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Tuesday, February 11th, 2025 08:24 pm

Synth Glossary

Arpeggiator:
Many synths can only play one note at a time (they are monophonic). With the arpeggiator on, if more than one note is pressed at a time, the synth will alternate between the notes. They also often have a range control that allows the user to tell the ynth to play additional octaves - so if the range is set to two octaves the synth will play the keys that are held down in the octave that they are played and then in the next octave up/down....

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Alpha Juno-1
Roland's Alpha Juno-1 is another great keyboard from the mid 80's. The Juno line is known for its great analogue filters and the Alpha is no exception. The keyboard sounds very thick, probably because of its added sub OSC along with the usual DCO, so bass sounds are no problem. The DCO can generate four varied waveforms: pulse, sawtooth, sub, and noise. With the pulse, sawtooth, and sub waveforms there is a setting for Pulse Width Modulation and different variations of the waveforms that change the spectrum. There is only one LFO and it can be assigned to the VCF and the DCO. However, it can be set extremely low for those great long drawn out sweeps. The envelopes are not the largest ones I have seen, it only has four points. These are broken up into Time 1, Level 1, Time 2, Level 2, Time 3, Level 3, and Time 4. This simple architecture makes it easy to program (PG-300 is an external programmer for the Alpha 1/2 and MKS-50). Unlike most keyboards equipped with knobs or sliders the Alpha has a large round dial that is used for all the data entries, Alpha Dial hence Alpha Juno. The keyboard itself has no velocity or after touch response but the Juno can respond to both of these through midi. The foot size of this keyboard is great. It is small enough to carry but large enough to play accurately.

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