New Roland synths : Jupiter X / Boutique JU06a / Fantom

Regarding the JU06A…

Holy cow!

I was asking in the SH01A about a comparison with the JU06A.

In Germany they dropped the taxes this month, so ordered one to compare myself…and
oh. my. effing. synthgod.

I had no idea! The Sound is similar to the SH01a, but not similar also in the Same way. Currently i tweaked an organ like pad with inverted Envelope with Long settings, sub and square Waveform Set, Delay on, chorus and slow up/down Arp…and the whole thing sounds soooo beautifull evolving and seem even to play Backwards, Like a reverse pitched down Tape Loop…Just fantastic!
Now i see why ppl are keeping this Synth. Its very Musical.

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Both of them are excellent, but yes, the JU-06A is my weapon of choice nowadays. Though I never had chance to directly compare them before selling my pair of SH-01As :frowning: Not sure if you have a Digitone, but sending the JU through that with its chorus, delay and reverb (and oodles of the master distortion!!!) is a thing of true beauty :blush:

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Been holding off on a JU-06A because of the 4-note limitation. But I went through a phase a number of years back of using a Juno-60 emulation (TAL U-NO-LX) for a large majority of my synth parts. It’s quick, simple but flexible, massive sweet spots and the chorus is ace of course. Been thinking about it again recently though, it would surely get used more than my TB-03 or D-05.

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Though you should have seen the look my Peak just gave me.

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Polyphony might be indeed an issue, especially If you are a Keyboard Player. I am not, so its fine for me. The chord mode in combination with the Arp is Just instantly producing usable results for me. The SH01a has a different approach and is a different horse, so my fear that both together would be having Just one more of the same was unreasonable. Glad i got both.

Oh the Peak don’t need to worry, its also a Keeper. Mine is in use regularly. It is one of those Synths that is always giving. Its Sound character is very delicate.

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I love my SH-01A. They’re quite different in my head, I always think of the 101 sound as more in your face/harsh and the 60/106 sound as warmer, poppier even. They’re probably closer than I realise.

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From A/B comparison the raw sound is, but in practise because of the different controls and features you come to very different results. Yes the chorus has an Impact, but also envelope behaviour seem different as well as the way PWM shapes the overall Sound and interacts with the Filter settings and even when mixing Noise subtly in. At one point during my first exploration i encountered this nice organ Sound, that i never got Out of the SH01a.

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It’s possible to coax the sounds of each other out of both of them (they’re not exactly complex beasts!) but it takes a little work. Of course, SH needs a chorus pedal to sound more like the JU, and the SH has some additional tricks that the JU does not. They cross over massively in my opinion. But if you keep one as a bass element (SH) and the other for higher register chords and/or pads with the high pass filter engaged (JU), they complement one another beautifully. I found this mixing my old SH recordings with the JU.

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Or the other way round. :wink:

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Exactly. Or keeping SH for leads also works over a lovely bassy JU bed. The unison of the boutique model really expands the sound!

Oh definitivly! I have a Digitone Keys and already used its FX section a lot on the SH. These synths are Made for each other.

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Awesome! My band mate is about to add a Keys into the mix, while keeping my OG DN for drums, so that’s really good to hear! I want to midi map all of the essential controls of the JU to the DNK so it doesn’t even need to be touched when we’re playing live. Can’t wait!

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I wasnt very fond of the Boutique series, but the SH and JU now convined me. I just ordered a TR08. Lets see how that holds against the Hype. I once had a TR-8, but i didnt Like its plasticy Sound compared with my Acidlab Miami.

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I had the TR-08. It’s great, especially as they add a mod to the length of the kick (buried in a menu) but I eventually sold it to a trap artist because I don’t need to live tweak it. I grabbed all the sounds I needed from it on my DT (at the time), and now they live happily on my OT. I have clean and mildly distorted versions of all the sweet spots for lots of options. The cowbell is pure genius imo

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I avoided the boutiques out of some kind of absurd and unjustified snobbishness until pulling the trigger on a JU-06a last year. Sweet Moses, I can’t articulate how much I still love it. I use it on everything.

The four-voice limitation has never been an issue for me since 1) I’m not a keyboard player and 2) I use the DT to control it anyway.

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been thinking about selling my juno 106 and get one of these instead
I love the juno but it’s giving me constant problems

Of you can handle the aesthetics and can stretch to the price I can’t fault the System 8 soundwise. 8 voices of pure ACB tech plus plug outs already installed for the JP8, Juno 106 and JX3p. The native S8 engine sounds good too. It’s got its limitations but taken as a whole with the sequencer and (fairly basic)FX I think it’s a solid instrument.

I would absolutely have gone for a System-8 because I had a System-1 and absolutely loved it, and that way you get proper polyphony on the 106 plug-out, but I just don’t have space for it.

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If I had the meme skills I could see the S8 incognito…hiding under the bed, squirrelled away in the wardrobe…always in a big brown paper bag with eye holes cut in it…

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