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Roland doesn't just slap the word "Juno" on any old keyboard synth. With a legendary lineage including the Juno-6, Juno-60, and Juno-106, you can be sure the Juno-Di is ready to build that same kind of reputation among today's players.
The Juno-Di's 61-key playing surface is unweighted, but has enough bounce to feel convincing on electric piano, Hammond organ, and even acoustic piano patches. The keys are fully velocity-sensitive, offering ringing clarity when played with a feather touch, or a growly bark when you dig in deep. I was impressed that an instrument of this size (and price point) would be so expressive.
Beyond the keybed, the Juno-Di features Roland's standard combo-mod controller. Part joystick, part mod-wheel, you have good command over pitch bends and modulation for on-the-fly tweaking. Additional expression is well within reach in the form of Roland's D-Beam controller. You can assign a multitude of parameters to the D-Beam, and make changes by running your hand through the beam's path. It's a fun way to actively engage with your music.
For more in-depth patch tweaking without wading through a maze of menus, the Juno-Di's sound modification controls put the most common parameters right at your fingertips. When you load a patch, the five modification controls are auto-mapped to that patch's envelope attack and release, filter cutoff and resonance, and reverb mix. You can use these to customize existing patches into your own unique creations, or for realtime tweaking during performance.
If getting under the hood is what you live for, Roland includes a (Mac/Windows compatible) software editing program for full access to each parameter setting. You can build your patches from the ground up, or start with a preloaded sound and twist it into unrecognizability. The software also features a convenient patch librarian for organizing all your sounds.
The Juno-Di is very well-connected, with plenty of options for getting it into your existing rig. A pair of standard 1/4-inch unbalanced outs for analog interfacing, MIDI I/O for communicating with your outboard gear, and a USB port to get your computer into the mix. The 1/8-inch miniplug input passes audio from a CD or MP3 player to both the headphone jack and the main outs, so you can incorporate backing tracks into your live set or practice in a more musical context. If the CD/MP3 player is too much of a hassle, you can play files via USB thumb drive right from the front panel.
If you sing and play, the 1/4-inch microphone input has a dedicated gain control so you can dial in the right balance between vocals and keys. Reverb and vocoder effects can be applied to the mic signal, which is routed to the main outs automatically. If you sing and play outside, you're in luck, as the Juno-Di can be powered with eight AA batteries. Add a headset mic and one of Roland's battery-powered amplifiers, and you've got a completely portable setup.
All of the above is nice, but doesn't mean a whole lot if the sound isn't on point. But, as I said, it's a Juno, and Roland takes that seriously. The Juno-Di is loaded with over 1,300 factory patches, all easily accessible via the category-based menu. Just choose one of the eight categories: Piano, Keyboard/Organ, Orchestra, World Music, Brass, Vocal/Pad, Synth, and Guitar/Bass, then scroll through to find the right sound. You also get 29 drum and percussion setups to add some rhythm to your sound. Many of the best patches come configured in the 64 Performance patches. Performances feature splits and layers, so if you're looking for more than one simultaneous sound, start here.
In my opinion, keyboards live and die by their sounds. I was definitely happy with the sounds in the Juno-Di, from the pianos, to the orchestra sounds, to the rock organs, some of which feature a rotary effect mapped to the mod-controller. I'm not suggesting these sounds are hyper-realistic clones that would be mistaken for the real deal, but they're definitely passable for gigging.
The Juno-Di is a digital synth, but it's got enough analog character to feel like a throwback to the earliest Juno models. You get sparkly pads, searing saw waves, triple-fat filtery basses to go way back in the day.
Beyond the percussion patches mentioned earlier, the Juno-Di also comes loaded with 24 preset drum grooves. These patterns represent a number of different musical styles, and are great for providing inspiration when composing or for quickly adding a beat underneath your performance. A value control and a tap tempo button are available to set the speed.
The Juno-Di is outfitted with a full complement of effects patches on board. There are two dedicated effects channels for reverb and chorus, plus three more "multieffect" channels that can call up a variety of phasers, flangers, distortions, compression, delay, EQ, and much more. Some effects are application specific, with a vocoder for voice patches and a sympathetic resonance effect for added character on acoustic piano sounds. Other effects settings are truly multieffects, with layered combinations of flanger and distortion, for example.
Depending on the effect you load, the Juno-Di offers up to four tweakable parameters for additional sound sculpting. For example, you can choose the type of amp called up in the amp simulator effect, or the speed of the flanger. I appreciated the ability to adjust time-based effects such as flangers and delays by either milliseconds or note values relative to the tempo.
The Juno-Di is a fantastic keyboard for the money. The sound and playability are well worth the price, but when you factor in the portability, sound shaping, connectivity, and performance-friendly controls, you're really getting a great value. A beginner will easily be able to navigate through the most useable functions, and more advanced players will find plenty of opportunities for creative inspiration.
4.5 out of 5
(28 ratings)
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