Roland Juno DS88

KEYBOARD The 88-note weighted
keyboard has a surprisingly expensive
feel, helped by the textured surface
and nicely balanced weight.
EFFECTS With the reverbs, amp sims,
fl angers, auto-panning, distortions,
rotary effects and more, you can
subtly effect things or destroy sounds!
PADS Use for MIDI, triggering audio
fi les from an attached USB stick,
triggering/muting the components of a
rhythm pattern, and more.
SEQUENCER A simple yet effective
backing machine and writing tool and
you can play/sing/vocode along on top
of any pattern/sequence.
one right of a user-defi nable split
point), a Dual switch that stacks two
sounds, and ‘Super Layer’ that
allows you to stack a single patch up
to fi ve times and then detune each
patch for creating bigger sounds.
There’s also a nicely spec’d
MIDI-syncable arpeggiator with
128 preset styles, (each with 12
motifs) for adding interest to your
patch or performance.
sequencer for rhythms/sequences.
It’s certainly very well-featured and
that’s before you touch the deeper
editing features!
Talking of which, the beauty of
the DS88 is that, while it presents
itself as a lower-level board, it’s
actually a very deep machine that
borrows ideas/functions from more
expensive Roland synth products.
There’s plenty in the way of sound-
shaping onboard including several
familiar fi lter types (though there’s
some audible stepping), plus two
LFOs and a ‘step’ LFO per-patch and
a really interesting TMT mode that
allows cross-modulation of tones in
various ways (including velocity-
triggering of tones within a patch).
There’s also basic FM onboard (FXM)
and then, to put the icing on the
cake, you have 80 solid-sounding/
versatile effects, plus AutoPitch
(which corrects your voice like
Auto-Tune) and a very decent
vocoder too (though unfortunately
there’s no combo jack/XLR socket).
All things considered, the
Juno-DS88 offers a lot of punch for
your pound! It covers a helluva-lot of
sonic territory in a pretty intuitive
way, with surprisingly solid-sounding
results. For just £779 street, it’s
therefore a bit of a steal!
FM VERDICT
8.5
W ell-built with a playable
weighted action, its sound
engine can be deeply edited
and covers a lot of territory.
Worth a serious look!
In terms of sound structure, there
are two main modes: Patch and
Performance. Patch mode deals with
a single sound made up of four
‘tones’ (each tone can use any two of
the 2,400+ onboard PCM waves)
and Performance mode is a 16-part
multi-timbral mode for using with
the split and dual modes, with
external sequencers/DAWs and when
using the onboard 8-track pattern
THE ALTERNATIVES
Yamaha
MOXF8 £1,201
Features an 88-note
weighted keyboard,
Motif-based
soundset and fl ash
memory for
importing Yamaha’s
own, or third-party
sound libraries. Also
features plenty of
effects, a powerful
sequencer and
DAW integration.
www.yamahasynth.
com
Korg Kross 88
£785
Featuring lots of
bread and butter
sounds, 16-track
sequencer, audio
recorder, plenty of
effects and an
88-note weighted
keyboard, the
Kross is Korg’s entry
level workstation.
www.korg.com
Kurzweil
SP5-8 £849
Taking sounds from
Kurzweil’s well-
respected PC-3
series, the SP5-8
also offers an
88-note weighted
keybed, 861
presets, powerful
effects, 16-part
multi-timbrality and
fi ve real-time sliders.
www.kurzweil.com
SOUNDS, PATTERN SEQUENCER AND MORE…
Each major sound type is neatly categorised; simply
press any of the under-screen category buttons to access
the plethora of onboard sounds. There are great drum
kits/samples, very playable acoustic/electric pianos, good
quality strings, guitars, basses and clavinets, some okay
organs, useful world/ethnic sounds and more sounds/
waves can be downloaded from Roland’s Axial library/
website. The quality is generally very good throughout.
This is further enhanced by the 8-measure pattern
sequencer which allows 8-track MIDI recording (for
capturing ideas quickly), the rhythm/backing machine
(where the pads act as eight variations/fi lls) and the
audio player that allows audio (WAV) playback via USB
stick. Like many current Roland products, the DS88
also works as a handy USB audio/MIDI interface too.
Reviews | Roland Juno-DS88
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FMU308.rev_roland_ds.indd 82 7/14/16 2:05 PM