Roland Juno-6

If you are familiar with subtractive sythesis then it is easy to program. every sound is where the sliders show you they are. no presets, no frills, all original sounds. I love it. I'd give it a 10 but realize not all people are familiar with programming synths. Presets are nice, but its good to learn why a sound has certain charcteristics. this synth will teach you that.

Arp is awesome. couple it with a tr-707 or tr-606 for the gate and you have a powerful machine. I love the arp. I can midi sync my 707 and send trigger data to the juno 6 and i have perfect timing. No midi is a bummer at times, but I get by with making multiple passes on my recordings. nothing like inconvenience to spark creativity. I love limitations. thats what i hate about modern gear. too many options and nothing gets accomplished. features were great for its time, but i embrace any lack of features.

it sounds like gold records. lush beautiful. I played it next to my Prophet 08 and it puts up a good fight. Not as versatile as my prophet, but it still cuts through a mix without a problem. Its a totally vibe-y synth. love it. It was 1/6th of the price as my prophet too. If you want to pay a couple 100 bucks more then get the 106, but the juno 6 is just as powerful and has a wonderful sound.

its old and beat up. I don't have any idea how many people have owned it. It works and i don't plan on moving it much. I hope i get many years out of it. It works perfectly though even if the rust spots are an eyes sore at times.

doubt roland would help much. they aren't the company they used to be. wish they'd dabble in the analog world again.

if you get one with all voice chips working you will love it. If you have to have midi you will hate it. If you don't mind buying something to trigger the clock of the arp and playing notes to a midi clock you will love it. It requires more effort than typical midi sync setups, but it is so fun ot use. I tend to reach for my juno 6 more than my prophet 08. both sound wonderful, but i am tired of presets at the moment. i want to build a new sound every time i sit down to play my synthesizers. the juno 6 is simple but it motivates me to make music. I love this synth.

Im on the fence on this one... once you figure out what everything does, its relatively easy to edit on the fly.

to its credit, the oscillators are easily selectable and editable, and panels are laid out in a linear, sensible, and accessible way.

my criticisms are that the Bend is very flimsy and plasticy and not terribly accurate, range-wise. the LFO "button" is ok, but... a button? really? was this before expression wheels had caught on?

but neither of these bother me too much - they both do what theyre supposed to, and fortunately they do it well!

excellent features for a 1-Osc synth circa 1981.

it has a square wave sub-oscillator, a sawtooth wave, and a variable-width square, each with it's own characteristic growl.

other standard stuff - envolope, high pass filter, chorus settings, LFO... nice LFO, too... filter/bend width knobs in the modulation section...

have to say that im not wild about the tempo slider for the arpeggiator. if i can, i will probably eventually have it replaced with a standard pot - adjusting the arpeggiation tempo with the slider can be extremely tedious as it isnt at all precise, and as i play in a very dancey synth rock band, the arpeggiator is seeing constant use.

this is where this thing absolutely KILLS!

i use this in an electro/alternative rock band, and it sounds excellent! i use it in a two-tier key setup with the Juno 6 on the bottom and a microkorg hovering over it.

Its interesting comparing an analog synth to an analog MODELING synth - you really can hear the difference!

I mostly use the Juno for basses and strings/pads, and its AMAZING. warm, lively, in no way cold. unless you want it to be cold - it can go that way if manipulated properly!

the lower registers growl and moan and wail unlike any acoustic bass EVER could in a million years. this thing, depending on how it's tweaked, can be VICIOUS or SWEET.

the strings are very vintage, very "1981." but i love that about it. oh, how i love it. if you can imagine the high string melody from Gary Numan's "Cars," you have the Juno's string/pad sound to a T.

