Roland Juno 106 - Custom Sounds

[@jcgarcia1905]

Hey Great Job on this Patches, are you able to sell the patches? Im interested. Lmk

[@billyruss]

Hi there - I no longer have the Juno and, as far as I know, there was no way to get any sysex info off it. I do, however, have a copy of what I *think* are the WAV files of a backup I made some time in the 80s of what was pretty close to the soundset you hear in this demo - I recorded this from a top-end cassette deck into the PC about 5 years ago, before I sold the Juno, "just in case" - though I'm not sure that I ever tested them in earnest. This was originally made using the cassette interface, and I had to look up how this was done, and found this on a Roland forum from 2011: "It's a PITA, as the 106 does not have a MIDI bulk dump function. What you have to do is put the MIDI function switch on the back panel into mode III, and then select each patch individually. As you select each patch, it will dump the sysex for that patch. If all you want to do is back up your patches in case the battery fails, it's easier to use the cassette interface. Connect the SAVE output to an audio input on your DAW, start recording, and then hit the save button on the panel. To restore, connect the DAW's audio output to the LOAD jack, hit LOAD on the 106 panel, and then play back the audio." There's a more in-depth description of the process on p11 of the owner's manual: www.synthfool.com/docs/Roland/Juno_Series/Roland_Juno_106/Roland_Juno106_Owners_Manual.pdf So, all you need to do is download the zip file, extract the WAVs and find some way to play them into the LOAD input of the Juno. I'D STRONGLY ADVISE YOU TO MAKE A BACKUP OF ALL YOUR SOUNDS FIRST! As I said, I no longer have the Juno, so I have no way of verifying whether these WAVs (two files - A and B bank) will work, or if it's this exact soundset. Anyway, the link is here: www.dropbox.com/s/zdyg3r36ipwoaum/Juno%20106%20Custom%20Banks.zip?dl=0 You don't need to have dropbox installed in order to download it - just go to the link, and wait for the Download button to appear at the top right of the screen (be patient - this can take a few seconds). Once it has appeared, click the button (you may have to press Enter), and select Direct Download to save it to the location of your choice. I'll leave the soundset up there for the time being; if anyone manages to get ti to work, please let me know!

[@smokey5100]

Incredible job on these 😎

[@billyruss]

Thanks!

[@smokey5100]

@@billyruss You're welcome. I just got my Juno 106 last week. I've wanted one for years and finally pulled the trigger 🎹🙏🏼

[@Miicrowahvei]

1:20 wonderful! I absolutely love how you also created acoustical sounds on this, sounds like classic intruments. I have always been a fan of synth patches which have an acoustic flare to them.

[@billyruss]

Thanks for your comments! The flutey bit at 1:20 was actually from a track I recorded back in the '80s - full version here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/lWaze4FolpZ1jac - and I've just realized how flat that recording is! I usually tried to adjust for speed differences when preparing tracks for here, but that on must have slipped the net!

[@oholm09]

I like that 106 sounds

[@Miicrowahvei]

These patches are AMAZING. There's a Juno 106 VST from Roland, it costs about 150€ I think. Would be awesome to buy your patches for the if you ever decided to use Rolands VST Juno.

[@billyruss]

I'm sure a lot of them were original Juno patches, maybe just tweaked a bit. I think I've seen a video of the Roalnd synth and a lot of the patches seemed familiar.

[@danthreepwood2760]

Thanks mate! They sound good in general but some of them are crazy good ;). Will let something know soon if these sounds are indeed the ones from your Dropbox banks A & B

[@billyruss]

That would be great - I'm not sure whether anyone has managed to get them working so it would be good to know one way or the other. 🙂

[@danthreepwood2760]

@@billyruss Alright I managed to load them into my 106. Both banks A & B are completely filled with presents/presets and as far as I can tell they are indeed the same patches as used in this vid. This is no scientific fact cause it's kinda hard to compare 250+ presets with somebody else's playing. But but but, I definitely heard the ''bell-like'' sounds as well some others so I guess it's all good. Thanks again mate, some of your old sounds/presets are pretty damn nice and very usable. If I ever use them in a track I'll let you know and 5% of the billions of dollars gained are of course for you ;). Cheerio, Wise & Radical

[@billyruss]

@@danthreepwood2760 That's great news! You may be the first to have done that - it's good to know the soundsets work, as they were originally recorded onto an old cassette some time in the 1980s, and recorded onto the PC as a WAV file about seven years ago, so it's a fairly lengthy and somewhat dodgy path they've taken!

[@danthreepwood2760]

@@billyruss Damn that's pretty crazy they came all the way from cassette. Makes em even more special! I had at least 10+ walkmans from 1985 till 1993 and more than 100 tapes. NONE of them survived :(.

