Roland Juno-60 "We design the future" brochure, 1982

Roland Juno-60 "We design the future" four page colour brochure from September 1982.

I saw an interesting graph the other day. Not sure where I first saw it, but it spread quickly on social media. Luckily it didn't take me long to track it down.

The graph was part of a great Reverb.com article titled "Why Do Vintage Roland Junos Continue to Go Up in Price" by Dan Orkin and tracked the site's historical used prices for the Juno-106, Juno-6 and Juno-60 from 2014-2019. Not surprisingly, all three show a positive price trend. Also not surprisingly - while the Juno-106 and Juno-6 have been climbing at a similar pace, the Juno-60 has been slowly gaining even more ground in comparison.

Ignoring the obvious bad choice of capitalization in the title of the Reverb article, and not ignoring the obvious good choice in linking to my Juno-60 advertising scan, Dan does great job of summarizing why these three synths deserve all the recognition they get. Lots of great references and links all around the Web too.  Top notch - worth the read.

Without giving too much away, a big part of what the Juno's rawk are their great sound and an easy-to-use interface. Most importantly, as Dan writes, "many devotees claim that the -60 delivers the most aggressive or distinctive sound, which may contribute to it claiming the highest prices."

For me, that's exactly why.  :)

You can find these Juno devotees on lots of sites giving high praise to the Junos, including Vintage Synth Explorer.

While VSE gives the 106 five stars, users rate it 4.1 stars.

In comparison, the Juno-60 gets four stars from the site - but users rate it slightly higher than the 106 with 4.2 stars.

And for comparison, the Juno-6 only gets three stars (!) from the site but the user rating beats the Juno-106 by a hair at 4.11 stars.

The users have spoken!

Now, before I start getting off-topic and start ranting about those who rant about the ever-increasing prices of vintage synths and drum machines, the reason I brought up the graph was that it was a reminder to dig up this Juno-60 brochure for the blog. I knew I had it around somewhere.

The cover of the brochure follows Roland's standard "WE DESIGN THE FUTURE" format - Roland logo in top left with a big bold red title and lots of negative space in the top half, while south of the equator is usually a studio shot of the gear, maybe with a buddy or two included, and some kind of background or texture.

In this case that buddy is the MC-4 sequencer (a lovely choice) and the background texture is some kind of corrugated metal or plastic (another lovely choice).

Open up the brochure and BAM! A lovely centrefold screaming to be made into a poster. And specs. Lots of specs. Including the Arpeggio section. And one of my favourite modulator controls on any synth - the LFO trig button.

Back page is nothing to sneeze at either. A large photo of the rear panel including that pre-midi curiosity of a DCB connector. And further down... oh boy - small little promos for the lovely TB-303 and TR-606.

So far I've posted six other Roland brochures in the "We design the future" series including the SH-101, Jupiter 6, TR-808/606/303 Rhythm Machines, TR-909, MSQ-700 and MSQ-100.

And to make it easy for you, I've created a "We design the future" label. One stop shopping!

Gonna leave it at that for now. But don't think I've forgotten about that rant. I'm saving it for later.

Roland family of products, Keyboard 1983

Roland family of products advertisement including SH-101, JX-3P/PG-200, System-100M, MC-4/MTR-100, Jupiter-8, Juno-6/60, Jupiter-6 and MC-202 from page 14 and 15 of Keyboard Magazine July 1983.

Finally!

The Roland 'We Design The Future' tag-line had been showing up in Roland's brochures for months now, but up to this point, their advertisements were still mostly designed around it's 'Understanding Technology Series' ads like those created for the TB-303/TR-606 or Jupiter-8. Black backgrounds, strong colours, and lots of text. Their recent Juno-6 and Juno-60 ads started to mutate away from that design, but I'd still be inclined to classify them as such.

"What?" you say? Where is the tag-line? You can see it at the bottom of the ad in the purple-coloured bar. Yes, it's small. Really small. Almost an afterthought. And unfortunately, I think this is the last advertisement to use the tag-line.

