Digital Is Evil. Analogue Is Your Friend.

I just bought a vintage analogue synthesizer named the Roland Juno 106 the other night after a rather aggressive bidding war with someone on eBay. Unfortunately I am not shipping this machine to my home in Hong Kong yet, as shipping costs are too high. I plan on sending this back home to my parent's house in Vancouver where i will consolidate this with the rest of my studio to be packed up and sent to my shoebox apartment in Hong Kong.

You would not believe how excited but disappointed I am with this purchase. Excited because i have finally gotten my hands on a warm sounding analogue synthesizer for many years now. Disappointed because I cannot play with it until it arrives in Hong Kong.

The Juno 106 was released in 1984 by Roland as a semi analogue-semi digital synthesizer tool. It has been used by Dr. Dre, Aphex Twin, Daft Punk, Depeche Mode, Joris Voorn, and countless of other producers of all music genres.

In terms of sound, it has the capacity and flexibility to produce mind boggling sound effects, aggressive sawtooth basslines (think of the cheesey music you hear at Volar), and legendary leads. I got into a heated debate with my partner in crime from Toronto on a long distance call, where he advised me that there is nothing the 106 can do these days that my computer cannot do.

This is true.

But nothing beats hardware. Software technology can be overwhelming at times, and yes i am aware that it is CAPABLE of being more flexible, but in reality, is this truly the case? I know TONS of producers back home that swear by software synthesizer technology, but because the capability of software technology can be so vast, people can be caught up spending hours in front of the computer messing around for 6 hours rather than actually getting anything done. It's one thing to be constructive and actually get something done. It's another when your sitting in front of your Apple monitor debating what to do with so much software technology. You may also be asking yourself how the fuck to move rotate that button on the screen without using your mouse. It's when I think of these kind of things which make me appreciate the physicality of touching a hardware synthesizer.

Digital is evil. Analogue is your friend.