My opinion on the Juno-G

I was on the way to the delete button, but since I respect all opinions I just edited the topic name.

You want this keyboard to be what it is NOT intended to be, hence you are absolutely incorrect in most of your judgements.

I have worked with the Juno-G for a year, and found it a very pleasurable device to work with, lots of power and possibilities which are NOT available in this price range (come on, 128 poly, 5 effects processors, sampling/resampling, etc.).

-THERE IS NO SONG CHAIN OR SONG CUE LIST AVAILABLE.

Subjective. Song list is quick to scroll and songs load in less than 1 sec.

THERE IS NO GROOVEBOX CAPABILITY.

Well, but it was never meant to be a groovebox.

THERE REALLY IS NO SEQUENCER MENU

Are you kidding me? The sequencer is so easy to use without having to go into any special "sequencer mode".

THERE IS NO REALTIME CONTROL AVAILABLE FOR PATCH EDITING, TRACK VOLUMES AND PAN AND THE REST

WHAT??? Please keep all the lies to yourself, if you don't know how the board works, don't make false statements.

EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO USE (SONGS, SAMPLES, WHATEVER) NEEDS TO BE PRE-LOADED.

Don't you know that you can't stream 100's of samples of any flash device (that doesn't cost $1000)? This is why we have high-speed RAM and you need to load the samples first.

Again, you simply have almost no idea what the Juno-G is and how it works. Your post simply make no sense then, I am sorry.

I am sorry, Artemiy I know you are a nice guy and always very helpful, but I am not a newbie, i've had synths for THIRTY years, and still am a pro producer; ALSO, I have been Italy's premier music electronics dealer 1999 to 2004, and a top Yamaha/Roland/Korg dealer, I know what I'm talking about, thanks.

-“THERE IS NO SONG CHAIN OR SONG CUE LIST AVAILABLE. ”
-"Subjective. Song list is quick to scroll and songs load in less than 1 sec."
So, there you go. No song cue list.Are you sure you know what I meant, beforeconfuting me? A song chain/cue list means you make a list of the songs you want played in a specific order, and you can usually have several of those lists one after the other. So you can play song 1,2,3, and 4 with no stop between them, in a perfect mix.
It doesnt't mean that you need to get into song load mode and load another song, no matter how short the loading time. The JUNO G DOES NOT HAVE A SONG CHAIN/CUE LIST FUNCTION. simple as that. Like I said, many economy boardsa have it, Roland, Korg, Yamaha, you name it. When gigging live, it's vital to have one.

-“THERE IS NO GROOVEBOX CAPABILITY.”
-"Well, but it was never meant to be a groovebox. "
Are you sure? because Roland marketed it almost like one, boasting its "505/909 heritage" and its "rhythm machine capabilities". Speaking of which, they are really bare-bones. There is no realtime recording in pattern mode, only step grid. Amateurish.

-“THERE REALLY IS NO SEQUENCER MENU”
-"Are you kidding me? The sequencer is so easy to use without having to go into any special "sequencer mode". "
Well, the lack of this "sequencer mode" makes for a really hard to discern device, with a messy architecture that has no tail and no end, like a snake biting its own tail. I have extensively fought with it, I cant' say I have "used" it, as I was never able to finish anyting with it, having to go back each time to other machines.

-“THERE IS NO REALTIME CONTROL AVAILABLE FOR PATCH EDITING, TRACK VOLUMES AND PAN AND THE REST”
-"WHAT??? Please keep all the lies to yourself, if you don't know how the board works, don't make false statemets.
No, I do know how it works.
If you're in patch mode, the knobs do work, I give you that. But patch mode is the least important of all the modes. Like I said earlier, no one is going to buy this thing just to "play the keys in a band". Besides that it would be foolish by anyone to do that with a reduced-size keys instrument, this is intended as a producer's tool (marketed as such by Roland), therefore we'll all gonna be using mostly the sequencing engine, the performance mode and the audio sampling area. That's where the faders and knobs are not immediately available: you need to highlight what you want for them to have an effect. Try MotifXS or other, older Roland gear to see some realtime controls working properly.

-“EVERYTHING YOU NEED TO USE (SONGS, SAMPLES, WHATEVER) NEEDS TO BE PRE-LOADED. ”
-"Don't you know that you can't stream 100's of samples of any flash device (that doesn't cost $1000)? This is why we have high-speed RAM and you need to load the samples first. "
Look, I have 2 items, a Yamaha SY-85 from 1992, and a Roland RS-70 from 2005, that do retain at power off the song, preset and pattern list, ready to go at a second's notice. The SY keeps the samples, too.

ALSO, it's important that you go right now to HarmonyCentral's User Reviews and check out what everybody's saying about the J. Besides some rookie who, obviously, would praise anything, the pros speak the truth about it.
If you recommend this machine to anyone instead of the Fantom or other boards, you are doing them a disservice. They will not be happy and eventually they will even lose money when trying to get rid of it. Heck, even in your OWN Juno forum the complaints are 20 to 1 vs. the praises!

