New Roland "DANCE" hardware- AIRA TR-8, TB-3, VT-3, SYSTEM-1

[faun2500]

Firstly I am excited about these releases even if it Is VA.

But... BUT........ The System 1, only has 1 LFO. Just one! This is a digital synth, and music today is based on heavy modulation. I can understand if it was pure analog having one 1 LFO, but a digital synth with only 1 LFO makes no sense to me.

Novation managed to put 2 LFOs on the bass station 2, the moogs have 2 LFOs, the korg ms20 can fake a second LFO with creative patching and these are all analogue. But roland with its digital synth only has one. WTF!

Clearly it's not for you then.

Personally i almost 95% of my time never need an LFO in sound design, and when i need, one is enough but i do get your point. It's not Zebra or something so you guys will have to live with it or simply pass it. Plenty of other gear available - with two LFO..

I often use 3 or 4 lfos myself. I like to have one on PAN (if available) and then pitch and what ever else I am modulation like maybe the filter cutoff. Lfo's are essential to me for creating living synth sounds.

Clearly it's not for you then (either)

Clearly. But thanks for pointing it out incase someone missed the fact.

[Numanoid]

The return of the XoX's so coveted that even a regular newspaper like The Guardian, devote an indepth article to it:
http://www.theguardian.com/music/2014/m ... ised-music

[ghettosynth]

It seems like I'm late to this thread.

[Kriminal]

It seems like I'm late to this thread, but, if someone hasn't said it yet, this new stuff is shit. Especially the 303 "clone" and the system 1, whatever.
.

Ok. Can you give a review/info on the System-1 please, as there seems to be very little official info around at the moment. I assume you have one....

[cyberheater]

A more detailed look at the AIRA TB3

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o2067oJxqTg

[MFXxx]

Not sure if Im not liking the demo or the unit...see what others post.
Strikes me as sounding more digital, think there's going to be more comparisons vs Phoscyon and Abl2 rather than the hardware.
To be fair at the price, it's going to fly of the shelves for what it does do.

[mztk]

ultimately it isn't analogue and the x0x is- the beatbox is probably
easier to work into whatever you're doing, because we're all used to
digital sample based drum sources. but i'm not sure about that tb3
interface. i don't like touchpads(i thought i would..) or 'handheld devices'
or smartphones.(i loathe Mac design+philosophy). you can't exactly pop
the top off and tweak the internal pots, can you. nevertheless, the tb3
does quite a bit more, and is cheaper than anything else out there.
i reckon it will be pretty nice to own, but nothing like the original hands-on
thing. those interfaces take you back to a simpler, more straightforward
time.
i personally have no time for anything that glitches like that, i don't know
why the product designers insist on inflicting it, just get a koas pad or
something. it is what pisses me off about those Volcas: why? when has
glitch has anything to do with the appeal of analogue? it just sounds like
any computer 'effect' and doesn't add anything to the creative musicality.

if all the guitar companies re-issue their classics, i can't
understand why roland don't have a 'legacy' re-issue.
they could even brand it as Boss, no-one would mind.
they could call it the BossBot. i suppose that if they
started with one product, they'd be asked to do the whole
lot.

[VitaminD]

More concerned for the long term playability of any device with a touch screen...

[MFXxx]

More concerned for the long term playability of any device with a touch screen...

Also crossed my mind when watching demo...roland arent renoun for stocking back catalogue spares .

[ghettosynth]

Not sure if Im not liking the demo or the unit...see what others post.
Strikes me as sounding more digital, think there's going to be more comparisons vs Phoscyon and Abl2 rather than the hardware.
To be fair at the price, it's going to fly of the shelves for what it does do.

Yep. What's interesting about the "System 1?" It's a simple two osc VA synth, so what?

