I was recently looking at the Roland SH-4D - a very versatile, yet at the same time mess, of a synth, and I remembered it had this “D-motion” thang, where you can pick the thing up and move it around and a gyroscope inside it will detect this and modulate the sound accordingly.
I can literally not imagine any human ever wanting such a feature, and so I found myself wondering what on earth the Roland R&D people were thinking. This can’t have been a cheap addition, so what sort of market research did they have to think this was a good idea - or perhaps I’m wrong and people love this feature.
Anyway, what’s your “Why the hell did they put the budget into that feaure” suggestions for other gear?
i think the gyroscope was already there in the chip they were using , so they though “why not”. look at userfriendly he’s having great fun with is PS5 controllers
the one time the gyroscope in the sh-4d made some sense to me was when i had it sitting on my lap and i realized i could control parameters by bouncing my legs around. fun for sure but who knows how often i’ll lean on that ability
For right handed people like me, it’s easier to rapidly switch scenes (and scene selection in general) with my right hand, but I have to switch hands for the knobs, which isn’t ideal…
Maybe the fader belongs in the middle after all? Or maybe I need some left hand training…? Has any of you right handed people messed up changing pattern or some other left hand combi?
Giving Rytm some pads to make it the undisputed drum machine king. And then making it impossible to actually use velocity on them. And then making a MK II where the pads are still unusable for velocity sensitive drumming. And don’t get me started on how my hand hurts for two days when I use performance mode for half an hour.
My working theory for all of the “WTF, Roland???” questions that pop into my head is: J-Pop / K-Pop / Whatever-Pop.
I don’t know much about J-Pop, but in my Japan Travels I’ve encountered quite a few events where boy- and girl- bands are either playing, or lined up for autographs or other public interaction opportunities at malls and other public spaces. It seems to me that the job of a J-Pop performer involves as much acting and public interaction as musicianship. So I imagine that there are behind the scenes musicians and tech who program the gear so that the performers can jump on stage and do their thing.
This explains the complexity - a dedicated tech can invest the effort to learn an (unnecessarily) complex device, and that complexity gives them a bit of job security. It also explains the obsession with D-Beams and motion controllers. More opportunity for performance.
Not only there, its well known that Sven Väth had Michael Kohlbecker doing all his tracks. But doing 12h sets at the weekend is also a feat for itself. No disrespect.