I really wanted to like this machine when I got it. I needed something powerful but lightweight and not too troublesome because I have less time and space nowadays with wife & kids. But I kicked it out of my house in a week's time.
Last week, the store I consigned it to still had it unsold, so I took it back home, in lack of anything else in the store that I was interested on, for a second try, 3 months after I got rid of it.
Nothing, no dice. You can't do anything decent with it, and also, it lacks so many features that i give for granted these days, it' unbelievable.
At the same price (mind you, same price) they gave me instead a Korg M-50. While very much better in layout and sequencing tools, it lacked decent sounds (Roland's are ther best sounds hands down if you're doing electronica) and any audio track, so I returned that too.

There's two more thing I need to say:
I love Roland, the machines I loved the most were all Roland , a couple of Yammies and 1 Korg. Roland makes fantastic gear, but they also do too many bloopers. The Juno G, if you talk with ANY dealer the world over, is their worst in several years, together with the MC-808, which also sank nose down.

Finally, Artemiy, the fact that you're a very nice and knowledgeable guy, and that you always help anyone here, and that you own this forum, does not make you automatically gospel on the matter. Dont' you agree?

Well, I am still inclined to think that you did not "dig" the board, so did not those who bought it. Which, then, sounds like a marketing mistake from the manufacturer. But then the marketing/positioning doesn't change what the board is. You need to perceive it properly. For example, so many people complain about the V-Synth having no real piano...

As of your experience, I respect it of course, but years by far not always mean you're absolutely right in something. You can have 50 years of experience, but if your perception has been wrong all the way, you will have grown up with an extremely pronounced wrong prejudice.

Which is exactly what I see in most of your comments.

The sequencer is so damn simple... It has 16 linear tracks, macro and micro edit and that's it. How can anyone with such a big experience as yours get lost in this plain simple workflow? As of the knobs, they're context sensitive which means they work on different important parameters in every screen, amazingly useful. And if you switch on the Transmit Edit Data function, you can automate ANY parameter in the sequencer.

No, I am sorry, **you really don't seem to know how the board works,** that's it.

I had a laugh at the disclaimer. Although I'm not sure it was completely necessary, as we could certainly point out the OP's inconsistencies in a very long reply.

Instead of addressing the nonsense, I'm just going to add that a post such as this seems to have some motivation other than saving the noobs from a bad purchase. I'm all for good samaritanship but please don't try to tell me that axe is really a fluffy bunny head in disguise.

Of course, I agree the Fantom X and G are really great and the Juno G is baby brother; such a claim is obvious. The X and G do have some certain PRO features that set them apart from the Juno - i.e. balanced outputs and 88 weighted keys. However, for a new producer with limited budget working in a home studio - the Juno is a great investment.

I could go on about the undocumented potential of the Juno-G, but I'll save that for another time. The fact is, at it's sub-$1000 price point the Juno-G not only blows away the competition, it also allows one to budget for argueably more important pieces of a studio kit such as Monitors.

I have to disagree with Argomax(except for returning the M50 too!)

What I'll never understand is people posting reviews like this crying boo hoo because the BUDGET workstation they bought doesn't match the quality and feature list of a high end model.

The Juno-G is a BUDGET WORKSTATION. It's not and never was intended to function like its big brothers. Also keep in mind the Juno-G essentially replaced the Fantom Xa too. When the Juno-G was released the Xa was still being sold EVERYWHERE. The purpose of the JG is to provide a cost effective ALTERNATIVE to a Fantom.

Bottom line.., NO other budget workstation out there offers as much as the Juno-G. It competes with the Yamaha MO6 (a completely closed system with NO upgrade options and runs on a Motif ES sound engine choking like hell on a limited 64 note poly). The G also competes with the Korg M50 line. However..., they too cannot be upgraded with sounds or sampling and the poly is much lower than the JG's.

What I find the most disturbing and almost laughable is someone who posts this review who claims the number of years they have in experience yet can't grasp the concept of a BUDGET WORKSTATION.

I'm still laughing and actually confused. If OP is really part of elite group of Roland Dealers, could this speculation that 'they' 'all' find the board a disgrace(read:disservice) be true?

If the Juno was such a failure why has it been expanded to include the D le, and new Di?

The truth is, I conject, the Juno's re-release must have been met with wide success. Not only is it the sexiest workstation on the market right now, it does work too.

At any rate, these rants are not the trademark of a seasoned professional. It is nothing but someone posing with an axe to grind. Maybe his wife kicked him out of the music room?

Maybe his wife kicked him out of the music room?

More likely, his mom kicked him out of the sandbox

come on, be kind to the poster

after all, he(she) did not say "do you know who the hell you're talking to?!"

Personally I think the DELETE button would have been the wise choice..

To echo dbijoux, there simply is not, period, another board you can buy for that money that can do anything like the Juno G can...

If there had been better alternative, lower price, better functions, specas and sounds then wouldn't we all have purchased that instead of the JunoG?.. Doh!

You guys all sound truely like McDonald-fed, overweight and single to me. And with eyeglasses, too.

Keep doin' your thing, make sure you don't get hit in the face by someone you recommended the Juno G to, and got ripped off BY it and by the dealer he turned it to after a while.

does your mother know you are using her computer?

argomax, I eat almost only food that me and my wife cook at home, never visit McD, and I also weight just 65 kg. See, you're wrong even with this.

Seriously, you better keep out of this forum, because none of your posts is doing any good to anyone. You're neither getting the gear, nor us.