I've noticed Roland's press on this instrument is as tricky as ever. At first glance you think this thing is exactly the same as a Fantom-X, minus the color display. But when you read further you notice a few discrepancies:

1) Obviously it's not 128 MB (equivalent) wave ROM, it's 64. That compares more closely to the Fantom-S, and in fact on the NAMM booth demo, Silky-T mentions the Fantom "S", not "X".

2) I downloaded the manual and it's really hard to tell whether or not this keyboard can function as a "traditional" hardware sampler, like the Fantom-S, X, and Xa can. It has a "Sample Patch" function which lets you assign audio phrases to the keys. It also has alot of sample editing functions. But can you simply lay out a multisample on the keyboard to play as a patch. I.E. a set of samples of a Minimoog, say, 1 every 3 notes and then play that as a patch?

I read about the sampling features at the Roland Clan website, but I'm not sure if that's entirely correct. I don't see anything in the manual about skip-back sampling, nor anything about "traditional" sampling. The sampling that the Juno-G seems to be able to do is in conjunction with the built-in audio tracks, which might make creating such user multi-sample patches a little tricky.

This will be interesting to find out about. I guess we all have the same information available (the online information and the downloadable manual), unless someone has an inside track at Roland.

1) Yes, Juno-G has the same wave set as Xa and S, with some extra additions - we have to wait for the sound list to be sure what these are.

2) Tim, apparently you read Roland manuals differently than I do ;-) From the manual, it is clearly seen that Juno-G works with samples the same way the Fantoms do, the only exception is that it doesn't support creating multisamples. But you have the sample list, WAVE/AIFF import via USB or card, offline editing (amp, normalize, timestretch etc.), sampling/re-sampling, you can assign the sample as a wave in a patch, etc. - all just as in the Fantoms.

Actually I just skimmed the manual, Art. No-one gets into the nitty-gritty of these instruments like you :-). But you do bring up a point re: multi-sampling. That is something that the Fantoms can do. I go back to my example of a multi-sampled Minimoog bass, or a drum kit comprised of a number of samples. The Fantoms could do that because they handle multi-samples. Can the Juno-G?

I do see all of the sample-editing features listed in the manual. But nowhere does it mention "sampling" the way we think about it from the old days. Anyway it will be intersting to figure this out.

One other thing: Will it read the Planet-F soundset you created? I've been listening to the MP3s and they are very impressive. You have figured out how to make the Fantom sound very "analogish".

Juno-G doesn't support multisamples, it's a fact. You can even see that in the parameter map there is no MSAM bank for the wave group, this means it won't read multisamples created on the Fantom. However, considering Juno's price, I think Roland has never had such a great instrument - I thought it would be $1500 and it's $1200 which is a fantastic price for a Fantom engine, sequencer and audio tracks plus a big LCD.

As about Planet F - I already wrote this, Juno-G is fully compatible with it. Planet F has patches all of which are based on Fantom's bank A, and all of them will sound the same on Juno-G. Samples can be imported from /TMP/AUDIO_IMPORT just as in Fantoms.

Also, according to the manual, in order to sample something, you need to perform a recording into an audio track, and then manipulate the sample (e.g. I assume you can clear the audio track events and leave the actual sample).

Thanks for clearing that up. So it "sort of" samples.

Re: the price. I'm seeing it listed at Sweetwater for $995 USD. That's $350 less than the Fantom Xa. It is a really good deal for someone wanting to get into the Fantom sound and way of producing within a hardware workstation.

For me, being a Fantom XR owner, it is less attractive. However I am looking for a portable keyboard to take to gigs where everything is self-contained. The Juno looks cool for that. But even cooler is looking the Korg X50 and Micro-X at $750 and $640 USD respectively.

The benefit for you is that Juno-G will read patches from your XR unless they use bank B waves. You end up with two copies of the same engine - and this is both an advantage and a disadvantage ;-)

I was thinking about that - actually we don't know that yet. If the Juno G has 64 meg of wave ROM, and if it has an "88-note multisampled grand piano", that not being in the original "S" wave ROM, then possibly something was eliminated from the original bank to allow for the new grand piano.

This is the next thing we need to find out - does the Juno G have the EXACT wave ROM of the Fantom-S and Fantom Xa, or is it a new modified wave ROM with a new multisampled grand piano and other waves eliminated? If the latter, then it might not load Planet-F, even though Planet-F uses only the original Fantom-S wave ROM.

This is where it would be nice for some of the Roland reps to show up at this forum from time to time, especially around NAMM time, just like the reps from Yamaha, Korg, Cakewalk, and others do at their respective forums. But I'm sure that will never happen so we'll have to try and find this out on our own.

I have no Roland gear yet, but I consider buying a Juno G. Please, can you tell me as a newbie if it would be possible to use multisampled patches from SRX cards?

Tim:

As far as I know, Juno-G has some new waves *appended* to the Fantom-S/X bank A. This means Planet F will load into it. Maybe these are some synth waves which do not require that much memory (I can tell you that a basic synth wave multisampled will take about 20 KB max, so if these are basic waves then they only needed about 1 MB for those new ones).

mkmm:

Yes, Juno-G will play multisamples from SRX cards just like the big Fantoms, it's that you cannot create your own multisamples.

A great many years later... this thread receives this addition... I read of the downside of the Juno G's lack of multi-sampling in the Sound on Sound magazine review (I know this was post- these comments on this forum). The way I see it, not that I ever have been a user of samplers, only of synths, is that the Juno G is therefore missing the possibility of playing multisampled instruments or drum kits from sample libraries, which is a shame. Realistically, surely the vast majority of user-created samples are vocal or unique sounds that are needed only at one pitch, or within a sensible pitch range that WILL be playable from the keyboard... before pitch-shifting artifacts start to make notes played too far from the original assigned key sound silly. The Juno's synth engine and effects can then do some excellent twisting-up of these samples.

The reason I bother to add this coment here is because in the Juno G manual, p. 38 & p. 53, there is printed MSAM as a wave group, yet this does not appear to exist (as expected) actually in the instrument. I'm not sure it would even with an SRX installed. I can appreciate the Juno G can play multi-samples from expansion boards... in this way no different to its own internal soundset... but I doubt MSAM would ever appear on screen. This is all academic I know, the Juno cannot use user multisamples, but I think there has been a typo- or inclusion here in the manual that is an error.

On further experimentation it is clear that the Rhythm patch method of building a multisample cannot work properly, the TVA works differently to non-rhythm sounds, it is imposible to make a patch's amplifier hold for a user defined playing time (keys held) them to stop upon release. The decay, sustain and release times determin this alone. I suppose the excuse will be that this amplifier envelope is all drum sounds require... but it makes it impossible to play a breakbeat sample (sampled riff, hook, whatever) from one key in situations where you might want to play varying lengths of that sample per-key-strike. As such I find it hard to believe that the alleged multisampled piano that someone may have created for the Juno G can be played convincingly as a piano!

RobJuno:

In rhythm mode, patch editor, "Gerenal" tab, there is a sustain/no-sustain switch which sets how the TVA works: gate type or one-shot type.

BTW, if you need a piano that would be better than the stock one, you should have a look at a second-hand SRX-11. It should be in the $100-150 range.

Ah! Thank you! Now I see the Juno has excellent potential in being able to assign and trigger sliced & diced audio phrase samples from each key! Who needs a dynamic pad bank! LOL. A far better proposition than using performance mode to attempt something far less comprehensive and yet more resource consuming. It's pretty tucked away, but I can now see how the Juno, by this method, could play back a multisampled instrument... so long as rhythm patch parameters equal normal patch parameters. Which right now I'm too tired to check.