[@michaelmoore1697]

These are some of the best patches for the Juno 106 I've come across on KZbin, and it still sounds like a toy mated with an electric church-lady organ.

[@taejun9017]

I have one and I'd have to agree with you, the thing just always sounds like an organ with a filter on it to me, but at least compared to the other 80s synths I have it has actual sliders on it so is the one I use the most

[@evvnflo42]

This is amazing! I have to agree, best patches I’ve heard. Have you considered doing a demo on how to manipulate sounds to create some of these? These are too good 😳

[@billyruss]

Thanks indeed for your kind words! To be honest, a lot of sounds were either made by taking an existing patch and modifying it until I was happy with the sound, or else (with some of the weirder sounds) just fiddling about with stuff until I had something that was vaguely interesting. I bought the synth when it first came out in 1984; it was my main keyboard for quite a while (can you believe I traded a Yamaha CS-50 and a Moog Opus 3 for it? - I wanted something that weighed less and had MIDI!), and I just had to make it do all the sounds I wanted (often emulating the synths I'd parted with) - plus I had time enough to mess around (working summer seasons abroad). I hung onto it until three or four years ago, mainly for sentimental reasons, but I didn't really spent any time programming it after the 1980s (that sounds so long ago!) so unfortunately would not be able to offer a lot of insight as to how these various sounds were made, I'm afraid! One by one, the sound chips started to fail (I had to have four replaced), and the second-hand price went pretty high, plus I have a System-8 with the Juno plugout, so I decided to let it go.

[@evvnflo42]

@@billyruss oh wow, thanks for the response. That’s a great story. I’m really impressed with the sounds you got out of it. I’m determined to get some of these sounds you got because they’re so good. I got mine from my brother, he said if I fixed it I can have it. Repair was fairly expensive, there were four chips out and some other problems but it was well worth it. I’ll keep working at it. Thanks!

[@Kyle-fj2zq]

wow dude. these patches are incredible sounding and so diverse. nice work.

[@mineralsound]

Best Juno demo on YT.

[@billyruss]

Wow! Thanks very much. Glad you liked it :-)

[@mineralsound]

@@billyruss Of course! Most of the other demos are showcasing the bread & butter stuff, but you really delve into the sound design and show what the Juno is capable of.

[@AndrewSouthworth]

Damn this thing sounds great.

[@fredskymberg6773]

Wonderful synth!

[@billyruss]

Yea, was sorry to part with mine :(

[@maccagrabme]

Why did you?

[@billyruss]

+littlegee Too many synths, too little space! Plus it was starting to be unreliable and was selling at the right price... a number of reasons, really. That and the fact I've been playing with a load of software synths that take up a whole lot less space!

[@mmrva]

Your playing skills and chosen melodies are wonderful, regardless of 106. Thumbs up!

[@billyruss]

Thanks!

[@6040nick]

Great sounds. Reminds me a lot of the vintage expansion boards, but true analog sounds thicker. I played the Juno alpha in the 80's, but an original Juno or Jupiter are the real deal. Thanks for the high quality demo...

[@billyruss]

Thanks for the comments!

[@michaelspenser7313]

Has anyone downloaded the file to see if it’s working?

[@billyruss]

Hi Michael... I've had no replies to my post on this, but let me know if you give it a go and if it works. Thanks, Bill.

[@michaelspenser7313]

@@billyruss I definitely will thank you for the sounds Bill!

[@shermanllo]

Whoa! These are some of the best patches I've heard. Especially the organ patches. I feel kinda dumb asking this but, how did you get the pitch to fall on release on that last organ patch? Is that the filter resonating?

[@billyruss]

Exactly that, as far as I remember! So, the filter is tuned to the same pitch as the note and then there's a long release on the filter after the note is released. It's been a long time since I made these patches and I can't remember the exact setup. I liked getting the filter to do cool stuff on note-off; the patch at 3:45 was another favourite - I think that used the reverse filter feature.

[@shermanllo]

Thanks so much for the reply.

[@nezbit90]

I like the flutey arpeggio at 1:30, do you have the patch sheet for that one? Much appreciated.

[@billyruss]

Unfortunately not, as I sold the Juno a few months ago. It was my own programme, trying to get a sine-wave type sound, so it was probably a square wave with the frequency and envelope way down, and a short attack and decay. Hope this helps!

[@donnie3109]

Does this synth have any regular piano sounds or E. Piano sounds? Please help!!!!

[@billyruss]

Hi Donnie - No, this was primarily a synthesizer, making its sounds using the onboard DCOs. The closest I got to any kind of e. piano sound is probably my patch at 04:42 . Remember, too, that there is no touch sensitivity on this synth, unlike something like the JX-8P which did; a similar e. piano sound to this on the JX-8P would sound a bit more realistic because of that - check out my demo of that keyboard here: kzbin.info/www/bejne/iqvZiKpuiZJpmdk