Roland Alpha Juno 1/2 "An easy to operate synthesizer with excellent sound quality" brochure, 1986

Roland Alpha Juno 1 /2 "An easy to operate synthesizer with excellent sound quality" six-page colour brochure from January 1986.

Well, since I was discussing Junos in my last post, I figured I may as well keep the theme going by scanning this brochure featuring the next generation of Juno - the Alpha series.

Although not technically a "We design the future" brochure, it keeps all the design aspects of the series, except for the tag phrase itself, which had been phased out years before.  We get a cover page with the giant Roland logo, a large red title and a photo that incorporates some kind of cool background - in this case some kind of semi-transparent folding screen or paper. So I've tagged it with the "We design the future" label anyways.

And, as expected, opening the brochure up reveals a large photo of an Alpha Juno syn... wait a second! In this case, when you open the brochure, you first see a smaller barn door-type page that has the right side of the Alpha Juno 1 on it along with some gold nuggets. The cool thing is it fits perfectly with the left site of the Alpha Juno 2 on the pages within, giving the illusion of a full image of the Juno 1.

Confused? It's a bit hard to explain so I've included a short gif below of what you see when you open the cover page.

Now, when you open that inner page up, it reveals the inside pages that include a large three-page image of the Alpha Juno 2!  That's a great way to problem-solve the issue of trying to fit photos of both large synths on just the inside pages.

The Alpha Juno series of synths were an evolution of sorts for Roland synths. Their DCOs produced significantly more wave forms than previous synths like the MKS-80 and JX-8p, and they had a distinctive 8 parameter envelope. The brochure rightfully highlights both of these features, but only after highlighting the different between the two Alpha synths themselves. Those three differences being:

1. Keyboard size - the Juno 2 with its 61 keys, and the Juno 1 with 49.
2. The Juno 2 had velocity and pressure sensitivity - a no-go for the Juno 1.
3. The Juno 2 had the luxury of a M-64C cartridge for extra patch storage, while the Juno 1 had to suffer with cassette tape back up.

Both machines luckily had the alpha dial - a great (and fun!) way to edit data. I'm definitely Pro-dial. I love it just as much as I love the Alpha's filter.

Last, but not least, no Alpha Juno post would be complete without mentioning its most famous sound... the hoover!

If you've been living under a rock, then you can catch up quickly by reading this wikipedia entry on this unique sound.

There. I mentioned it. Happy?