The onboard chorus effects (none, chorus I, chorus II) are thick and delightful. without any chorus and just the raw waveforms, you can get any pallete of raw, raging "atari" 8-bit sound imaginable. almost sounds Nintendo-like. COOL!

not touch sensitive, but who cares? you dont play a Juno to play gentle piano renditions of rachmaninoff or brahms, after all.

this is where she slips a little.

but i have given a forgiving score, as it is in NO WAY representative of the instrument's quality. this poor old gal has been absolutely put through the ringer. her case is scratched up, a little dented, the wood panels are falling apart. her previous owners were a rough bunch.

consequently, shes got a quirk or two.

sometimes when the synth is turned on, the oscillators will be out of tune for no apparent reason. this is ALWAYS resolved by giving the modulation section a gentle but insistent WHACK. cant figure out whats messing with it (wiring short? fussy chip?), but its never gone out of tune while actually playing with it, and hitting it always makes it work again, so oh well...

and a couple of the slider knobs are a little strange - probably just from being dirty.

i would pretty much forgive this keyboard anything except dying outright. im just gonna have to be kind and gentle!

ive heard good things though.

i love it like an electronic little sister.

she is a total raging electro *****-goddess, and my rig wouldnt have near the bassy-balls it does without her!

it could do with a couple of design improvements, but all in all, very damn near perfect.

if she ever does kick the bucket, you can bet ill just replace it with another Juno 6. maybe a Juno 60 for the added benefit of patch storage ability, but id take either!

As the reviewer below noted, almost impossible to get a bad sound out of it. Sometimes I read that it sounds close to the Roland Jupiter-8 (for pads and string-sounds), and it is true; it sounds very fat for a 1 OSC synth, and has that typical bright and rich SYNTHY Sound that you can only get with Jupiter and Juno synthesizers.

It is very well built and for the beutiful workmanship and design alone, I would buy one over a Korg Polysix, anytime. It has limited features, but it is easy to come up with classic synthpatches for Techno or dance, as well as Synthpop music. It sounds better than any VA that I have tried (JP 8000, AN1x, Korg Z1)

Very beautiful, a classsic. The moment you switch it on, you hear classic sounds from the classic recordings of the 80s.

Very sturdy and solid built quality.

I didn't have to..

For my setup ( I play Techno and Trance) it is very important to have old style analogue, because it gives you a cutting edge in the mix. I use it for those classic string patches that everyone loves. the best kept secret, if you cannot afford a Jupiter 8.

very nicely laid out panel, though thre isn't that much to do after all. yet it has that classic analogue polysynth sound, not as oldschool as a jupiter-4, but not as cold-ish, dco-sounding as the roland jx series (although it has dco's!!)

the inbuilt chorus attributes to its lushness, so i don't really consider it an effect as such. the sliders are nice and firm, it's built to last. only gripe: that roland modulation button - i never got to like it.

the good news is: it forces you to think about what you play, and it's near impossible to get a naff sound out of it - by its nature (1 dco) it isn't for complex stuff like the jupiters, but you can do a lot with the bender and lfo (yes even that silly push-button). it can be suble and make a few whacky noises too - ones you wouldn't attribute to its simple layout. the arpeggiator is fine and a joy to use with the punchy attack of this synth.

well, i personally would. guess it's reliable enough.

don't know

since i also own a jupiter, i'm not sure if i'd get it again at todays rather inflated prices. but it's a rather simple, inspiring instrument that always sounds good (it has a nice tone to it)

The Juno 6 was also my first synth and I've had it for 20 years now, since I was eleven!.

I was always fascinated by synths as a kid and made a deal with my dad that if I practised hard on my Bach prelude & fugues then I could have one. Which one to pick?. Well, back then choice was different from today in the price range we were looking at. On the telly, the Jupiter 8 was the numero uno and seeing that good old Roland sign was pretty seductive when I came to choose. Bear in mind there was no internet and not that many music shops that stocked gear to suss out which was the best.

