Roland Boutique SH-01A

That’s been my understanding. Sweetwater just stopped selling the TB-03, claiming it’s no longer available.

The SH-01A kind of held my interest for a while, before the Digitone came out.

they’ll be on ebay etc for years , just depends how much you want to pay.
the 808 was limited , still available 20 years on… (although its now very expensive).

Lovely

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I have an A4 MKI that is serving as my main analog monosynth, and sometimes getting a nice bass can be obnoxious on it, so I was thinking about one of these SH-01As. Is it really any better for that, or should I just put my nose to the grindstone with the A4?

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Imo it is easier to get nice bass sounds with the roland. It sounds great. Only a few fader movements and bam great bass…
But i think you can get there with the a4 if you know some of its tricks

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This thing sure sounds great.

A dear friend brought theirs over last night and the whole time we were playing euchre, I was itching to try it out next to my Korg Monologue. Finally, I got the chance, as I was real curious. I only have room for one mono synth on my desk, and was curious how it would compare. I’m also looking at the Manther, although it is twice the price. After hearing them together, here are my thoughts:

The main advantage to the SH is probably that weird endless sequencer and the sound is real big, especially in unison. But the Monologue is a deeper mono synth. The ML sequencer is more capable (motion lanes), even with only 16 steps. And it has more patch/seq memory. Can do drums a bit better (thanks to one shot LFO), overdrive, ring mod. The menu system is easier and far more intuitive to navigate without the manual. All that depth is great though I think the SH-01A actually does have the edge on sound. It sounds a bit bigger and brighter. I never felt the Monologue sounded subdued at all until now. That’s what back to back comparisons will do, I suppose.

Using them side by side made me appreciate the Monologue more and want the Manther less.
Things I didn’t realize how much I use on the Monologue until they weren’t there:
-One shot LFO
-The switch to take the LFO fast, into the audio rate for FM. This is buried in a menu on the SH.

I really liked the roundness of the bass on the SH-01A, however. And even though that built in speaker doesn’t go too low, it is handy to have when you just want to noodle around on batteries. The sliders are about the minimum size and space apart that I can be comfortable with, so this also rules out my interest in just about every other Roland Boutique. The size of the case is, otherwise, great. It doesn’t feel cheap or flimsy for being so small. I do wish these (and the monologue) had a row of 25 buttons to make a two octave button keyboard and keep the compact format. It’s what I’ll always love about the MC-202.

If I had more space to use them both comfortably together, I’d own both (and probably a Manther to boot!). Very cool synth.

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things on the 01a that stand out for me are triggering the steps on the sequencer via external trig, which seems a little unique and can give a nice weird bassline , and getting squiggly lead lines with portamento , its easy to use and get your head around the synthesis of it.

the menu system is a little annoying but i’m very happy with it compared to spending a lot of cash on a proper one.

the monologue looks good , theyre around £200 2nd hand which is very reasonable , and ive been looking at the manther but overall i need to sell things and trim down for a while. ive got a system1 ive barely scratched the surface on.

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I’ve just put mine up for sale and bought an MC-202 instead. It does sound really great and the patch storage and poly mode are nice extras to have, but for some reason I didn’t enjoy it as much as my old 101 so it’s been gathering dust… found the menu system a bit annoying and the faders a bit too small and close together to tweak comfortably for me.

There was an A/B test with a real 101 on gearslutz a while back and they sound basically identical to my ears:

I’ve wanted a MC-202 forever and the upcoming Tubbutec mods sound awesome, so seemed like a good time to pick one up!

FYI you can do this on Monologue as well, via MIDI and employing the trig/hold button above the sequencer.

I send wild conditional MIDI note trigs , sometimes with MIDI retrig from my OT to it, in this way, occasionally.

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What’s this Club synth ? Are you referring to the Dominion Club? If so, I had no idea that was based on the 101

I don’t know if these are actually starting to go out of stock or not but FOMO made me finally buy one. It’s great simple fun. The unison and poly modes actually add quite a bit. And it makes more sense than trying to use the SH-101 plug-out on the System-1.

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I had the original 101 years ago… And I like this version better. Like the 303/101 it runs on batteries, but if the 303/101 had a mini usb, it could also run on my 10000mA battery pack (for hours!!). You can save the sequences (love that, the main reason I sold my 101 back in the day and upgraded to a 303. Acid.)
And Poly. Yes…Like having 4 101’s. Damn son. Unison for the detune. It’s a dream come true.
Dont know if they will do it, but I would love a new 606, with extra 2018 functions. Maybe revrb, delay?

i’m liking the boutique synths but i can’t stomach the drum machine ACB boxes. perhaps you really need to eq the fuck out of them to make them sound good enough when stood next to the OGs.

Are you talking from experience or just sharing your opinion? I cant hear any difference on my tr 909 and tr 09.

i’ve never used a real 909, but i have used a 606 and Acidlab’s MIAMI extensively they sound way richer, no contest imo. the MIAMI isn’t an exact clone, the clap is off, therefore the Boutique version is a nearer emulation but without the analogue warmth or whatever that magic dust is in some drum machines

So you have no actual experience with the OG´s you are comparing the ACB boxes with.
You will be surprised how close they come and how much EQ the OG´s need to sound like what we think they sound like :yum:

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The 606 I have is an OG and the hats are the greatest. I’m sorry for your ears, but good for you as there’s no need to chase.

yes i agree the 606 hihats are the best

What’s wrong with using EQ?

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Yeah, I had a TR-909 and acquired a boutique recently. Only difference is no external outputs and size. The boutique sounds great. Like others have said EQ and over compression. Size is all wrong.