Roland A01K

Prints · 2016-12-01T01:10:55.487Z

"The synth engine was designed by Akira Matsui, a former Roland engineer, who joined Roland in 1977, and was involved with the development of a variety of synths, including the SYSTEM-700 and SYSTEM-100, the early GR-series guitar synths and the JX-3P.

After retiring from Roland in 2013, Matsui immersed himself in his hobby of making electronic devices in his home studio. A Roland staff member who happened to see the homemade synth was instantly intrigued and approached Matsui to learn more about it. This is where the 8-Bit CPU Synth was born, which is now featured in the A-01.

“One day I wondered what it would be like to make a synth with an 8-bit CPU,” explains Matsui, below. “The idea was to see how far I could go with the limited resources of an 8-bit CPU and 8 KB of memory.”

“I think this was in early 2014,” he continues. “The first thing I programmed was the oscillator, and somewhat surprisingly, it ended up being something that you could play decent scales on without using a lot of resources. I then programmed all of the analog synth elements?the filter, followed by amp, and then LFO?and I was able to pack all of them in quite nicely. In the remaining space, I programmed a step sequencer, and the finished result was the 8-Bit CPU Synth.”

“I spent a lot of time tuning the program. There’s no point in having a synth with lousy sound,” adds Matsui. “But if you begin making elaborate tunings in your effort to improve the sound, you will quickly run out of your 8 KB resource limit. So you do your tuning, but also make sure that the program fits into 8 KB. I think this is what makes the 8-Bit CPU Synth’s sound so unique and distinct from modern synthesizers or software sound engines.”"

Prints · 2016-12-01T01:13:32.939Z

instagram.com

BASECK on Instagram

247 Likes, 8 Comments - BASECK (@baseck) on Instagram: “@roland_us A-01”

psyclone001 · 2016-12-01T01:24:30.878Z

Thought that thing was just a midi controller.
Sound engine sounds nice and dirty. Sounds like my 8bit Der OTO Biscuit. Cool display too

Prints · 2016-12-01T01:27:24.042Z

It can control IPad apps via Bluetooth too

Prints · 2016-12-01T01:28:28.780Z

It’s such a crazy deal because the detachable keyboard portion itself still sells for $99

Prints · 2016-12-01T01:56:07.753Z

nfim · 2016-12-01T02:08:25.077Z

Sounds awesome. Hidden gem of the boutiques? Is it poly?

pselodux · 2016-12-01T02:12:34.448Z

I think it’s monophonic. Who needs chords though when you’ve got sick chiptune arps?

edit: It sounds awesome imo. If I didn’t already have a million things capable of either direct chip synthesis or emulations thereof (cf. monomachine) I’d buy one for sure. Looks like it’d be a lot of fun to use for live synth leads!

Prints · 2016-12-01T02:13:20.334Z

No, only mono. Most likely related to limitations of the 8-bit chip I’d guess.

Prints · 2016-12-01T03:30:06.107Z

According to synthtopia, this thing also has a 10-bit DAC.

“The 8-Bit CPU Synth reproduces a subtractive synthesizer with an 8-bit CPU. The A-01, with the limited computing resources of its 8-bit CPU, combined with a lo-fi 10-bit DA converter, has a unique design that delivers unique results.”

Synthtopia – 20 Jan 16

Roland Intros A-01 MIDI Controller & 8-Bit Synthesizer

At the 2016 NAMM Show, being held in Anaheim, CA Jan 21-24, Roland is introducing the A-01 – a unique mobile MIDI controller and 8-bit synthesizer. The A-01 is a genre-busting piece of gear: …

jshell · 2016-12-01T14:31:13.613Z

Just got a shipping notice on mine! I’ve been interested in it but primarily as a controller/sequencer, and at full price it was just too much for what I needed it to do. But this Pro Audio Star deal was too good to pass up. Battery powered controller supporting multiple things (classic midi, cv, bluetooth)? Perfect. Getting a gritty little sound machine is a nice bonus. I’m looking forward to using this to enter melodies into Monomachine and Volcas; to play my DSI Evolver (I’ve been too lazy to do much with that thing’s internal sequencer); and to play the bunch of iPad synths I’ve been picking up. All without having to drag around an extra power adapter or usb-midi-host crap.

Prints · 2016-12-01T15:18:02.649Z

Yeah. Most impulsive buy yet for me. I read a bit about it when I saw it was on sale, and was like “man, I didn’t realize how much I wanted one of these until just right now.” I’m mostly buying it for the synth I think though. I really like how it sounds; I wish there were more demos of just the PWM.

Prints · 2016-12-02T17:41:59.335Z

fyi mine hasn’t shipped yet because they oversold these, and are waiting for more to arrive to their warehouse. Proaudiostar has a tendency to sell things they don’t have in stock.

jshell · 2016-12-02T20:19:28.062Z

That’s why I was skeptical of ordering from them as I waited a bit to place the order but mine shipped a couple of days ago and is now here! Alas, I’m at work so all I’ve done is glanced in the boxes. Can’t wait to get it home and really check it out as I’m increasingly curious about its synth. I think I could have some fun with this, the Volca Kick, and Volca FM for making some noisy synth music.

It’s bigger than I expected. Volcas and the OP-1 have spoiled me.

Also realized this thing may be a bit dangerous as I could quite easily talk myself into the JX-03 module (especially a used/demo unit) now that I have the keyboard base. Oops.

Cosmic · 2017-03-25T11:25:05.107Z

I boought one of these but not sure how i can best use it with my elektrons, any good ideas?

OBOLUS · 2017-03-25T18:32:55.928Z

It excels at high pitched percussive shots and what I like to call “smooth grit”. The limited CPU squeezes every ounce of control out of that chip, and it is about as sophisticated as that sound can be.

IMO, most of the usable sounds are in the C cleph. And they are beautifully nasty.

Cosmic · 2017-03-25T23:16:03.256Z

What about as a controller. I can see it being quite useful in my setup mainly as a controller, but its kind of limiting with only four knobs to assign cc to.

MichalHo · 2017-10-23T08:17:30.448Z

Can each of the encoders be assigned to different MIDI channels, or do they all have to be on the same one?

Cosmic · 2022-11-04T08:04:11.462Z

Who is still rockin one of these babes?

Fallen_lassen · 2022-11-04T08:47:38.684Z

Yes