Well, having looked at the comparison charts in "What Keyboard", I remember considering a Siel Orchestra, a Korg Poly61 and a JX-3P. The Siel had a great "Wow" sound and not much else, the Poly61 did a great plane impression but had little to fiddle with, the JX-3P just didn't impress me with its add-on controller. The shop keeper steered me to a Juno 6 and that was it!. It looked great, the controls felt sturdy and it had the big Roland sign on the back. He synced it up with an SR-88 and showed me what the arpeggiator was capable of - instant Kraftwerk or Howard Jones.

It doesn't have a preset storage facility but the manual has settings pages at the back for creating different sounds and playing with these taught me more about synths than I have ever learnt again since. It was purely hands on and nothing was done for you which meant that you got to know it very quickly.

6 note poly, tiny compared to todays monsters, but here are some great tricks to be employed to make it seem like the Notre-dame cathedral organ. For instance, you can hit the hold button by the arpeggiator, play a 6 note chord, then hit the transposition button and play the chords one-fingered. At speed it sounds pretty mindblowing, although its restricted to one octave.

The keyboard action is pretty flimsy, but I'm used to playing a Kawai MP9500 and prefer weighted actions.

The chorus I've always liked although I run mine through a Dimension D as this makes the strings super smooth and silky. Nevertheless, it has two types, the second of which I've found myself using more for brass pads etc.

Other than that, its a very basic machine. One DCO with a sub-osc for fattening up sounds, a simple but effective filter - not raspy but not clinical either. I've always like the resonance on it and the almost theremin-like effects that can be achieved with it when turning off the DCO. I would have liked portamento as an option but what the hey!.

I'm with the previous reviewer on this one. Its not a warm sounding synth to my ears and has a certain coldness redolent of the 80s synths tht were released around that time and beyond like the Poly 800 and so on. That's not to say the sound is unpleasant or ineffective - it has a very distinctive, brilliant (in the 19th century sense!) quality that seems to sit well in mixes.

The best thing is that it is so very controllable with every function having a relevant switch or slider, so its great for real time performance. There's no velocity sensitivity or aftertouch so the filter and volume control has to be used a lot to simulate these features. No problems for the type of music its best at though which is pure electronica.

It can muster up a quite good key-click Hammond which sometimes seems to sit better in mixes and sound more authentic than my B4!. Brasses are pure Roland and strings aren't bad, if a little too cold unless processed with other FX (which, let's face it, isn't difficult to do).

The output is pretty quiet, although the chorus cn be a little noisy, and the Juno lends itself well to being recorded for this reason.

Oh yeah, its super dependant. I've never had a day's problem with it and its solidly built so no trouble there. It has been gigged and was fearless in all conditions.

Too well built for problems!

Well, if you want to learn about basic synthesiser functions and have a good instrument into the bargain then look no further. It doesn't have any real frills but its very easy to get to grips with and will serve you well as a stepping stone to more advanced instruments. I think its worth noting that I own a mass of gear from several akai samplers, to 3 shuttle PCs loaded with Kontakt, ImpOSCar, Pro53, Korg Legacy collection and on, with many machines having been bought and sold over the years, but I still use the Juno 6 quite regularly on cues and tracks. A testament to its durability and effectiveness!.

This was my first synth. I bought it over five years ago. Back then I had no idea how an analogue synthesiser worked. I just knew I had to have one after falling in love with their silly sounds through listening to Stereolab, the first Human League records(before 'Dare', when they were more experimental) and early Prince.
At the time, I really had my eye on a Jupiter 4. Unfortunately that deal fell through so I had to get this instead, which initially seemed a disappointment, until I got it home.
It's a simple simple machine, but I had no real idea of how it worked. It didn't seem to matter though, I just moved those sliders around and pressed the few buttons that it had and I was in sythesiser heaven. It seemed that I came up with new sounds from it every day for about six months. It became a real love affair, which despite my other keyboard purchases since, has never really died.
This is one of the simplest synthesisers you can get and certainly one of the cheapest. Given the fact that it has great sounds and is relatively easy to use, it's an absolute bargain, especially for beginners.

