Roland X

------------------------------------------------------------------------------the definitive guide to old roland instruments plus some more..... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------part one.. update 10 APR 93 -------------------------------------------------------------this is a large list of every roland instrument that came before and after MIDI. it also contains stuff that is relative to it, the structure of the instrument and how much it will cost you, as well as its use and availability. i wish to credit my good friend, bandmate and roommate titonton duvante for helping me with some information as well as james towning... here we go: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------the sh-0x series ------------------------------------------------------------------------------the sh-0x series were the line of keyboards that roland first sold. they came out in the late 70's and they were basically just synths. they were usually half size (three octaves) and they had an odd configuration of knobs and some switches. no polyphony, and of course not multitimbral. this is the closest thing to the moogs that were coming out at the time (except more condensed and not made of wood.) what i hear is that the circuitry for a sh-09 is similar to that of the 808. these synths usually have a control voltage/gate input from any external synth or sequencer of sorts. the "sh" stands for synth, if you were wondering. the sh-01 synth -----------------------------------------------------------------------------the sh-01 is closest to the sh-101 (more on this readily available synth later) except there is no pitch lever (i think) and it has the ability to generate pink and white noise, which very few synths have now.. it has a VCO (voltage controlled oscillator), a VCF (voltage controlled filter), and a VCA (voltage controlled amplifier), as well as i think an envelope follower. i would suppose that this synth would be in the neighborhood of $100-200, but seeing as it is EXTREMELY rare to find these (ie i have never ever seen them for sale anywhere) then they might be more. this is a small synthesizer and it can be used to generate the classic "LOW BASS" sounds as well as a lot of percolating random noises. some people like to make pads and simulations of string synths with it by setting the attack a little slower and turning the frequency cutoff down a bit. there is a : sh-2, sh-3, sh-5, and i think an sh-9. all that i know about the sh-5 is that it is like a 3/4 size keyboard, and it had a high control panel to the back of it. on this control panel there were ports for patch cords, external audio inputs, and cv/gate in and outs... there were quite a few knobs, of course. but i have no idea what it had precisely. the modular series (roland system x00-M series) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------the roland modular series were two sets that i know of off hand: the modular system 100-m and the 700-m. the M stands for modular.

these synths were modular in the way that a lot of moog equipment once was: small modules of filters, oscillators, amplifiers and envelope followers that you could stack together and connect via patch cords. you could then control the sound by using a CV/gate keyboard output into the modular system as a tone module. one thing about this is that i think roland allowed people to make their own modules to work with this so you could modify it to your personal needs. you could add a few more knobs to your envelope follower, and so on.. i think that the basic system was a VCO, a VCF, a VCA, and an envelope follower. i don't know if they included multiples of the modules as a "system" per se... this is about all i can say about this instrument. i would jump shit if i had one but i do not have the money to get one right now and i am interested in other stuff more than this. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------the almighty (x)0(x) series (sh101, mc202, and tb303) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------this is part of the very famous roland equipment series. most all of these synths (and deritives thereof) are utilizing the same circuitry as each other with minor sound modifications. here we go here we go here we go here we go.... sh-101: ------------------------------------------------------------------------------this two octave digital/analog hybrid synth is pretty popular. it features everything that the sh-01 did except it is not switchable from white to pink noise. it has a pitch/modulation lever that can trigger the LFO to modulate the sound as well as an external modulation grip. this grip is just a small wheel on a grip that just does the modulation and nothing else. you can attach a strap to this and the other side to wear the 101 (wweeee!!) like a guitar. it came in several colors of grey, blue, red, and purple. i have also heard of a white one but i am not sure. i suppose you could spray paint it if you wanted to. when i say it is a digital/analog hybrid, i am refering to the fact that the clock in it is run digitally. the difference between running a clock digitally and analogally (?--> haha) is that the waveform's oscillation peak points are what triggers it. this is not the most dependable way of timing as interferences and all kinds of fun stuff can fuck it up. the digital clock on it should make it more dependable and have it not fluctuate. this has cv/gate in and out 1/8th jacks. also, there is a modification that you can add a modification to allow a line input before the VCF and you can shape your line input with the 101's controls (frequency cutoff, resonance, modulation, etc..) e-mail me for details. there is a small battery inside the 101 that stores your 99 note sequence. there is a hold function which holds the note that was last played. there is also an arpeggiator that can can go up or down or both. (like philip glass type stuff.) the waveforms can be from a sawtooth, a square, a noise, or a random wave. like the sh-1, the wavelength distances can range from 16-2 feet (very low frequencies to very high frequencies.) there is a noise generator that just adds noise to whatever you are playing..

