Cherry Audio DCO-106 Review: A Juno-106 on a Budget?

May 11, 2025

The Juno-106 Without the Voice Chip Lottery

Buy a real Juno-106 today and you're paying silly money for a 1984 synth with a known weak spot: the 80017A voice chips, which are a common point of failure. Cherry Audio's DCO-106 gives you the same sound for a fraction of the price, with nothing to go wrong except your DAW.

The question is whether it's a Juno-106 or just something that looks like one. Mostly, it's the former, with a few useful extras bolted on.

Cherry Audio DCO-106 Juno-106 synth plugin front panel

What It Is

DCO-106 is a software model of the Roland Juno-106, the six-voice polysynth that became the default pad and bass machine for house, synth-pop and a good chunk of 90s dance music. Cherry Audio has kept the original's single-page layout, so every control sits on the front panel and there are no menus to dig through. It runs as a plugin or standalone, and it even responds to original Juno-106 SysEx, which is a nice touch if you've got old patch dumps lying around.

The Sound and the Architecture

The Juno recipe is simple. One digitally controlled oscillator per voice, with pulse (with PWM), saw, a sub-oscillator an octave down and noise, all mixed together. That goes through a non-resonant highpass filter, then the self-oscillating 24dB lowpass that gives the Juno its rubbery, round bass, then one ADSR shared between filter and amp. The chorus is the final ingredient, and it's the bit everyone remembers.

Cherry Audio's version captures that character well. Basses are tight and solid, and they sit under a kick without fighting it. Pads are smooth and wide once the chorus is on, and the DCO stability means they stay in tune, which is exactly why the original suited house chords and stabs. Polyphony goes up to 16 voices rather than six, there's a Quality setting for oversampling, and the 330+ presets include the original 106 factory patches, so you can A/B against your memory.

What It's Good At

Beyond the faithful core, Cherry Audio has added what the original was missing. There's an expanded LFO with six waveforms and tempo sync, an arpeggiator in the style of the older Juno-60, unison with detune for big leads and basses, and single-key chord memory for instant house stabs. Several voice assign modes are on offer too.

The effects section adds a tempo-synced delay and three reverb modes after the chorus, so you can get a finished-sounding patch without leaving the plugin. MPE support and full DAW automation round it off. Patch for patch, it's quick: you can get from init to a usable pad in under a minute, which is the whole point of a Juno.

Where It Falls Short

The architecture is the limitation. One oscillator and one envelope per voice is what makes a Juno sound like a Juno, but it also means there's no second oscillator to detune against (unison aside), no cross-modulation and no second envelope for separate filter and amp shapes. If you want evolving, complex patches, this isn't the tool.

It's also not had much attention lately. Cherry Audio's version history shows the last update as 1.4.0 in December 2022, which added macOS Ventura support. It should run fine on newer systems, but there's no official word on recent macOS releases, so try the demo on your setup before you buy.

Why the Juno Still Matters

It's worth saying why the Juno-106 matters at all. It was cheap and easy to use, so it ended up in bedrooms and small studios everywhere, and those producers built house, techno and synth-pop on it. The chorused pad, the bouncy square bass and the resonant filter blip are all part of the language of dance music now, and DCO-106 speaks it fluently.

Who It's For

House, deep house, synth-pop, synthwave and lo-fi producers who want Juno basses, chords and pads without the maintenance. If you already own TAL-U-NO-LX you've got a Juno-60 covered, and the two are close enough that you probably don't need both. If you don't own either, DCO-106 is cheap enough to be an easy decision.

Key Features

Model of the Roland Juno-106, including DCO, HPF, self-oscillating VCF and chorus
Up to 16-voice polyphony, multiple voice assign modes
Unison with detune, single-key chord memory, arpeggiator
LFO with six waveforms and tempo sync
Delay with tempo sync and three reverb modes
330+ presets, including the original 106 factory presets
MPE support, full MIDI control and DAW automation, compatible with original 106 SysEx
Current version: 1.4.0 (December 2022)