One of it's best features, given it's an analogue synth and it's so cheap, is that it's polyphonic. There's not many other synths at this price that you can actually play chords on and have dedicated controls for each parameter.
It's arpeggiator is very middle-class. By that I mean it's very good, but not fantastic. Only extends to three octaves, which I think is a bit silly. Still, it's a great feature to have.
It doesn't have MIDI, but one thing few people seem to mention is that you can synchronise the arpeggiator to a sampler or your computer, as long as you have a sample of a clock voltage pulse to trigger it with. Some people say you just need a drum machine's rim-shot to do the trick.
On board chorus is noisy and you don't need it anyway, but it sounds excellent through the stereo outputs.

I'm going to go right against popular opinion and say that this synthesiser actually sounds pretty cold. It's not particularly beefy either and it's certainly not built for bass. Having said that, it's not a completely digital sound either, and it still has a very usuable and reasonably powerful sound. It sounds quite bright.
My favourite settings seem to involve the pulse wave being modulated by the LFO. This gives it a nice raw sound with a bit of bite.
The filter is not as crash-hot as some make it out to be. It's good, but it sounds a bit harsh and cranking up the resonance really cuts out the bass frequencies something chronic. But it does self oscillate, which is more than I could say for my Yamahas, and you can turn the DCOs off and just have the filter sound on it's own. But then you've only got boring old triangle wave to modulate it with! No sample and hold, which I think is a huge oversight for any synth with a self-oscillating filter. Not even a bloody square wave (but the arpeggiator makes up for that)!

It's one of the most reliable synths you could ever wish to own. It's digitally controlled oscillators guarrantee that it will never go out of tune. Nothing has ever gone wrong with mine and it's been carted around quite a bit.
The only reason that it might be impracticle to use on a gig is that it doesn't have patch memories, so you'd be spending quite a bit of time editing sounds between songs. Your singer would want to have plenty of entertaining material to regale the audience with.

Some people say Roland are good with the old stuff. Some say they have no idea these things existed. Personally I have no idea.
I don't know if they're still around, but if you're in Melbourne, Australia, I've heard that Logitronics in Northcote are good for fixing old synths. I've dealt with Melbourne Music Centre in Ormond for another synth and they were good too, though a little pricey.
You just have to ask around with this old gear, therefore, no rating.

The one I bought was the most expensive I've ever seen. Unfortunately when I saw it, it was the first time I'd ever seen one! However I bought it from a dealer and it had just been serviced, so I can't complain.
Given the prices they go for, if it were stolen, I guess I would get another. They're a good all-rounder and despite some of the things I've said in this review, it does have a good sound and decent features and I still use it.
BTW, my jamming partner used to have a Juno 106. We both agree that the Juno 6 sounds better. It seems to have a fuller sound. But the 106 is still alright and it's got portamento (but no arpeggiator).
I guess the most flattering thing I can say about it is that I'll probably never get rid of it!

Couldnt get easier to use, all controls are in front of you and understanding some synthesis basics will get you onto the sweet sweet goodness. Thats some sweet goodness in case you didnt guess. Sweet sweet goodness. Yes. This is so. Beleev dat and so on...

Its big and simple, but its unique and sexy. Its like a meat pie with a sprig of parsley on top, you can stare at it and think "well i really want to eat a pizza" but once you tuck in, youre hooked.

It does force you to use your synthesis skills some more, and with no presets or midi im finding it a joy, a new creative aesthetic to perfect and releive my eyes from staring at the computer all day/night.

Sounds great, if a little faintly noisy on the outputs... to be expected from a 20 year old analog synth. Sounds very special run through a lush pre-amp. The chorus is the sound we've come to associate with the Juno series yet turning it off you can dial up some tech bass, dnb growls, great LFO sweeping synth leads and so on. I was surprised by the range... you can even get a very realistic wurly and rhodes sound, which id find hard to believe if i hadnt heard it myself.

