review - december 08

[hois68]

I was very excited to try out the juno stage...after checking out the videos and reading up on it, I decided it would be a great keyboard for the latest band I've joined up with - most of the sounds I need are standard: piano, electric piano, organs, string, brass, clav, synth and pads and from what I understood this is the perfect "performance" synth...
not quite...
actually, it's boxed-up and being shipped back as I type this...for starters, the A above middle C has some crazy velocity-thing going on, where it sounds louder than every other key on the board...I tried resetting the unit, but that didn't work...funny thing is that over the weekend I went to 2 different guitar centers and played the juno stage at both of them...same problem, although one of them had the velocity issue with the F above middle C...
now onto the sounds: the piano - it's ok, nothing to write home about and definitely not worthy of all the fuss roland makes over it...in fact, it sounds a bit dull for my taste, even going into "piano mode" and playing with the ambiance, mic settings, etc. didn't seem to have that much effect on it...the electric pianos - these are actually pretty good, although for the 25 patches, there's probably less than 10 that are really "usable" the organs - not terribly impressive...again, 3 or 4 decent ones out of the 30 or so patches...strings and brass - they're ok, but no more different than any other synth in the same price range and the synth sounds are typical roland, alot of which sound like rehashes of the original fantom...
overall, the synth didn't live up to the hype imo...not that you can expect alot in that price range, however I found my korg tr-61 to have much better / usable sounds...if roland spent less time with things like the cheap vocoder, mp3 player plug-in, etc. and concentrated more on providing useful sounds in a 76 key synth they might be onto something (and sure I know there's expansion cards available, but if I'm going to spend upwards of $200 a card I might as well just buy a $2000 fantom x)
I'm taking it back for a korg m50...

[Artemiy]

This is a weird issue with the keyboard, but I can't comment since the Stage is just starting to begin shipping and there isn't much posted about it.

As of the sounds, this is highly subjective. Especially since the Stage features sounds almost identical to the Fantom-X.

[acim]

Did my best to hear unwanted volume changes between the mentioned keys, but nope... Velocity is evenly balanced on my Stage. The sounds? 'Classic' Fantom sounds. So, good. I have a SRX-07 installed (Ultimate Keys). Very good! The keybed is not as good as the one of this Fantom X7 I once owned but it gets a 'more than sufficient' from me. Have a EV-5 control pedal connected with very good results on most of the presets (wah, leslie on-off, triggering effects, growl on-off, and much more). Also using a DP-10 with good results. The Stage has a durable power supply, not this tiny wobbling plastic thing with ultra thin wires. The display is very readable while all knobs are standard quality but reliable. The 'chassis' is sturdy and it's a lightweight. So... For the money it is very reliable but it is no high flyer like a Fantom G for example or a V-Synth. For that you will have to more than double the investment...

[AAR]

Roland Users VS Korg Users)))))))))))))))
I love Roland sound!!!

[luke]

Sounds tend to be a matter of personal taste I believe. I use kurzweil and roland, thinking about clavia in the future. I don't like yamaha's sounds and korg's interface in general, but I might get a korg R3, mostly because it has a pretty good vocoder.

[AAR]

Each instrument have a features, advantages and disadvantages

[maestrosk2]

Hello to all musician keyboards player friends!!!!

For once again roland have maid his miracle.
I just bought a rolland juno stage with big expectations but it took me just 40 min of playing on it to dissapoint!!!
The keyboard in several notes as other players have said goes crazy with velocity!!!!!And the feel of the keyboard isn't what all the fuzz is about!!!The sounds are handy in general nothing impressive.The piano sounds are a disapointment.Ialso have a fantom x8 and the piano sounds of juno stage aren;t just event close!!!I'm very disapointed fromn roland because im a professional music player i bought this keyboard for 1030euros and the keyboard has many problems and the bigger the one with the velocities!!!!!Im hopping for an OS update that will fix the problem because if there isn't one the keyboard is uselles!!!I also own a korg m50 whitch is a great deal to buy for his money, 900euros compare to Juno Stage.It's really peatyfull......

[secret Roland agent]

review - december 08

Over-all, I think that December 8th was a pretty good day! I give it an 8.5 out of 10.

[Parsifal]

You naughty boy! You did it again with Bernice!

[secret Roland agent]

How did you know? It's an addiction with us. We just can't seem to get enough. You know?! Once we get going, it's almost impossible to stop! Yep . . . those Monday evening 'Scrabble' tournaments are almost too much to handle!

BTW. Bernice won two out of the three games! (She would have won all three, but I cheated on the last one!) ;>)

[donutninja]

I've had no velocity problems, the keyboard action feels great. I've gigged with this in a 60's cover band, and an 80's band with some pretty complicated synth setups. It worked great in both.

Two thumbs up so far!

[maestrosk2]

-The keyboard has some great synths sounds indeed.

-Pianos and strings are week points in my opinion !

-I don't know if i install srx 02 how piano sounds will sound!

-Unfortunately my juno stage has velocity problems as i have already told.This is the fact that makes me more sad!!!!

[stroumf83]

Have anyone else problems with velocity? I plan to buy Juno stage but I can't find one in Greece to try it...
Hey maestrosk2 are you greek? Einai kalo to klavie? na to parw???

[valen]

A friend of mine brought home a M50 88 and the Juno Stage. I was sooooo disappointed n the Juno Stage keybed. It felt very plasticky and cheap to me. On some keys (sharps or flats) if you press the key and let it snap back on its own, it would make a very plasticky clanking sound. This was only on some keys. Others were properly damped. It was very strange and very disappointing.

OF course comparing to the M50 88 is not really fair but when you consider that the M50 88 is only $700 more (in Canada). The difference in value for the M50 is astounding. The sound quality was also very different. The M50 sounded so much fuller and richer. I guess the DA converters in the korg were better.

I was really hoping to like the Juno Stage but the M50 is clearly miles ahead. When the 73 key M50 version comes out, it should be around the same price as the Juno Stage and in that case would make the choice a no brainer. The korg 73 key keybed cannot be worse than the Juno Stage's.

[zoolansky]

First of all, sorry for my english (I'm from Barcelona, Spain). Now go for it.

To all who are disappointed about the keyboard feel, especially in acoustic pianos, I strongly recommend to read the page 54 from the owner manual, "Adjusting the keyboard touch"; I was also disappointed about the piano sounds and the keybed answer, but when I set those three parameters (Keyboard Velocity, Keyboard Velocity Curve and Keyboard Velocity Sens) to REAL, HEAVY and about +50 respectively, the results were simply amazing. I think when Juno Stage comes from factory it's ready to be played as a synth but not as an acosutic piano. Try this settings and maybe your life will change drastically.

By the way, I don't know how to save those settings forever; when I use write option I get the message but when I turn off and on the power, it seems like if I don't go again to the option (MENU => SYSTEM => KEYBD/CTRL), even without modifying nothing, the settings are not recognized... ?