Roland Juno 106 "Junior" with LFO Triggering

A short demo of driving a Juno-106 from it's Patch Shift jack with an LFO. This can rapidly shift the patch that's loaded and, if keys are held down, the envelopes are retriggered. It's an interesting effect.

First, this Juno is obviously a chop job - I got the idea to do this from Henrik Nydell's terrific webpage which generally details the process. He called it a Junior-106, so that's what I call mine. It was quite a bit of work, but I like the 106 better in this size. I have photos on Flickr showing the insides of the Junior. It's snug in there, but it all works.

Second, the idea for driving the Patch Shift with an LFO came from a blog posting by Kevin Lightner, synthtech extraordinaire, on the moogmusic forums. So all credit to him for this nifty trick.

Category:

Music

Tags:

• synth
• synthesizer
• Roland
• Juno106
• Moog
• LFO

[NelSonOfABitch]

WTF? You have chopped working juno? Nightmare.

[rolandsh1000]

This Juno was beat: the logo was smeared, some rust on the corners, not a museum specimen.

But it worked great, so I felt the chop was an improvement on it's looks.

[deeJayfirby]

Hi there. You took a nice enough keyboard from the 80's and chopped it up and then put an lfo on the patch change. This is not a winner mod. So Fail on this one. However, I watched your Youtube about how to fix the chips in these things. You do have talent, maybe you should build a synth from a kit and refine that. I think that the sidstations would be a good start. Peace.

[rolandsh1000]

I respectfully disagree! this Juno has lost only it's simultaneous upper register functionality, but you can still change octaves per my added switch. I find this size Juno more convenient (and I have another full size one which is in very nice shape which I will never chop because it is clean and functional).

additionally, the LFO patch shift mod was never made permanent - it's merely a trick you can do by running a square wave 5V LFO into the patch shift jack.

thanks for your input!

[aknet99]

Great Job, i did the same wiht a HS-60, it's more easy to chop because the midi and outputs jacks are in the middle, so you don't need to drill the chassis. The only thing i couldn't build it's the OCTAVE function. did you did it and how ? any schematic ?

[rolandsh1000]

nice! can you send me photos or post on Youtube a 'tour' through your HS-60? I just bought an HS-60 for the express purpose of Juniorizing it. I knew that it would be easier because of the reasons you state.

I can send you the octave switching circuit if you like - it's not too much trouble to build and install.

[PHAEDRIDER]

great work! i'm laughing at the crying .. sure it's a great old synth , but my god people, its not a memorymoog .. i too think it looks awesome like this .. i have two .. and this gives me ideas for one of them .. and to the "oh my god how could you do that" people i have two words.. micro korg ...

[jpmartineau]

God dammit people, get over it, it's not like it's a rare synth. It's fine to chop-up a 106.

[1986uno45s]

@dvamateur Fair enough and each to their own and all that. However, you don't have to have velocity/ aftertouch/ 5 octave synths to make and/ or perform good (electronic) music. As evidenced by Kraftwerk, Ultravox, Gary Numan, Jean Michel Jarre, Human League, Depeche Mode, Soft Cell, Thomas Dolby etc. etc! There's room for all types of synths, though obviously a lot depends on the genre of music you are creating as to which type is more suitable :-)

[dvamateur]

@1986uno45s Well, let me tell you, I have the Voyager OS, and it's fun to twiddle knobs on it, but if I actually want to play some music, I take my DX7 MK1 over the Voyager any time. By the way, I think both the DX7 and Mini are good introduction to synthesis.

[1986uno45s]

@dvamateur So that's a lot of the classic analogues out then. Arp Odyssey, Mini-Moog/ Prodigy/ Rogue, Korg MS 10, Jupiter 4, Pro One etc!

[7graylands]

You should take the next obvious step and turn it into a keytar!

[TheEndofBeginnings]

Probably hell on the voice chips

[accordeure]

This little juno 106 is amazing !

[fuckingharpsichord]

i love the chopped juno

at least its handy to transport

[dvamateur]

Don't like 2-octave keyboards (except for the KX5). To me, a regular synthesizer has 5-octave keybaord velocity and aftertouchd, and no annoying arpeggiators.

[Metamusik]

@PHAEDRIDER OMG You modified a 1984 Renault 25! MONSTER!