Roland decided to pull in a few other common design elements found in those brochures by using a textured background and an accent piece (in this case a tile pattern background and spheres), but I have to say I miss the brochure's slick photo with mood-lighting. A really nice family photo done in that style would have looked sweeeeeet! Instead, it looks like Roland decided to comp together an image using a few effects that I would guess got onto the wish-list for Photoshop 1.0.

This advertisement was a first for Roland in one other important way too. They mention MIDI!

And so we get to the whole point of this ad. As mentioned in a recent brochure blog post for the TB-303, TR-808, TR-606 and CR-8000/5000, Roland had been pumping out A LOT of DIN-sync technology for a while now. They had a lot invested in it. And then along comes MIDI, and Roland has to convince current owners of Roland gear that the gear they just bought is not going to be obsolete in a year. And more importantly, they have to convince future owners that they are looking out for their future as well.

The ad title text handles this perfectly.

"Roland presents its product line for 1987. The nice thing is, it's available today!"

Interestingly, they make no mention of MIDI in that title or in the opening paragraph. Its not until the reader gets to the JX-3P text that MIDI is mentioned - and a definition is included next to it - "a new system of interface developed for computer-controlled instruments".

A year from now, and ALL synthesizer ads will feature the word MIDI heavily in either the title or ad-copy. I pulled out the July 1984 issue of Keyboard just in case someone called me out on that statement, and sure enough, MIDI has pretty much taken over. Heck, Roland's own ad title in the July 1984 issue was "Enter the world of MIDI".

But jump back to July 1983, when MIDI is just getting it's feet wet, and Roland is smart to stay firmly on the fence for now. By promoting both their own protocols as well as MIDI, they let readers know that no matter when they buy from Roland, the gear will be compatible one way or another.

And it wasn't just Roland that was playing the waiting game. Many companies either hadn't included MIDI in their gear yet, or if they had, they didn't say too much about it in their ads. The July 1983 ad for Garfield Electronic's Doctor Click (the godfather of sync) didn't include MIDI yet. Neither did Octave-plateau Electronic Inc.'s Voyetra-8 ad.

There was one exception... :o)

The ad for Sequential Circuit Inc.'s Prophet-600, the first commercially available MIDI synthesizer. Their ad has a large call-out box extolling the virtues of MIDI. And no wonder - SCI was heavily involved in MIDI's development. Nice!

I'll post that ad in the near future.

End note: This has always bugged me. Why did Roland pick 1987 as the 'future'? There is a design rule-of-thumb that says never to use even numbers. So maybe the thinking was that '84, '86, '88 would be out of the question. '85 is probably too close. And '89 is too close to '90.

Hmmmm... still bugging me.

Roland Jupiter-8 (JP-8), MC-4, OP-8, and MTR-100, Keyboard 1982

Roland Jupiter-8 synthesizer (JP-8) and MC-4 sequencer, with OP-8 interface and MTR-100 digital cassette recorder, from inside front cover of Keyboard magazine December 1982.

I quite enjoy this 'Special Product Report' advertisement - a two-page spread that kept the yellow and black design that Roland was using at the time for many ads including the TR808 (to be posted in the near future). The ad also includes some great quotes and references to famous users, including producer Martin Rushent, Devo's Mark Mothersbaugh, and Toto's Steve Porcaro and David Paitch ("... a happening polyphonic synthesizer...").

The JP-8's popularity is quite apparent through it's numerous online references:

• Wikipedia
• Vintage Synth Explorer
• Synth Museum

If you can't afford (or find) the real thing, many say the VST version made by Arturia is a good replacement.

The MC-4, OP-8, and MTR-100 each have their own Wikipedia page, and you can also find MC-4 command flowcharts online (via Matrixsynth).

Another 1981 JP-8 ad was posted on April 2, 2009, and the MC-4 was featured in a 1978 'family photo' ad posted on March 9, 2009.

End note: The JP-8 the *only* synthesizer I've ever regretted selling. Seriously.

Roland family of products, Contemporary Keyboard 1978

Roland orgy - SH-7, JP-4, MC-4, System 100, System 500, and more on page 15 of Contemporary Keyboard September 1978.