Roland Juno-X Programmable Polyphonic Keyboard Synthesizer

Not sure why there isn’t many reviews here on amazon for the Juno-X, so I’m making one! Being a home producer I needed a workhorse with ease of flow in creating sounds. The Juno does not disappoint. Sound quality is fantastic, many built in sounds with freedom of creation. The keys feel amazing. Do not hesitate to get this synth, Roland definitely deserves the success on this one.

What is there to say, if you're reading this review then you know what this is. It's got the Juno 6, Juno 60, Juno 106 DNA right down to built in speakers. In addition to the excellent Juno instruments, it can also do Rolands stage piano and their Zencore sounds that all of their flagship synths use these days.The one to one mapping of sliders to the original hardware makes patch creation a joy and it's split, voicing, and multi timbral modes allow for some impressive sounds.It integrates well with DAW and sends multiple USB audio inputs and outputs with low latency ASIO.Build quality is impressive with a metal chassis capped by plastic ends. I would have preferred wood end caps but it certainly feels solid. The chassis and keybed are on par with my Roland D50 which is a beast of a synth.

Can't believe how much of a ripoff this product is - that they charge this much for a digital version of this keyboard. It sounds "ok" - but the build/quality of this is crap.

Let's get something out of the way first. This is little more than than Roland's online zen core in a Juno casing. It is not analog and is unlikely to impress anyone who insists on such purity. Likewise, unless you are in love with the exclusive Juno-X engine onboard, there is little here among the (admittedly generous) 4000+ presets that you can't get access to over the Roland cloud. If sound access and ease of use is major factor for you, or even if live performance is priority, I would recommend you go with one of the Fantom workstations. For similar money, those have a modern interface that is much more user friendly than this keyboard in my opinion.So, who is this (and the similar Jupiter-X) for exactly? I would answer that by saying it's for someone who has always wanted to own a Juno 106 (or Jupiter-8) but couldn't afford the legacy pricing or didn't want to mess around with the increasing challenges of maintenance and upkeep on a vintage synth.The Juno-X gives you the Juno experience through hardware choices that seem incredibly familiar and yet feature all kinds of well thought out improvements. The 106-style controls have always been a wonderfully intuitive way to learn and thrive within various types of synthesis. When I first played mine it felt like coming home. It's definitely a Juno right out of the box, which is what I signed up for and was thrilled to get.I wanted that vintage feel, but wasn't hung up about it ultimately being an analog modeling digital synth. It's a really fun board for sound design, demoing, and creating tons of voice options in the studio. The sounds I can get out of it are fairly massive and the dual XLR outputs are a huge plus in this setting as well.It has a small screen and huge amount of sounds you have to dial through one at a time to properly select (I wouldn't want my life to depend on finding any specific one in a real hurry by this method - especially in a live setting). But it comes with free software that takes managing and programming sounds to a whole other level. NOT something you can get with a vintage analog synth.Time will ultimately tell, but the build quality seems terrific to me. And that is a big factor in being willing to pay closer to 2K than 1.5. There is a solid metal body playing host to what feel like HQ knobs and levers. Aftertouch is a little stubborn at first but loosens up the more you use it. The synth is also fairly lightweight (about 25 lbs) and easy to move around.Comes with the exclusive Juno-X engine as well as the Juno-106, Juno-60, nearly all of the classic XV-5080 module, the entirety of Roland's zen core sounds, as well as the RD Series of Pianos and a built-in vocoder. The speakers are pretty weak and I would have traded them for a slightly smaller profile and a few hundred dollars off, but I can see how they may be of convenience to others.In the coming months, I'll be loading in the JD-800, Jupiter-8, JX-8P and SH-101 expansion modules into this (all about 150 bucks each for lifetime licenses). It will feel like I have decades worth of classic Roland sounds at my fingertips for as long as I own the synth. That's what I wanted: A bit of a nostalgia trip in terms of voice and control. The Juno-X offers that unquestionably, and even more if you're clever and patient with it.If I were independently wealthy, I would live in a climate controlled castle packed to the rafters with fully functioning vintage synths. I am not however. I have to make tough choices with these things. I have always wanted a Juno-106 since I first played one in the late 80s. I couldn't resist the chance to get a modern synthesizer built with it's spirit at heart. I have not been disappointed with it yet.