Of Recordings

Happy 8.08.08.  How are you planning to celebrate?  What’s that?  You haven’t made plans?  Never fear, Tom from Music Thing has many tips to get you started.

Personally, I will be shaking butt along to one of my all-time favorite techno songs:

And why don’t you kick back with this 808-flavored tune I wrote a couple years ago?

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OK, my work here is done.  See you in a year + a month + a day.

So Roland announced their latest Juno synthesizer, the Juno Stage.  It’s another rompler, this time more performance oriented.  Roland have a long history of making good romplers.  I have not played extensively with the new Junos myself, but friends who have them assure me they are worthy additions.  However.

Why would they resurrect the Juno name for these?  The original Juno was an afforable analog polysynth.  People interested in a Juno 60 or Juno 106 today are most likely:

• Collectors who want a Juno because of its place in history;
• VA synthesists who want to add some genuine analog flair on the cheap; or
• Mad scientists who want to abuse the CV inputs.

The new Junos, on the other hand, appeal to people who want to get some decent keys, pads, and other classic rompler sounds.  No doubt the two groups overlap somewhat, but I suspect not too much.

The best analogy I can come up with is that the Juno 60 was a budget alternative to the Jupiter-8, while the modern Junos are budget alternatives to the Fantom family.