[sdiy] Roland Juno 106

[Rutger Vlek]

Interesting discussion! What fascinates me is the following:

Instruments are being 'cloned', and some clones are closer to the original
than others (as Roland's JU-06 resembles a Juno 106 but not quite). If one
is interested in exhaustively duplicating every single aspect of the
original (including the UX-part), why not build the exact same instrument?
I know, that's challenging given some part may no longer be available, but
then the engineering question is: how do I make it work with modern parts
without losing any of the properties of the old circuit.

However, some properties of the original synth were actually not
intentionally designed, but rather emerged as a consequence of other
engineering decisions and properties of available parts. The original Juno
106 that we've become to like so much is only partially the result of
clever engineering. The original Juno also had unintended properties, some
of which turned out to be musically favourable/characterful. These were
'lucky accidents'. However, some unintended properties have no musical
value whatsoever, or are even detrimental. So how do we differentiate
between these two categories?

It's easy to state that a clone is not resembling the original circuit,
because in many cases it isn't. Whether that's a problem is another thing.
Do we need all the quirks of the original, or only those quirks that have
musical value? If someone states that a clone 'musically' falls short of
mimicking the original, then we have to deepen our understanding of what
actually makes a good instrument. However, the question is to what extent
we can achieve that. And if we take musical instrument design to such a
high degree of 'controlled engineering', don't we miss out on the chance to
make our own 'lucky accidents' that fuel the gear lust of future
generations?

Rutger

Op ma 12 feb 2024 om 01:04 schreef brianw <brianw at audiobanshee.com>:

> On Feb 11, 2024, at 1:50 AM, Gordon wrote:
> > On Sat, Feb 10, 2024 at 04:42:08PM -0800, brian wrote:
> >> What's "the digital part"?
> >
> >> There's no need to 'clone' the firmware, since that digital aspect
> doesn't really affect the sound.
> >
> > Okay, so you're saying that the way the control ranges interact, the way
> the envelopes work over particular ranges, and the way the LFO works - and
> the way that is all mixed together to control the oscillators and envelopes
> - you're saying that this "doesn't really affect the sound"?
> >
> > That's an interesting take on it.
>
> Thanks for the details. If you forgive me my engineering focus on
> semantics, then what you're saying is that the digital envelopes and
> digital LFO, as well as the specifics of the frequency control for the DCO,
> is what needs to be recreated. i.e. It's not a 'clone' of the CPU, per se,
> or the entire firmware, but the audible aspects and characteristics of the
> signals generated by the CPU - the envelopes and frequency controls - that
> are critical.
>
>
> >> I'm just curious what you're saying has yet to be reproduced with
> modern technology...
> >
> > Nobody seems to really understand what the voice CPU is doing, so they
> try to "improve" it. This is nothing short of disastrous. If you compare
> the JU-06 to a real Juno 106 for example, it doesn't sound anything like
> the "real deal" because it just doesn't get the envelopes even close to
> correct.
> >
> > That's leaving out all the "higher order effects" like the inherent
> wobblyness that the LFO has, the variation in the envelope times, and so
> on. There's a lot going on in that 2kB of code and 1.5kB of lookup tables.
>
> This makes sense.
>
> Thanks again,
>
> Brian
>
>
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