> Step by step

1. Mimicking Bruno Mars’ ’00s take on the ’90s

1 Open your DAW and place an instance of the Model 84 plugin into an instrument channel. There is no easy way to initialise a patch on the Model 84, so we’re going to start with a patch which is close to the sound we want. Load patch A11 Brass, from the patch browser.

2 At this stage, it’s probably a very good idea to save our patch under a new name. Click on the drop-down menu at the top left of the plugin, and select ‘Add Preset’. This will then open a text field and allow you to name your patch. We’re using the patch name 18k.

3 We’re going to add some suboscillator to the main DCO. Adjust the Sub fader, placing it at the value of around four. You’ll see the notches which indicate the Level/Value scale printed behind the fader itself, just like the original Juno.

4 Moving over to the filter section, which is labelled LPF, adjust the Cutoff Freq control, placing it at a value of around 6 on the scale. Currently, the Res amount is set to 1; we’ll leave this there to just provide a little bit of resonant colour.

5 The envelope is currently modulating the low-pass filter by a large degree and we need to reduce this. Adjust the Env fader to a value of one, in the LPF section. This will still provide a small degree of bite, at the front of our sound, but let us create the heavy sustain that we require.

6 Next we want to engineer a small degree of vibrato, throughout our sound. To do this, we need to visit the LFO fader, which is located within the DCO section. Adjust the fader to a value of around 1.5.

7 Now we can adjust the Rate and Delay of the LFO, which will modulate the pitch of the DCO. Locating the LFO section, place the Rate fader at the value of 5, and reduce the Delay fader to a value of 0.

8 Possibly the most identifiable aspect of the sound is the substantial and sustained gate set across the envelope. Let’s make the following adjustments: set the Attack fader at 20, the Sustain fader to a full 10, and the Release fader to 0.5.

9 Finally, switch off the Chorus I switch, which is adding a generous chorus to the overall sound. We much prefer an emulation of the Roland/Boss CE-1 vintage chorus, which will let us set the intensity. The chances are that your DAW will have something appropriate, but we are using the UA Brigade Chorus plugin.