From map@cs.washington.eduMon May 22 10:03:21 1995 Date: Mon, 22 May 1995 09:42:33 -0700 (PDT) From: Mike Perkowitz To: analogue heaven Subject: Re: A-juno 2 vs. ESQ-1 > Today i looked at a Alpha Juno 2. It's quite a small synth, especially > compaired to the ESQ-1. But thats not what matters, Its what it can > do that matters. Sadly i didn't get a chance to play or program it. > So I wonder if anybody can tell me what are the pros and cons of it > compaired to the ESQ-1. It seemed much harder to program since > it has much smaller display than ESQ-1 and you can only see one > parameter at a time, am i right? as for programming, a lone ESQ-1 is much nicer than a lone alpha juno, as you remarked. for a button/data-slider synth, the ESQ-1 is pretty nice to program. *however* the alpha juno does have an available programmer, the pg-300, which is quite nice. in the states anyway they go for anywhere from $25-$150.. at least they're much easier to find than any other roland programmer. they're both analogue/digital hybrids, the ESQ a bit farther into the digital realm, imho. the juno has digitally controlled oscillators creating the usual waves -- square, saw, pulse -- while the ESQ has the basics as well as sampled waveforms. the ESQ offers much much more programming flexibility: 3 (?) oscillators, 4 (?) envelopes, 2 lfos, modulation possibilities from hell. the juno is a basic dco-vcf-vca synth. though, imho, it sounds "fuller" m ----------------------------------------------------------------------- No woman may have sex with a man while riding in an ambulance within the boundaries of Tremonton, Utah. If caught, the woman can be charged with a sexual misdemeanor and "her name is to be published in the local newspaper." The man isn't charged nor is his name revealed. ----------------------------------------------------------------------- map@cs.washington.edu http://www.cs.washington.edu/homes/map/ mike perkowitz http://www.hyperreal.com/~tint From robls@digidesign.comMon May 22 13:12:01 1995 Date: Mon, 22 May 1995 12:53:52 -0700 From: Rob Lodes To: analogue@hyperreal.com Subject: ESQs and Alphas Carl says: "Today i looked at a Alpha Juno 2. It's quite a small synth, especially compaired to the ESQ-1. But thats not what matters, Its what it can do that matters. Sadly i didn't get a chance to play or program it. So I wonder if anybody can tell me what are the pros and cons of it compaired to the ESQ-1. It seemed much harder to program since it has much smaller display than ESQ-1 and you can only see one parameter at a time, am i right?" They both came out about the same time, I believe the ESQ was first. The ESQ is the machine that set the standard for all of the so called "Workstations." It's big bennifite is that it's mulit-timbral, 8 part, and has a sequencer. The ESQ is a 8 voice synth. The Alpha is one part, and yes it has no bananas (that is to say no sequencer). I may be wrong but I remember the Alpha being a six voice box (Roland tended on the cheep side, a lot. This was a total marketing thing for them. If you look inside a JP6 you'll see a PC board {well two boards really} with room for 8 voices, two of them empty. The cool guys in Roland marketing thought that if the JP6 had eight voices that people would stop buying JP8s. I couldn't prove it but If someone was savey enought they could rewrite the os in the JP6, fill in the 2 other voices and have an 8 voice JP6/8...). The ESQ has 3 OCSs, and the Alpha 1 OCS plus a sub OCS (like the other Junos out there). Both machines use DCOs (read: wave tables), but the ESQ has many more waveforms. Both have a 4 pole resonating low pass filter, I seem to remember the Alpha also having a hi pass filter. The ESQ (and the SQ-80, same thing just more of it) was the last voice archatecture that Ensoniq used that had analog filters. After that they went to digital filters (ie: the VFX, one of my favorite machines). Roland did make a programer for the Alpha machines. I believe it was called a PG300. If you have a Macintosh and Opcode's Max I made (using Max isn't realy programing) a PG300 emulator patch with Max and I'd be glad to set you up with it. There were 3 verisons of the ESQ-1. There was the keyboard version, "ESQ-1," the rack version (I don't remember it's name), a 2 space unit with no sequencer, and the SQ-80, with more sequencer ram, a floppy drive and many nice new waveforms. There were to versions of the Alphas (and I remember a rack mount but it's avery vague memory and I'm not sure about it). There was the Alpha Juno 1, and the Alpha Juno 2. Pretty much the same synth. The 2 had a 5 octive velocity keyboard, the 1 had a four octive non-velocity. The reason they were called "Alpha" was they had a Alpha dial to enter in parameter values. They may well have been the first Roland keyboards to have this feature (but that title could go to the JX-10). I can come up with more info on these machines later if you like. Have you noticed that computer companys keep using old synth names - Apple Quadras, Dec Alphas... Here's one for you: What synth used an Intel microprocessor that was one level advanced from the then current current PCs? As far as I know this was the only time synths were using more advanced technology then the then current computers. -Rob-