That everpresent 80s Juno pad

[Fredthehound]

Hi all,

I realize this is a newb/dumb sorta question but I am looking for info on that Juno brassy pad that was in pretty much every bad 80s movie, mainstream or p**n. The one that just screams 'this is a cheap made for TV movie you saw and heard 1000 times before". As I don't have a Juno I'm wondering if it was a preset everyone just went with like the DX7 rhodes patch. For some godforsaken reason, this has been bugging me lately. I mean since the Juno has actual controls, what was the reason everyone and their brother used it? Granted, like it and think it's a great sound but the thing showed up everywhere and almost untweaked/identical it seems. I can understand a piano sound. It's a piano. Pianos make one sound. But this was a pad on an easily adjusted analog synth.

sorry if this sounds idiotic but what the heck. I had to ask.

[Re-Member]

You're going to need to post a sample of the sound in action. The Juno does indeed have a few preset brass and pad patches, but so did dozens of other synthesizers in the 80's. What usually makes the Juno-60 identifiable in a track is its chorus.

[Fredthehound]

You're going to need to post a sample of the sound in action. The Juno does indeed have a few preset brass and pad patches, but so did dozens of other synthesizers in the 80's. What usually makes the Juno-60 identifiable in a track is its chorus.

It's basically this



Granted this is from a modern/retro song, but that's the sound I'm thinking of.

[Bitexion]

it's a 5 minute song with lots of sounds in it..be more specific please.

[Fredthehound]

The video begins right where the sound comes in. In this particular song it's being used as the main melody line but I often hear it chorded, rather than individual notes and used in a more padlike manner.

[Alex E]

Like the first 40 seconds of this?



Quintessential Juno 60 pad right there. Nothing quite like it.

[Fredthehound]

Like the first 40 seconds of this?


Quintessential Juno 60 pad right there. Nothing quite like it.

Nope. the one I am thinking, like in the video I posted is almost a polykey. To my ears its brassy with a really quick initial pitch to the transient. I call it brassy and padlike but I could understand that being seen a poor descriptor for the sound. To me it kinda sorta has a brassy trumpet attack with that fast transient moreso than a pluck. I apologize for any confusion on this. It's a fairly versatile sound. I have heard it chorded out and buried on hall verb, or played more staccatto as a lead ect. It was in a ton of 80s/90s Anime if that provides any better direction for what I mean.

[Fredthehound]

OK here's another example. This is the more padlike/chorded use. It's at the starying point of this video/the part sitting behind the vocals. Around the youtube 34 second mark.

[HideawayStudio]

Actually the type of sound you are describing is best heard in your first example.

Although I don't doubt this is a preset in one of the later analog polysynths it is very much a bread and butter sound that has been recreated on countless synths.

What, as another member has mentioned, really makes the Roland renditions of this class of sound stand out is the stereo analog chorus that they bolted on to so many of their products. There is no doubting this is really nice sweetener but unfortunately it ends up making everything sound like a Roland of the era!

Synth brass is easy to program up on most analog and VA polysynths with decent filters. It is, as you say, a form of brass timbre with a relatively rapid attack.

Vintage synths that immediately spring to mind that could easily render such a sound are Juno-6/60/106, JX-8P, MKS-70/JX-10, JP-4/6/8, Matrix 6, Matrix 1000. Both the Rolands and Oberheims of this era produced smooth brass like timbres with ease (both featuring OTA based filters). On the VA front something like a Nord Lead could render such a sound with ease.

[Fredthehound]

Thank you muchly.

For some reason I always thought of it as a "juno" sound. maybe it's just a mental association thing in my own mind. To be honest I can't tell you why that is but every time I hear it a Juno springs to mind. Probably saw a juno do it in a video once and it just 'locked' as being that.

[dswo]

Thanks for posing this question, Fredthehound, and thank you, Alex E., for posting that Enya song. (Probably hadn't heard that since I was in grad school.) Even though it was the wrong sound, I learned a couple of things about my own Juno 6 from trying to copy it.

[Fredthehound]

Thanks for posing this question, Fredthehound, and thank you, Alex E., for posting that Enya song. (Probably hadn't heard that since I was in grad school.) Even though it was the wrong sound, I learned a couple of things about my own Juno 6 from trying to copy it.

Now that Hideaway got me set straight on it, I'll probably drive myself nuts trying to figure out why I thought it was a Juno thing all this time

[gs]

No need to drive yourself nuts, I think a lot of people think the same thing... the Juno series was an extremely popular (and affordable) polysynth for its day, so a lot of people used it. Doesn't mean that this sound can't be effectively duplicated elsewhere, and that sound may have in fact been a popular preset on lots of polysynths. But since more people could afford the Juno, the Juno got associated with it. Even so, as others have mentioned, you can still pick out the Juno due to its peculiar and unique on-board chorus.

[Virgule]

My first synth was a 106 and I never liked the Chorus much but without it, the brass and pad sounds were definately thin and flat.

I actually got a great sounding Juno pads using a K2000

[Re-Member]

The trick to easily getting this type of sound is using a synth that has a single envelope controlling the filter and amp at the same time. You want to have both the filter Cutoff and Resonance about half way up, then the envelope Decay and Release about half way up as well. Keep Sustain at zero and maybe add a touch of Attack. From here, just adjust the Filter Envelope amount till you get something that has a long release after you take your finger off each note. You'll hear that as the note decays, the resonance starts to shine.