The Jupiter 4 was Roland’s first polysynth in 1979. Given that the Prophet 5 had been released the previous year, Roland were definitely playing catch-up, and the design looks notably less “modern” than Sequential’s game-changing instrument. Nonetheless, the Jupiter 4 is well thought of and sounds great, with a character of its own. It’s the […]
What do Roland’s “Cross Mod” or “Metal Sync” really do? There are quite few people asking this question on the internet, but no-one has much of an answer. Here’s a few forum discussions I found about it: https://www.harmonycentral.com/forum/forum/Keyboards/acapella-18/330134- http://forums.rolandclan.com/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=54410 https://music.stackexchange.com/questions/57210/what-exactly-is-the-cross-modulation-on-roland-jupiter-and-jx-analog-synthesiz/71048 Ok, so Harmony Central was never going to provide a solid technical answer, but the Roland Clan […]
This article is a look at sub-oscillators, a common tactic for fattening up the bottom end, particularly in synths with only one oscillator, or only one oscillator per voice. Classic examples include the Roland Juno 106 and SH101, and the Korg Polysix. More recently, sub-oscs turn up on a lot of modern analog synths since […]
Can we make a modern reproduction of the classic top octave generator / top octave synthesiser chips of the 1970s, as used in classic string synths and combo organs? What would be involved? Can we improve on the originals in any way? This page is a summary of what I learned by doing it. A […]
To celebrate the 2016 return of the CEM3340 chip, I thought I’d do another page in my series looking at how various synths implemented classic synth chips (the others being CEM3320 Filter designs and SSM2044 LP Filter designs). This is especially useful right now, since many people have bought a few CEM3340s or V3340s or AS3340s for their […]
Direct digital synthesis is a common technique for generating waveforms digitally. The principles of the technique are simple and widely applicable. You can build a DDS oscillator in hardware or in software. A DDS oscillator is sometimes also known as a Numerically-Controlled Oscillator (NCO). How does it work? The most important part of a DDS […]
This page is an overview of two techniques for creating wavetable oscillators. Contents DDS – Korg DW series and similar Variable sample rate – PPG Wave and similar DDS – Korg DW series and similar The Korg DW series use a DDS oscillator scheme. Korg called it ‘DWGS’ for ‘Digital Waveform Generator System’ in the 80’s style […]
This page is a brief look at the technology of the Roland Juno series digitally controlled oscillators. The specific scheme presented here was introduced in the Juno 106 in 1984, but the same basic DCO design turned up in many Roland instruments through the 1980s (including the JX-3P, JX-8P, JX-10 and the MKS modules based […]