you can usually find these from $65-200. they have always been easy to find. just look at pawn shops and shit.. of course, i traded a bass guitar for mine last year in october. the mc-202 -----------------------------------------------------------------------------the mc stands for microcomposer. and that is just what this little angel does. except, i never use it that way (too much of a hassle.) i call it my little angel because this thing produces the deepest, roundest bass that i have ever seen. i love it to death.. can;t wait to MIDI it! anyway, this machine has basically the same circuitry again as the sh-101 and sh-01 synth, minus the ability to go to different waveforms. i think it is stuck with a square wave, maybe, maybe a sawtooth. it doesn;t do as much as the 101 does but i think it makes up for its bass sounds. i think of it as my bass machine. the intentions for the product were supposed to be that you would write an entire song on it (in step time, of course) and then you could play it back and change the tempo, portamento, accent, and all. you could save your songs to tape and also load them from tape as well. there was also a two channel mode which allowed you to record one channel then i think record another channel. so the machine was two note polyphonic (more than one note) it had a 5-pin sync jack in and two sync outs. unreliably, you start and stop sequences and even drum patterns from the 303 and 606, even the 808 i assume. there are also cv/gate in and out jacks. this is good because playing the small buttons on the 202 can be a pain in the butt. ugh... btw, this machine i think was made in 1981 or 1982, maybe 1983. these have been rather hard to find. i got mine from analogics in ne ohio through a phone call, basically asking him what he had. i took the 202 last january for what i thought would be a replacement for a non-existant 303 at them time. i got it for $175. i saw it later at rogue for $80. then i never saw one again. as far as i know, me and dan curtin are the only two people in ohio that use a 202 in techno. the tb303 bassline -----------------------------------------------------------------------------i assume that the tb stands for something like, "the bassline" or "tone bass." whatever the case, this is also called the acid machine...etc. it was used in the later 80's house music (phuture, adonis, derrick may) and this is what the drug acid would have sounded like. this, along with the 808, 909, and 106 is probably one of the most famous machines that roland ever made. the heart of the 303 is the square/sawtooth wave. it has 6 knobs at the top of the machine to control this wave (tuning, frequency cutoff, attack, resonance, decay, and accent.) the wave is switchable from square to sawtooth wave. there are no lfo's or noise filters or anything. the 303 is run by what i think is a DCO-->digitally controlled oscillator. i think actually all of these machines are run by DCO's but anyway, this is the "computer controlled" sequencer of the machine. you can store 64 patterns, which are split into 4 groups and then each group has 8 patterns each on A and B. you can also tie 4 patterns together to make a song. you must program the pattern in (again!) step time (ugh!) with rests (no sound), staccato (moving at the tempo of the click), and legato (extending through several clicks.)

i have arbitrarily programmed my 303 from the start and i will continue to do so. i usually just piss around with it until i find something that i am happy with (which is usually the case.) when you are in the write mode of the 303 you can hit pitch and then hit tap. this will let you hear the notes in the sequence one by one. as you keep hitting tap you can hit slide or accent and this does the really fucked up slides and accents that orbital uses as well as all the acid stuff and all. the 303's intentions were to simulate a bass guitar. somehow i don't really see this being as natural as a bass guitar. i think it is more like an electronic bullfrog or some percolating electronic coffee pot. weird. to find a 303 these days is a batch of good luck. i picked mine up for $100 at a pawn shop. they were asking for $150 but we couldn't get it to work at the store (heh heh) so i asked if he would take $100 as is. i got it home and later that day i had many basslines programmed. now, i have heard of people selling them for $40-350. the actual blue book price for this is << $35 >> but i am sure that people know that there is a demand for this machine, so they jack it up. i have to say, GOOD LUCK! the sh-404 (polyphonic ?) synth -----------------------------------------------------------------------------Joe LeSesne (aka raver909) says that he has heard of the sh 404. it was polyphonic, yet it never made mass production for some reason. i can't exactly go into great detail about this synth since information about it is very hard to come by. if you know anything about it, please send the information to me, so i can include it in the FAQ. -----------------------------------------------------------------------------other weird roland shit: (the rs-09, vk-09, mc-8, msq-100) -----------------------------------------------------------------------------the rs-09 organ/string synth -----------------------------------------------------------------------------the organ/string synth is essentially knobless with the exception of the 16', 8', 4', and 1' wavelength generators (low to high pitch), chorus, attack, release, and the string/organ buttons. highly resonant string section. "perky" organ sounds.. weird synth, it only has CV/gate out, yet it allows an external input to go through the chorus parts of the circuitry.. it is wild, i ran my ESQ.1 through it and it made a lot of nice additions to the sound of it.. the vk-09 electronic organ ------------------------------------------------------------------------------bliss... ahh.. drawbars. oh, how i now love drawbars. the two sections (sine wave and bright wave) have a series of drawbars in this order: 16' * 5 1/3' * 8' * 2 1/3' * 2' * 1' has buttons for percussive forces for the organ. (soft, 2nd, 3rd, decay) also has some buttons for the sine or bright waves, or both.. plus vibrato (a fast one to simulate a leslie....ahhh...) and some chorus effects. i love this thing.. nice, string sounds, really kinda breathy pads.. just wish

i could control it with something else, seeing as that it only has CV/gate outputs and no inputs. any suggestions? the msq-100 digital sequencer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------the msq-100 is a dandy little box. it can cheaply convert MIDI to Sync data for use with such instruments as the MC.202. TB.303, TR.606, or TR.808. you can usually find them for close to $50-100, but sometimes you'll find that the pawn shop owners are on drugs, and they'll ask for $395 (pasha!) the mc-8 analogue 8 track sequencer ------------------------------------------------------------------------------the mc-8 was a analogue sequencer. it would drive 8 separate CV/Gate outputs for use with the other roland instuments such as the system 100-m, sh.101, etc.... the list price was $7000 but i don't even know if you'll see one again. *************************************** the end, for now....

sines