New Roland AIRA/Boutique instruments 9.09

[t]

Well by that logic if both types of device are making use of SMD components then where’s the cost difference at all ?

You need much more components for analogue sound generation than you need when you do it digitally.

This means that the PCB needs to be bigger, which makes them more expensive. You can also place them closer together, but the denser the board, the more likely you get assembly errors.

The time a pick-and-place machine needs to assemble a single board depends on the number of components that have to go on there. With less components, you can assemble more boards in the same amount of time which makes it cheaper to assemble them.

Additionally, with more components, the likelihood of a placement mistake or faulty solder joint goes up. This means that more assembled boards need to be taken out and thrown away, which also makes the price go up.

Finally, an analogue board is harder to test after assembly, which takes more time, which is again more expensive.

[t]

I can go on explaining things in more and more detail, but assuming the same kind of device, it all comes down to something like:

Analogue makes sense for smaller production volumes you’re going to sell at a higher per-unit price.

Digital makes more sense for larger volumes when you’re trying to push the per-unit price down as much as possible.

With the aside that a lot of modern analogue gear uses a lot of digital components that take care of pretty much everything except that’s not directly in the audio path.

[Cosmic]

What about volca keys? This is analog, low cost, high volume.

[Cocker]

Well it’s a good thing Roland have plenty of money then.

I assume you know all this because you have experience designing, manufacturing and populating pcbs for both analogue and digital synths on an industrial scale.

[t]

The Volcas are relatively simple in terms of circuitry, and they have cheap plastic cases, cheap knobs, touch keys and other “tricks” to keep cost down.

But yeah, Korg has slowly become a bit of an exception in that they have managed to produce useful analogue gear at high volumes for low prices.

Keep in mind that the point is not whether you can or cannot create a cheap analogue drum machine (which is obviously possible; see the Volca Beats, Akai Rythm Wolf & Tom Cat) if you use “modern” design techniques such as doing a lot of things digitally, but that producing an exact replica of the TR-909 or TR-808 analogue circuitry as a high-volume product will end up being significantly more expensive than modelling it digitally.

[LyingDalai]

BTW… Lately I could compare Volca Keys and JU-06 and on the sound quality alone : the later wins by far !!!
Totally subjective of course, but I found there was more presence, more life in JU-06 sound.

[t]

I assume you know all this because you have experience designing, manufacturing and populating pcbs for both analogue and digital synths on an industrial scale.

Oh, come on. Do you really want to turn this in a credentials contest?

I’ve built a large numbers of DIY synth projects, mostly analogue, some digital, some a little of both. I’ve repaired a fair number of synth gear. I’ve designed my own simple PCBs and even have some hand-soldering experience with SMD components (which I’ll never do again, through-hole really is the only sane option if you don’t have a pick-and-place machine available).

I know a few people who work in the synth industry and are directly involved with design and manufacturing at various scales. I take a keen interest.

For my work, I’ve been professionally involved in the design, firmware development, and manufacturing process of a reasonable number of hardware projects in the healthcare, retail, and security industry.

I’m done talking to you, by the way.

[Cocker]

Cool. Good to know

Btw it was you who started talking to me

I believe your first remark was quite simply the word “nonsense”

[brucewayne]

don’t know about the new revisions (tanzbär lite & tanzmaus), but the original tanzbär has a terrible UI, and its workflow is not really suitable for using it live (IMHO). the sounds, on the other hand, are really good.

[MichalHo]

Lately I was able to compare a fart with an original Jupiter 8, and the fart sounded much more alive!
Purely subjective, ofc.

PS. I forgot to add that the fart sounder “warmer” and there seemed to be “more pressure” behind it, if you know what I mean?

[LyingDalai]

@MichalHo
Ahaha yes indeed !
But isn’t a fart analogue ???

[MichalHo]

Nah, come on, it can’t be analogue or acoustic, it’s butt-eek, right?

[Ryan]

On the matter of sound alone, doesn’t a fart have really good tonal qualities?

[t]

The workflow is a little better, but it’s still a bit weird to get into IMHO. I really wish they would have added a few more buttons instead of putting so much under the shift key. It really feels a bit silly to have to have to hold the shift button to start playback…

Having said that, the labelling on the unit itself is much better and I’ve been enjoying it a lot for live jamming as long as I keep it in Manual mode (that’s the mode where you don’t get per-set parameter locks).

The biggest features for me besides the sound is that these small boxes look very nice, and are extremely compact without anything feeling cramped.

[MichalHo]

Yes the mechanical interactions of gas under pressure and skin flaps do resemble the sound of a sawtooth wave oscillator through an envelope generator, with some lowpass filtering and resonance. Maybe i should try publishing a single cycle waveform pack, so we can load them into Rytm and OT? Any takers?

[Ryan]

I’ve been wanting to make a beautiful song from a fart sample for at least a year

[Housecliche]

Thinking that the little vocoder might be a gem in this bunch - you can kinda use it like a sampler plus has chord memory, sequencer, string machine - I like.

If you watch the release demo vid with the three boutiques playing together it’s not being used for realtime vocoding but for high string pads and short pre sampled vocal sequences.

[LyingDalai]

@Housecliche I wonder how it sound to put a drum machine in the input of the VP-03.
i would really like to hear this !!

But 400€ is a bit pricey IMO…

[djadonis206]

Long time techno producer Christian Varela made the music for that demo. That guy’s been a sick producer for like 20 years. If he made that, with those three boxes. Damn.

[xmit]

I’m not in the Roland-hating anti- ‘toy’ camp

Pre-ordered both the 09 & the 03. Yes - I already have a TR-8 too ( which is best pals with my RYTM - what a combo).

The 09 definitely sounds different ( better ) than the 909 emulation in the TR-8 to me - but only hands-on will tell. Tiny size & batteries are bonus for me…& I don’t need separate outputs due to the way I work.
I’m not a 303 purist at all, but the 03 sounds good to me…plus more importantly it’s quite an affordable CV&gate sequencer with pattern storage…so it’ll allow me to do sofa-jams : the final sound I use on the finished track will likely end up being Mother-32 ( x 2 ) or SEM anyway, maybe with a bit of ACB 303 blended-in. Trig out on the 09 is also a big bonus…

these little toys were a no-brainer to me - cheap, portable & good enough sounding for me.

I’m also keeping a close eye on the System-8 - I think that could turn out to be a genuine beast. I know people keep saying “I’m not paying £1250 for soft synths running inside a controller - just use Diva” & that’s a valid point. But what if you hate using soft-synths ? what if you resent having to turn a computer on just to play a synth ? I see the System-8 just as another digital synth… you could argue the same about owning a DX-7 when there’s FM8… I’d rather play a DX-7… I don’t really care if it’s analogue or digital inside ; if it feels, sounds & plays like an instrument then I’d rather use that than a computer any day.