The future of the Roland Junior-106


Possible enhancements


I have started modifications of both the assigner CPU firmware code and the voice board CPU firmware to try to add some or all of the features below. So far unison detune has been proved working. In my current software I have temporarily disabled portamento control and instead use the portamento pot to control detune spread amount. The patch to replace portamento with unison detune is just 43 bytes, amazing what you can acheive with full hardware control...


The Junior 106, hood opened for easy EPROM access

Here's a sound sample of the Juno 106 with this mod, read my SoundCloud comments to see what I change at various points.

DOWNLOAD THE WAV file to get a more realistic experience, the mpeg artifacts are quite noticable in the mp3 version you get in the web browser.


Junison by nyd

Features that I currently investigate if they are possible to add. A problem is that the assigner (main) CPU firmware is quite full (8k code) so I will probably have to sacrifice some features of the original Juno 106 to fit some of these mods. Tape backup / read comes to mind.
  1. Add velocity sensitivity via MIDI. Should be doable since the MKS-7 has it, and it is basically a Juno-106+TR707 inside.
  2. Create some kind of multitimbrality. Doable due to the same reason as 1. All oscillators share the same PWM, waveform selects, resonance and final VCA though so the only parameters that are open for multitimbrality are LFO and Envelope controls for pitch, filter cutoff and voice VCA.
  3. Random patch generator
  4. Extended MIDI control receive/transmit. For example let the pitch bender transmit a on a selectable MIDI Ctrl number, And let the VCF freq, or other parameters, listen to a selectable incoming MIDI controller number.
  5. Let the pitch bender control other parameters than just VCF freq or VCO freq
  6. Add new waveforms to the LFO. Might need alterations in the module board CPU code as well though.
  7. Adding a second envelope generator? Another LFO?
  8. Creating a modulation matrix. Sources LFOs, ENVs, Kybd, MIDI Velocity, .... Destinations: Pitch, Noiselvl, UnisonDetuneAmount, PWM, filter, ...
  9. Use modern electronics to build a PSU that will fit inside the chassis. Might be hard due to the high-frequency fields generated from modern switched PSUs
  10. Two- and three-voice unison modes, in addition to the default 6-voice mode.
  11. Detuning the six oscillators in Unison mode. - WORKING!!


NOTE! If you (like me) have a newer?!? rev Juno-106 without EPROMs, you can add sockets to enable EPROM firmware mods like this. See this page for a howto



If you have any cool suggestions on features you would like to see in a Junior / Juno-106 feel free to send me a mail:


Back: To my main Juno-106 mod page