The Synth Bed Survives The Engine
Being a Roland Alpha Juno fan, I can truly say that between the TAL version and the real deal, I can’t tell the difference.
The UI for the plug-in is much better, obviously. The alpha dial and everything else on the Alpha Juno itself is not great.
But I will say, the Alpha Juno 2 has one of the greatest keybeds in synthdom, and they’re cheap enough to where I bet you could not recreate that synth bed for more than they cost now.
So let me be the first to make the argument that that is why you should keep or seek out this synth.
For the synth bed. Long after the engine dies.
This is all to say that while SH-101s, Juno-6s, Juno-60s, and Juno-106s are going for stupid money, basically for the price of a good keybed, you can get a Juno that almost has everything, that’s easy to transport, that feels better, and that doesn’t break.
It’s widely known that these Alpha Juno chips do not go bad like the 106s. And the 6s and the 60s are all almost discrete, so it’s just crazy in there. There are circuit boards, but they’re beautiful on the inside, but it’s also super scary.
I assume that’s something you could do on a microchip now. Like the Boutique series, or my beloved System-1.
I don’t know if the Alpha Junos will ever skyrocket in value. I thought it would happen over the last 15 years. But it just goes to show what I know.
Which is not jack.