Roland Juno-106
Part of the Roland Cloud Subscription: $240.00/year
Released by Roland in 1984, the Juno-106 has become a perennial workhorse synth for producers of electronic dance music. With its ease of use and seemingly infinite sweet spot, it’s nigh on impossible to make a bad sound with it. However, because of failing components and other age-related woes, owning the real deal has become ever more expensive. Enter the Roland Cloud.
Launched in 2017, Roland’s subscription service features a treasure trove of expertly modeled virtual versions of their back catalogue. It’s their Cloud Juno-106, however, that sits at the top of an already impressive list of emulated instruments.
Designed to work both a plug-in for your DAW and as a “plug-out” for certain Roland hardware machines, the Cloud Juno-106 has all of the features of the original machine—single DCO oscillator with combinable sawtooth and square waves, a self-oscillating filter, and creamy chorus—and adds new and very useable features common across the Cloud board. These include an extra envelope (handy for filter use), arpeggiator, and effects.
So how does it sound? In our feature on the Roland Cloud, we said, “In a word: astonishing. Going head to head with the hardware, it was almost impossible to tell them apart at times. The Cloud version of the 106 is a triumph of analogue modeling.”
A triumph of analogue modeling. We own an original hardware unit and were plenty happy to put on the dust cover and just use the Cloud version. For producers of house, techno, or really any kind of dance music, the Cloud Juno-106 is a must-have.