Roland Boutique SH-01A

exactly my thoughts :slight_smile: Love the 101 sound. Letā€™s see whatā€™s behringer up to?

I donā€™t resent that Roland is ā€œcashing in on its legacyā€. It means that there is sufficient demand for the boutique line. (A good thing in my opinion because you have the option of buying one or not) Someone selling an original 808, 909 303 ect is cashing in as well.

Agree completely on the point about fader throw.

SH-101ā€™s 40mm faders throw is comfortable to use and has great spacing, reach out and tweak without knocking a neighbouring fader, dial or switch.

Faderfox UC4 uses 30mm faders, it feels ā€œcosyā€ in use and has similar inter-fader spacing to SH-01A, layout appears to be easier to catch a neighbour fader, dial or switch. Build quality seems better than original 101, so it may not be an issue if the controls are firm in use.

Iā€™d need to try one in person to know for sureā€¦

Waiting for the Malekko Manther to become available just got a lot tougher. Not sure how the size comparesā€¦

I totally get why people debate and speculate (and hate) on the internet. Itā€™s easy and thereā€™s some utility in conversing. Totally get all that.

But if a piece of gear jives with me, is fun to use, and sounds good, I could care less about all the back story, technical details, and comparisons to a time long gone.

Iā€™m just stoked technology has advanced as much as it has and we have an almost infinite number of choices of gear.

These are good times for sure!

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Hi,

Iā€™ve never owned a 101. Could anyone enlighten me what makes it special? Might I want one if I have a Sub37, A4, Minilogue, Micromonsta? Does it tick any boxes the others donā€™t?

Cheers,
Hans

IĀ“d download a demo of the excellent TAL Emulation to get an impression. It is a very accuate emulation in my opinion. I used an original sh101 for a few times and liked it a lot. It certainly has an unique sound which is very different from a moog and the ā€œlimitedā€ layout moves the instrument into a special direction. I probably fail to to explain what I mean but I can assure you that I always wanted to have a sh101 after I played one and that it is a great instrument.

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Itā€™s just a really well-designed instrument in almost every aspect.

The oscillators sound nice. It has really nice PWM. It has a nicely round and fat sounding sub-osc. The filters respond really musically with a really pleasing resonance. The noise is slightly filtered. The envelopes are extremely snappy.

It has simple and intuitive controls that are laid-out really well. The parameter ranges and response of the controls feels very musical; itā€™s like almost every parameter setting hits a ā€œsweet spotā€. Itā€™s really simple, but still allows you to choose between various envelope triggering options.

It has good performance controls; there are sliders to set the VCO and VCF depth for the pitch bender individually so you can for example disable pitch bend and use it to control the filter only. You also have a dedicated slider to set the overall LFO modulation amount when you push the mod wheel.

It has a very pleasing sounding portamento with both an ā€œalways onā€ and an ā€œonly when notes overlapā€ setting.

It has a basic arpeggiator built-in. It has a simple step sequencer built in thatā€™s surprisingly simple to operate once you get the hang of it, and that allows you to transpose sequences in real-time.

But mostly, itā€™s just really really fun.

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Has somebody that knows the sh101, compared the Roland to the TAL emulation? Regarding sound? The little boutique looks tempting, but the TAL is quite controllable from Push2

Iā€™m tempted by the Boutique, too. Iā€™m also mad at Roland for making these things so tiny. If @phelios says the emulation is good enough for him, I have every confidence itā€™s good enough for me. At ā‚¬60,- it looks like a steal.

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I own the TAL. Sounds really good to me. But I never heard a SH101 in reality

TAL and the original SH101 are as close as it can be for emulating a decades old piece of hardware. My 101 had issues with two faders and the filter was overdriving when the waveforms in the waveform mixer were above 50%. Of course that is nothing anyone would implement in a software emulation. Since the sh101 has only a few knobs and buttons itĀ“s ease to map it on a controller. I load my TAL 101 in a dedicated Audio Instrument rack in Ableton where I can control all parameters on three controller pages.

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yes me too. Itā€™s really easy to controll from Push. I think Iā€™ll stick with it.
Wish the Atlantis would be available as standalone synth

I have never used a SH-101 but always wanted one since itā€™s all over a lot of my favorite electronic music I grew up with. Got the SH-01A last week and Iā€™m pretty sure itā€™s my favorite subtractive ā€œanalogā€ synth Iā€™ve used. It just has that sound Iā€™ve been wanting.

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I donā€™t think itā€™s special. With all the amazing sounds from choices today (hardware, VSTs, iPad apps, etc), it comes across as a bit pedestrian. I think people who like the sound have a bit of nostalgia since it was used on music back in the day.

As a bass machine it is very different from what you have, I find i can get close enough with other roland gear where i havenā€™t made up my mind if i will eventually get it (not exact but close) but apart from the juno and of course the 303 it is probably the most popular, all over tons of music. Mathew johnson and the dude from minilogue uses it a lot. I still prefer the juno because it can be used as a monster bass machine as well but also handles so many other things so well.

The sequencer is pretty fun. Kind of crazy all the sounds you can get with so few controls. Itā€™s cool

Iā€™d argue its one of the best sounding mono synths ever made. My personal favorite.

On the other hand, @Hans_Olo has a Sub37, which is the best mono ever made. So thereā€™s that, too.

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I just impulsively preordered the blue one. Man, the color was a major factor too :joy:

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