I am tempted too but currently don’t have space. 
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I used mine with Drambo. It worked great.
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This is my issue too. No more room.
I’d also be interested in some more honest user reviews, now that it’s so affordable. Looks like a nice alternative for something like a Minilogue, but with Roland sound and more options. I don’t have any trust in their UI design though, so it would be interesting to hear whether people got annoyed after a few months and sold it.
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Any thoughts on this? Was it a keeper?
The fact that there are not more user reviews is, itself, a review (and not a good one). Roland went ahead and named it the Gaia 2. It’s not like they didn’t try to warn you that it’s terrible.
Sincerely,
A former Gaia 1 owner
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I have only been able to use for a few hours, though here are my thoughts.
- The design is excellent, very logically laid out and really fast to make patches as there is almost a knob or button for every parameter, any menu diving is actually straight forward for Roland standards.
- The build quality is great in some areas (aluminium panel, hard plastic knobs, OLED display and motion pad) and not so great in others (I don’t like the soft touch rubber buttons, wish they had just made them clicky hard plastic).
- The keyboard is good, though a bit abrupt at full key press, definitely not as nice as my Jupiter X, though much better than mini keys and many other full sized keys I have used.
- The sound is a bit clinical and flat, though the excellent effects bring warmth and movement. The sound profile reminds me a bit of the blofeld (which I like). The filters are not exactly classic Roland, though aren’t terrible either.
- It can be powered by USB-C which is a big plus for me, have just been using it off a power bank.
Overall, it’s an excellent synth, especially if you can buy it for $500!, it’s only issue is that in the current market every synth sounds good so it is hard for it to really shine - if it came out 10 years ago it would probably be a bit of a classic.
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How’s the supersaw on this thing? Is it going to scratch my Jp-8000 itch?
I would say “no”. Here are some of the ssaw presets from loopop’s review: 1:03:18 and 1:06:43
This poor showing is almost certainly due to it being ZEN-Core based. ZEN-Core is so amazing in so many ways, and none of them are super saws. It’s the one big weakness of the engine, IMHO.
For my money, the best supersaw in Roland’s current lineup is the System-1 / System-8.
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Unfortunately neither are available on the new market any longer!
I agree 100%
I have an MC-101 and a System-1m. Not side-by-side compared them yet though, but from memory the 101’s supersaw is a little limited but is quite nice, the System-1m sounds really good though
They absolutely need to make an Aira Mini super saw.
They could also add a trance gate to it and have the option to make it act in the input, would be amazing.
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