfect piano sounds of Dewey, Screwthem, Buttholes, and Howe. It could
easily be used in any type of music, though. I've heard it was designed for
experimental jazz musicians like Herbie Hancock in mind. There's really no onboard
effects, other than lovely little chorus section (good, but not as good as a 106's chorus).
It reacts well to realtime manipulation via the alphadial...the filter probably isn't as "fat"
as a Jx or such, but it's pure analog and sounds wonderful with rising cutoff. What makes me laugh
is that many superficial folks dismiss these because they look like Dx7's or something with their
membrane buttons. I love the membrane buttons, actually...no dirt and dust.
The only weak spot is the noisy outputs...this synth and the 106 have that Roland characteristic ungrouded
loop you can usually hear when everythings quiet. I might actually try the headphone trick a previous reviewer
mentioned...the stereo outs are indeed a bit noisey, particularly with chorus on. Also, it may just be mine, but
if I have a sound with a short, fast attack, I get some annoying 'popping'. I've heard this is an annoyance on
several other synths...it certainly was on my 106 as well.

I would take it out on a gig...I'd be very careful with it though...definitely
take an SKB case. I had an AJ2 on it that had a couple of bad contacts, which
seems to be the bane with alot of Roland synths from the 80's. Cost around
$100 to get it fixed by a tech.

Never dealt with them...their website sucks though, no email support staff, and their contact and parts information is buried underneath a bunch of Groove B.S. and 'DR202 Users for Jesus' User Group Listings.
I've heard good things, and I've heard bad things. It just depends on the employee you happen to reach, I suppose.

I love it's silky sound and ethereal tones, and I love the very comprehensive and editable Envelope section which is great for evolving pads.
I've heard the envelopes are more extensive than the Jx's and others'. I don't like the noise and "poppiness" in the signal that I sometimes get.
I might buy another one if something happened to mine. It was my first synth, and the place
I bought it from had it patched into a P.A. After hitting one note of the Polysynth preset and playing with the filter, I was sold.
However, people are starting to think they can charge outrageous prices for these because
"JUNO" is in its title. These, like the 106, are not very hard to find. It's a good analog synth with digital control, but
I wouldn't pay more than $300, as you're getting into Jx8p territory. And don't
let anyone trick you into paying an outrageous price like $500 for one because they
happen to have a Pg200 with it...for a couple hundred bucks or so you can get a Peavey PC1600
which will give you tons of realtime control over this and several other modules.

Fairly easy to use considering all the functions are in a hidden menu. This was probabbly the first synth to use an "Alpha Dial". I wish that Roland wasn't trying to copy the DX7 at the time and stuck with their philosophy of using knobs for everything. This synth is a monster with the programmer, knobs for everything. There is a rackmout version of this synth called the mks-50.

Presets are not meant to be realistic, this is a synthesizer, not a ROMpler like an Emu Proteus 1 or a Roland XP-39. Anyone looking for a realistic piano is looking in the wrong place, although there are some nice synthetic piano sounds.

A patch editor such as Unisyn or Sounddiver is a huge plus on this synth. After much research I found out that I needed to turn the sysex option from the midi area off and back on each time the synth was turned on, then I could get an editor to work. When used with Unisyn or Sounddiver this keyboard is monstrous!!!

Super Jupiter look out!!

Manual? haha I bought this used! If someone has the manual I will pay cash for a xerox copy please email me at pawl@home.com

6 voice polyphonic, not multitimbral, built in chorus that's it, there is a programmer available for it. There is a midi dump capability but I can't remember if I've ever gotten that to work. It does respond to midi sysex in realtime which is a plus but it must be set up correctly every time it's turned on (see above.)

This little board is a full fledged little monster of a synth, it has a resonant lowpass ANALOG filter and it has digital oscilators, probabbly one of the first of it's kind. It also has Pulse width modulation which does some very trippy effects, think Rave here. It also has a HIGH pass filter, something I think most people overlook. A lot of people don't know what good a high pass filter is. If there is a boomy bass that is drowning the drums, turn on the high pass and the mix clears up instantly.