Its over 20 years old and not a problem, though im looking carefully at the filter knob... oh yeah im watching you...

be aware the VCF's can die like mariah careys career.

roland are beeatches. power to the juno geeks who seem to know everything.... about junos.

Among all the digital and midi stuff, the juno 6 makes me happy in the pants and serves as a unique creative tool. also, its big and heavy... but looks nice and has wood ends.... i mean c'mon.... cmoonnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn

The Juno-6 is very easy to use. I got it with the manual but really, you don't need any manual. Push a few buttons and move those faders. You will be synthesizing before you even know it. I bought one as my first analogue synth after reading some of the great things written about it. Well, it really is quite friendly. I invite anybody to sit down with this thing for ten minutes, and I guarantee a good time. Get to know one and you will agree.

The Juno-6 is quite limited. There is six note polyphony, but only one oscillator, and one suboscillator, which restricts the range of color somewhat, it will always have that synthetic tinge. But that's OK. You want that. The keyboard is not velocity sensitive, and there is no portamento feature, so it could be more expressive, but it is still a sensitive keyboard and easy to play once you get used to the flatness of it. The Juno-6 also lacks a MIDI interface, you'll have to buy an external sync unit to use it along with your drum machine/sequencer. But if you do you can generate very robotic bass lines using the arpeggiator. Also combine the arpeggiator with a few envelope adjustments and you'll get shimmering, colorful pads. Trigger the LFO at a very low rate for a warped, waivering sound. Or hold down key transpose with the power off, turn it on, and set the arpeggiator to "up" to get the powerful "unison mode" feature, useful for an extra robust bass. I have heard that this is THE synth to have for achieving that thick, percussive bass sound used in countless drum n bass tracks. The Yamaha DX-7 is also mentioned in this regard. I don't use the Juno for drum n bass but I can well believe this baby has it in her.

As I mentioned, the keyboard itself is not very expressive, but this synth achieves a very warm and full sound. It can sound dirty and it can sound clean. Press the hold button, play a chord, and then spend 45 minutes making tiny adjustments to get that perfect droning pad sound. I really like cranking up the white noise level and getting a nice gritty electric piano sound, using the saw wave combined with the sub-oscillator square wave. As I hinted at before, this is an excellent synth for the dance musician, I have used it for electro and synth pop flavor, but it is capable of far more subtle applications in my opinion.

Very reliable. No problems, no maintenance whatsover, except to dust it every other week. It stays in tune and its quite sturdy, I've hauled it out to a few recording sessions, without the benefit of a case. Get yourself a case for it and you could certainly gig this thing.

I've never had to contact Roland for any reason.

I bought this synth for a warm analogue tone that would help flesh out my music. Moreover, this seemed to be the best analogue synth in my price range. It has certainly delivered on all my expectations (although I suspect I could have gotten a better deal on one). I'm not an advanced player but I'm able to use the Juno to get what I need. It's not made for virtuoistic lead playing anyway. Its best used for bright, shimmering pads and big fat chunks of bass, with a nice range of fun bleeps and whirrs in between. As a primarily electronic composer I often wish I could sequence the Juno-6, but when I really need to I can sample a tone I particularly like and sequence it using my computer. In spite of its limitations, I enjoy the Juno's simplicity, its ease of use makes it a wonderfully spontaneous instrument, and I've often rolled out of bed, switched on the power, pushed a few faders and programmed a cool new patch without even realizing it. I've owned it for 6 months now, and I'm certain I'll never get rid of it. If it were stolen, however, I think I would be tempted to try a different synth. But the Juno-6 will always be my first love.

This is a straight-forward laid-out machine, and like someone else said here, if you can't figure this thing out in 10 minutes, then you should get out of all this music business.

