Ro-ro-ro your synth…

Roland get their software act together but there’s plenty more in 106 land

There was a time, of course – and not actually that long ago – where Roland didn’t do software. However the company’s Cloud subscription service has opened up that particular soft door (or DAW if you work for this mag) and now you can download classic Rolands by the dozen from there (and individually). We thought this might lead to the former hardware giants leaning on smaller companies to stop them doing Roland emulations – as they eventually sort of did with ReBirth – but not so it seems, and this month we have not one but two more Roland softsynths… not made by Roland!

First up is the Softube Model 84, not actually stated as a Juno-106 (the 84 is from the year the synth came out, rather like they did with the model 72, based on a Minimoog from that year). But the company goes on to admit that “we applied our award-winning modeling expertise to a fully-serviced and calibrated 1984 unit and the result is a perfect facsimile of the original hardware.”

Softube have even gone as far as to recreate the original presets, but it’s not a complete retro fest. The synth comes in three different flavours: modules to fit in with Softube’s rather great Modular (Eurorack in software) system; a chorus effect for Softube’s amp room and, of course, the standard instrument.

We are expecting good things from this one, knowing how well Softube’s component level modelling has worked with their other emulations and the offer price of €99 is a ‘grab it while you can’ one (normally €159)