[mztk]

yes, 101 again - funny, after it used to get so badly dissed that it should
now, quite rightly, be seen as a classic. i always knew i could never part
with mine - i could have said that about others, but they got sold..

see.. my first ever items were a tr626(wrong thing to buy as a metronome
for guitar practice!) and a sh101. i didn't know anything about midi or
music technology - i just thought it was too cool how i could clock the 101
sequencer with the 626 trig out - have different rimshot patterns, get a
different synth line - nothing to do with MIDI. and i had some misgivings
about MIDI...i was sitting with my 1st acquisitions extended to include
808 and JU-60 with msq700 (damn i only had a cassette recorder at the
time, and just a little realistic dj mixer-you know the one, with the vu's)
in a bedsit with some irish bird knocking at the door saying oh at your age
you should be settled down with kids, not fooling around with this rubbish ..
(the ju60's chorus is what you want in a module, mate: that thing left behind
some nice atmospheres just running the arp with slow attack through it)

i didn't even want to get an atari. and samplers were too expensive then for
my budget; i could do without: it was a synth trip (how i thought then) and
i really envisaged it as running from synchronised, separate sequencers and
drumboxes, to give me free-er access to the 'form' of whatever i was doing:
no arrangment, just jammed off the boxes. and yeah, if you don't make any
mistakes(which you do, inevitably) you can 'find' the good stuff that way.

you can't work that way with plugins and a computer. in that sense, the
computer is now less than cutting edge. it forces you to obey the rules of
the OS to do anything at all.

bear in mind that Roland know perfectly well that those starting out have a
lot more energy to put into programming and button pushing than old hands
who may be getting a bit jaded about that. they sell products they want
to find a market for, above all. it is unlikely they'd get the wider public's
imagination going on a re-issue of a plastic box with retro styling and a
simple electronic circuit inside on a cheaply manufactured pcb. because
every smartphone freak is going to want it to look and work like an iphone.
i think it is a shame that a lot of products sound identical these days, due
to VA - it just seems like some finesse was lacking and they were all using the
same dsp principles or something, i don't know..

[himalaya]

The SH-101 is all about the ergonomics of live playing.

The ergonomics are certainly great, but without the sound, nobody would use it just for the ergonomics.

The way the waveforms can be mixed (really, unique in an analog mono synth) and the sound of the filter makes the SH-101 a very special synth indeed.

[mztk]

as far as using it for most bass duty you could replace a 101 with
an Alpha Juno, i reckon, it is a bit like a 101 with presets. ok, you
don't get the s+h and all, but yeah, i'll stand by that.( i had the pg300
with it) -not many things sound like a 101 stepping through s+h
stages with resonance though. that is what hooked me. i was gonna
go and sit with it on the little bandstand in hyde park, just bleeping
that out..(never did, but it seemed sorta poetic. you'd get mugged for
it these days though. nobody really cared then.)

a mate used to be thomas dolby's tour manager (back when) and
apparently the sh101 had to be tossed across the stage every night
and caught by Hoagy - i think a few of them got dropped - so you can
imagine what he thought of them. believe it or not they used to get
quite heavily sl*gged - as not being 'proper' analogue. there, go argue
that one chaps, add it to the DCO debate.

[ghettosynth]

The SH-101 is all about the ergonomics of live playing.

The ergonomics are certainly great, but without the sound, nobody would use it just for the ergonomics.

The way the waveforms can be mixed (really, unique in an analog mono synth) and the sound of the filter makes the SH-101 a very special synth indeed.

The mixing is useful, but only moderately so and it isn't that unique.

[ghettosynth]

as far as using it for most bass duty you could replace a 101 with
an Alpha Juno, i reckon, it is a bit like a 101 with presets. ok, you
don't get the s+h and all, but yeah, i'll stand by that.( i had the pg300
with it) -not many things sound like a 101 stepping through s+h
stages with resonance though. that is what hooked me. i was gonna
go and sit with it on the little bandstand in hyde park, just bleeping
that out..(never did, but it seemed sorta poetic. you'd get mugged for
it these days though. nobody really cared then.)

Yes, but, the Juno series has a different filter and it does sound different.