I have an ambivalent relationship to the chorus. In the beginning I slushed everything over with the chorus, until I rellay heard how noisy it was. Then I ceased to use it. For a while. Now, I've come to love the noisy little bugger - even though you can get the oscillators to really sound fat by themselves, the chorus adds that last bid of lushness. Gotta love that.

The arpeggiator is totally cool. I don't have anything to sync it with, though (yet), but it's great fun for some instant auto-bass things.

Only feature lacking IMO that the Juno-60 didn't remedy is an external audio in.

It's a no velocity/no aftertouch analog sounding polyphonic keyboard. And so it sounds. Only creativity in playing this thing is by twiddling the knobs and levers. Only gets 9 because the chorus really IS noisy. Great keyboard action, though.

In the time I've had it (about one year) it hasn't deteiorated. It was pretty beat up when I bought it (2 broken keys, broken release lever, broken OSC LFO depth lever, broken trig mode switch, missing lid screws, missing 1 cap and rusted a bit on the pitch bend area), but after I restored it, it's solid as a tank. I never use it on gigs, tho, because it doesn't have any memory. Only thing I should do once in a while is to retune the oscillators and the filter...

Talked to Roland Denmark, and they had some of the parts I needed (2 keys, OSC LFO depth lever, cap), and the rest I found online, spending about 400 DDK on parts. I even got the manuals from Roland DK, and they have supplied me with lots of parts and litterature over the time for my old junk. Great service - probably becuase they actually LIKE their old school synths here in their Danish department...

A fun and inspiring machine, that clearly outshined my other 80s Roland synths (JX-8P and Juno-1) in sound quality. Would, if it were stolen, replace it with a Juno-60, though, to get the memory and the DCB-interface. Always a fun machine to twiddle around on.

I've had my Juno for about 14 years now. I bought it as a replacement for my Siel Orchestra 6, which got stolen. For a long time it was my only synth. I've since bought many others, but I keep going back to my Juno. I've given it an 8, because although it's dead easy to get great sounds out of it, a little bit of analogue knowledge helps. Here's a tip for new owners - TURN THE CHORUS OFF! The Juno is twice the synth once you hear it "naked". maybe you need to put in a little more work, but it's rewarding.

Poly - 6 notes. Or is it? After reading the last post, I ran up to the studio when I got home, powered up holding the "key transpose" button down, knocked the arpeggiator into "up" and f**k me! Instant growly monosynth madness. Like an SH101, crossed with the bastard child of a TB303, but with more power. Absolutely sodding wonderful. I doubt very much whether I'll play another chord on the machine again.

Result's gotta be a 10, just for this little beauty of a function. it's a polysynth and a monosynth. That's what I call versatile.

It's also easily the best-looking synth ever made. It beats the Pro 5 or JP8 hands down in the looks department. Sleek, simple, clear, wooden end cheeks.

Realistic? Don't make me laugh. Good? Yes. No velocity or anything like that. Onboard effects are three types of (noisy) chorus: I, II and I&II together. Best to leave them off.

Trick for ubergrowl (haven't tried it with the mono function yet)...run it through a Marshall. If you don't have a Marshall, use a Pod. Jesus, but this thing sings.

Again, a "10". In the years I've had it, it's never let me down - any sound I've ever needed it to make, I've been able to sort it out within a few minutes.

It's beyond solid. Never EVER gone wrong on me.

Has to be a "9", because the "power" LED's a little blinky.

Lost one of the knobs twelve years ago. Ordered a new one from Roland UK when I ordered the flight case for my 1680. Cost me 26p. Can't really argue with that.

I chose my Juno because it was Friday, my other synth had been nicked and we had a gig on Saturday. If it was stolen, I'd track down the thief, his family and his pets and beat them to a bloody pulp with my Polymoog. Then I'd start to get nasty.

It's been with me for 14 years, done everything I've ever asked, and then I find out today it's a killer monosynth, too. Now all I need is a Kenton retrofit...

My rating?

Go on, guess...