I was gifted this beautiful synth last weekend from a friend of my sister, apparently he was the sole owner since he bought it not long after release, I think in 2003, and just didn’t want it to go unused
it’s in near-mint condition, currently the only broken knob is LFO Rate, and I’m having it serviced tomorrow, so by July it’ll be like new!
anyone have any experience with it? from my 2-ish hours of exploration it seems pretty easy to get patches going, but there’s more going on than I can just figure out so far. oh also it came with the original manual and a photocopied one
(copied and pasted from discord cause I didn’t wanna retype it lol)
Yes, had one of these many years ago. IMO sound-wise it doesn’t really compare to the newer Roland ACB stuff. Definitely has a 90’s digital edge that I found hard to escape. Not terrible if its your first instrument but overall I found it really uninspiring and also visually super unappealing. YMMV!
I played in a band with a person who used one years ago; I always thought it sounded pretty nice (at least, to put it up against a fair adversary, compared to the Roland MC-303 I had at the time) – lots of hands-on controls, solid VA stuff. I think it had a typically Roland weird selection of effects, too.
Yo… that is a dope synth! And you don’t need to compare it to another synth. Keep this to learn on, since its got normally paths.
And it seems like the design is like the Arp2600 with the faders, so if you wanted, you could watch some Arp patches on YT, and try to recreate the sound, and then you can A/B them and really compare how it sounds comparatively.
it is dope!!! got some history to it which is always fun, and I’m likely never getting rid of this synth as it was a gift and is in such good condition already.
once it’s been serviced it will become a cherished possession, even if it only gets used for hoover samples LOL
i think I can eek some Lauren Bousfield – Avalon Vales type of synth sounds out of it which is exciting!
I had one and traded it off for a Mother32? It’s classic 90s Era Roland, but the real mind fuck is that it came out in the early 2000s. Lots of great ideas implemented in a way that makes you wonder if three different departments worked on it independently and weren’t allowed to communicate with each other. I think they were trying to branch the dj and synth worlds with this one.
Sounds meh, but better than the MC303 when it comes to synth sounds indeed. But honestly the excessive aliasing doesn’t really make that device a versatile synthesizer, and the sample looping is too obvious for its basic oscillators.
so my grandad has this model railway with trains and stuff and he has this control panel to manage it all, it also uses faders, so definitely you can make this synth sound like my grandads model railway.
Had this guy for a couple years, sounds very very good (make sure you upgrade to the latest firmware, which removes the filter aliasing). Arp, effects, and chord memory all sound really nice, and it’s pretty well built too.
I found the interface to be so infuriating though, particularly the LFO and OSC controls. If you’re just playing presets it’s not a huge deal, but building sounds from scratch requires you to remember not only where you have your LFO’s pointed to, but what the speed and depth settings were as well. Also the resolution on the knobs is super fine, so a lot of the best sounds require very subtle slider and knob movements.
For the price it’s not bad, I ended up selling mine for a MS2000, which is a bit colder, but to me is way more fun to program.
Used to have this and it’s sibling the EF-303 maybe 20 years ago.
I would gladly welcome both of them back. There’s just something about the way those two look that appeals to me. I remember the SH-32 filter cut off being kind of digital and aliasing and such but still got a lot of interesting sounds out of it. If I remember correctly, this was the synth I played on the first ever Nightsatan gig that took place at our living room on a housewarming party.
The EF-303 had some tricks up it’s sleeve that I still miss from time to time. Would buy both in a heartbeat if opportunity struck.
I’m very excited to have this synth! I love the design of it a lot, reminds me of a 90’s supersport bike LOL
apparently there’s a firmware update for it that fixes the aliasing with the filter, and I’m getting it serviced soon to repair the broken knob and check for other weak points! once that’s done it’ll feel brand new 🥲
