Roland Sh-4d

Maybe we will get a Poly engine and sample engine on the Syntakt now- this thing will sell like hot cakes at around £500 especially as it can be battery powered (but obviously no real analogue engines)

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i would have guessed $500. but i dont know how powerful these roland digital synth engines are. never owned a zen core or aira (or whatever) machine

good price for a groovebox though in general

+1 :smiley:

Thinking more about it, this thing actually seems to be the compact all-in-one groovebox synth that I always wanted.

I can’t watch any videos right now, so it’s hard to find out if these things can be done in an inutitive way:

  • live recording and quantization
  • pattern change and save
  • switching between parts and saving them
  • tweaking sound patches / designing new ones from scratch, saving and assigning them
  • adjusting track lengths / can they be different for each track?

Elektron nailed all of that. If Roland finally did too, the SH-4D could be a real competitor. Don’t necessarily need all the fancy deep-editing of Elektron’s sequencer.

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Looks like yes: Roland - SH-4d | Synthesizer

SH-4d Driver Ver.1.0.0 for Windows 10/11
SH-4d Driver Ver.1.0.0 for macOS Big Sur 11.x / Monterey 12.x / Ventura 13.x
SH-4d Driver Ver.1.0.0 for macOS 10.15

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OMG Roland have been regurgitating these 4x part sample/synth models since the JV1080 etc, its that with a few bells one. as a previous MC101 owner, it eventually became a powerful little box hampered by its lack of decent controls and free editor. this seems better but Roland stuff is very samey, can you load up your own wavetables and change the drum samples, prob not initially. They do provide some decent updates over time but these are usually to address glaring shortcomings in the first place. I’m not a great fan of the current Roland stuff tbh sounds are static and dull IMHO.

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That is GAS talk if I ever hear it! Gotta agree though, looks ridiculously capable. I’m thinking ‘maybe it could be an ideal accompaniment to the S2400’ then I’m like ‘dude, that’s GAS talking’.

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Yeah, I think that’s the key thing here

It’s not up against the Syntakts, Digitones, MPC, Deluge, Machine+ it’s much cheaper than those

Once it has a bit of discount for street price It’s actually just a little more than the Cycles, CIrcuit Tracks etc which is going to be compelling.

I’m not seeing a lot of detail about the actual synthesis used, is it Zencore? Are the drums circuit modelled like the TR stuff (ACB) ?

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In the video they say it’s an optimised Zencore to get more out of the hardware.

I’m assuming they’ve stripped it down as it can’t play the Zencore presets from other Zencore synths.

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Perhaps bit too soon to judge from a few demos?

After all you are comparing a rompler with an analog + digital synth with analog + digital filters and excellent fx :slight_smile:

Seems like a similar concept to Monomachine…Sure wish Elektron would do something like that as well.

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You’re totally right. To be fair, I have posted several times on this forum that I would love to see Elektron make something like the Syntakt that’s easy to program but with hands on controls and polyphony that optionally runs on batteries that doesn’t need all the in-depth features of the Elektron sequencer. This looks to be pretty close to that machine. Fortunately, Roland has a track record of making gear that’s not fun but more frustrating in practice, which keeps GAS in check. Will definitely wait till there are experience reports from users here and the thing is available used.

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Seems like there is no microtiming and only swing per pattern (according to the Bo video)

Bye bye GAS :sweat_smile:

True say! I didn’t try a 707 but apparently it was the best thing they’ve released to date for turning ideas into tracks. This guy seems like a wicked companion for any setup but the question is, do you need these sounds? Digital will always be digital, no satiating your analogue cravings here. No ACB drums either from what I gather (haven’t watched the reviews yet) which means it’s sample town for drums.

Edit: turns out there is drum synthesis. Impressive!!

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Only watched Nick/Sonicstate but seems, although not ACB, to feature drum synthesis as well as samples

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Er… maybe watch the reviews. Drums are synthesised. Or samples. And can be layered.

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high chances id buy this as my first hardware if i was just starting out.
id ignore how shifty it is, blinded by the value proposition and hands on controlls


for current me, its too scattered around, but i think there will be a lot of people who would love this thing, especially once it hits used market :+1:

i also agree that it looks sweet design wise, though its a shame that theres so much space taken by 2 octaves of non velocity tiny button keybed

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There’s a gyroscope inside that allows you to modulate things by grabbing and moving the synth… And check out the Virtual Arp in the sonicstate vid.

Cool thang. wonder when its available; thomann says 4-5 weeks.

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Hehe, Roland is back with a boom^_^

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