For what this synth does it does it very, very well.

The sound is very analog and distinctive, it sounds very much like the Super Jupiter. I've gotten many sounds out of it that sound very much like a Minimoog or a Moog Taurus. Even though it can do some sounds other synths can it has it's own unique flavor that just cannot be reproduced by any other synth.

I found that the regular outputs are fairly noisy so I just use the headphone out jack with a Y cable going from headphone jack to 1/4 inch. I would rate this keyboard a 9 if I couldn't bypass the noisiness somehow.

The built in keyboard plays all notes at a velocity of 64, but when played from a velocity sensitive keyboard the filter and amp respond to velocity very nicely.

There are 64 preset rom patches and 64 user patches.

This synth is good for any electronic music particularly techno, trance and ambient. Electronic music is all about the sounds, and this little bugger has them. :-)

This is a very dependable little synth, no new problems with it since I bought it. When I bought it the modulation and the chord memory weren't working. I use another controller keyboard and modulation works fine from it.

This keyboard is not meant for gigging, I wouldn't let this keyboard out of my studio under any circumstances.

I've never even tried to call Roland, their reputation preceeds them. They suck at tech support from what I hear. Maybe I should give them a try and ask if I can get a manual.... hmm maybe not.

I would rebuy this synth in a second, although I would consider the MKS-50 also because it is a rackmount version. I would also buy the programmer.

I've been playing for almost 10 years now. I've owned the Juno-1 for about 5 of those years and I still love the sound. I also had a Korg Poly-800 but I sold it because of it's lack of sysex and midi features. I would also buy the Poly-800 again because it has a unique Additive synthesis and Subtrative synthesis architecture not found anywhere else.

When I bought this little Alpha Juno-1 I thought it had some good synth sounds that's all, no nice pianos, no acoustic guitar samples, just a ton of great synth sounds. I had no idea I was buying one of the most sought after synths ever made, everyone has used this synth. The Orb, Prodigy (Firestarter empyreon mix), Lords of Acid, possibly everyone in Techno has heard of this synth. This little beasty is an unknown legend in its time.

well, the presets are decent. the 'Polysynth' presets make for GREAT leads.
Synth wise - none of the presets are really bad at all. Menu editing is kinda ruff at first. You can get the
hang of it with time, but the optional PG-300 programmer would make things ALOT easier and FASTER. but the Alpha dial REALLY rocks for editing.
The manual tells you nothing really that you can't figure out on your own. I looked at it yesterday and it told me nothing i didn't
already know after having it for now, a week. i'd give it a 6 for no knobs or sliders, but that Alpha Dial really is somethin' else.

6 voice polyphony, Portamento (i love this feature for leads), Chord Memory. The keyboard ain't all that. It isn't weighted, but i don't play keys as much as i sequence with midi so i could care less. The Chorus is very lush.
no expansions, midi's decent, no sequencer/arppregiator. This is an ANALOGUE SYNTH, so its good for ANALOGUE sounds (i.e. FAT, THICK!!)
its no miracle workstation. but it does what it does with alot of integrity.

Well as everyone knows... these things weren't made to replicate instruments.
But if you want some deeeeeeep thick chords - this is the board for you. As non-realistic as
the sounds are, i feel it to be very humanized. the warmth this thing puts out is just amazing.
best used for house and techno.

Well it was made 13 years ago. I got mine in excellent condition, but i'm still gonna have a tech/friend give it a run through quality check so that WHEN i DO take it on the road (And i plan on doing so), i won't be so worried.

see above - 13 years. i don't think so.

i love it i love it i love it. its in a class of its own. i bought this synth because its sound is soooo distinct - i could pick it out of songs. and as distinct as it is - it can still be personalized.
plus they aren't that expensive at all. $250-$300 is a good price, around $500 w/ a PG300, but you don't NEEED a PG300.
i'm gonna get one though.