There are plenty of Roland Juno-60 emulations on the market, within the Roland Cloud and via the u-he Diva, Arturia Jun-6 V, Behringer Neptune-80, for example.
Luckily for those without a Juno-60 emulation in their current rig, the J-60, the newest IK Multimedia emulation of the coveted synth, is currently available for free.
The emulation is included in the IK Syntronik 2 instruments pack, which is also available as a free version, Syntronik 2 CS. This means that you can run the J-60, as well as 2,000 samples and 78 presets for absolutely nothing.
The Juno-60 is coined as having helped define the sound of the ’80s, offering a fat sub-oscillator and a swirling chorus. It was released in 1982 to replace the Juno-6, allowing users to finally save their patches.
The synth was long thought to be the cheaper alternative to the Jupiter-8, using the same Roland IR3109 filter chip, with it’s 4-pole resonating low pass filter and non-sweepable high pass filter. In addition, the Juno-60 uses DCOs (digitally controlled oscillators) for better tuning stability than Jupiter’s VCOs (voltage controlled oscillators).
In 2021, Roland then released the Roland Cloud, a subscription model for plugin collectors, and one which the company called the “only authentic software resource for the true Juno-60 sound”.
There were concerns that this authentic emulation, made by Roland themselves would stomp out any competition. However, considering the popularity of third-party emulations, it doesn’t look like they’ll be going anywhere any time soon.
To get your hands on IK Multimedia’s J-60 plugin completely for free, head to IK Multimedia.
