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

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MFXxx wrote:
SunWind wrote:I can tell you this I'm in this business for over 30 years and got quite some insight into production costs etc. too. So I'm not simply talking from a consumers point of view. And I know when reps from companies drop their marketing mumbo jumbo - don't get fooled by this.
This is where I see it's a dangerous game in the retail industry nowadays for consumers. Strong marketing and hype, fewer people seeing their product in real life, reading forums, reviews, threads, watching you tube and pressing click on the mouse with their plastic wallet beside them, waiting for the brown box to arrive and hoping the contents matches up to their now overinflated mental expectation.

Went to my local store recently couldn't see a moog, elektron anywhere as for anything modular or fringe worthy well that's a pipe dream - roland, korg, yamaha no problem. All the big players in the store.
Well, that's a different story because smaller stores often do not longer have the capital to present every item from every company so most of them rely on the big players which do offer certain conditions at times too.
Thus you'll have to take a ride to a bigger store where you can check the items on your wishlist. I still remember my over 330km ride (one way) in a VW Beetle to a big store in early December of 1975 to purchase a Roland System 100 basic unit.

And I still remember back in the early 90ies a higher rep. from Yamaha said the pure value of the material / parts the SY 99 was made from was less than 100DMark (50Euros) without assembly etc., and that one had been the flagship then selling for just below 5000DMark (2500Euro) - yes, those were the golden days for the companies.

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MFXxx wrote: However nowadays with the lack of after-touch and velocity why not release a module and reduce the price minus keyboard. Actually could have been smart. If it's just for triggering sounds why have the key-bed as keys. Why not simply trigger buttons (see the latest Akai Wolf to understand what I mean).
Good question, why would you?
Last edited by ghettosynth on Tue Apr 22, 2014 1:24 am, edited 1 time in total.

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dcfac73 wrote:Just got back to this thread after a while...wtf happened?

Just to change the course a little....The products they're offering seem a little underwhelming after all the hype and buildup. Of course I don't know what I expected for the price of these units, but...for eg re: the TR-8- I already own the Arturia Spark, which offers the same functionality, and a whole lot more. I guess the only selling point for me on this unit would be the sound quality, which I don't think would be that much different to the 808 and 909 models on the Spark. If anyone could make a direct comparison, I'd be most interested in what they find. Otherwise the functionality of the TR-8 and the TB-3 seem quite limited. The System-1 looks a little more interesting because of it's future expandibilty. If only they could have added this feature to the drum and bass modules. Apparently you can't even edit the sounds on the TB.
The direct comparison is rather simple. The Roland box doesn't require your laptop. I agree that the functionality seems limited, but if you don't have Spark, or the real thing, and you want a drum machine with knobs, then this is a choice.

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The $200 Wolf, is wait for it, a DRUM MACHINE. That's why they "work" on it, not because of the price.
And guess what, it IS velocity sensitive....

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Aural Chaos wrote:The $200 Wolf, is wait for it, a DRUM MACHINE. That's why they "work" on it, not because of the price.
And guess what, it IS velocity sensitive....
But we're talking about the synth in the wolf, not the drum machine. The point isn't why doesn't the wolf have keys, it's why doesn't a $600 synth not. The TB303 was a $300 synth that had buttons, not keys, why, because it was $300. Sure, also because it was small. The SH101 had keys, it was $500 IIRC.

The buttons are not velocity sensitive BTW, only the pads.

You can get away with more compromises at lower price points. Roland thinks that they can get away with no velocity sensitivity at $600. The market will let them know if that isn't true.

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Does it respond to velocity if you use a diff kybd?

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Kriminal wrote:Does it respond to velocity if you use a diff kybd?
While it seems that it obviously would, I'm not sure that anyone knows.

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Got an email from the local shop inviting me to try the new Aira line. They will be instore from friday 14th......except the System-1

Seems to me its not ready.....

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Kriminal wrote:Got an email from the local shop inviting me to try the new Aira line. They will be instore from friday 14th......except the System-1

Seems to me its not ready.....
Yes, but they haven't got the TB-3, they have got the TR-9 instead :lol:

look at the email

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On Friday i was at Musikmesse and had the opportunity to check out the Roland Aira line.
The actual sound of those is quite impressive IMO, especially the TR-8 and TB-3.
When the guy of Roland presented those he got the wall of the booth shaking, no joke.

The TB-3 seems to sound better than D16 Phoscyon that i got. The touch screen for entering notes or playing it directly seems to be quite nice too.
With the scatter effect (also included with TR-8 and System-1) it is possible to get some quite crazy sounds.

Did not check System-1 very much but seems to be intereresting too while it seems to be the most expensive of the Aira boxes.

Currently i am thinking about saving some money for the TB-3 which currently is at 297 € at Thomann:
http://www.thomann.de/de/roland_tb_3.htm

Maybe finally it's time to sell some of the softsynths which i wanted to get rid of.
Also still not sure if i keep my slim Phatty as i alos got the Pulse 2 and use that mostly. Recreating 303 sounds properly is not so easy with both.

Maybe i should wait until the Audiorealism ABL 3 plugin is out which could be nice too but i like the TB-3 and it's by Roland themselves...

In terms of user interface TB-3 seems to be an improvement over the original one which is also used for some emulations. There are option to record either step wise or in real-time and you could also play notes on the touch screen while a pattern is playing.
There is no waveform selector but those are included with the different presets.
The built-in Distortion FX seems to sound nice too so need for an external one.

The presets besides the "usual" 303 sounds also seem to include more complex ones with multiple Oscs and different FXs.

Not to forget that you could play TB-3 with a real keyboard due to the MIDI iN port.


Ingo
Last edited by Ingonator on Sun Mar 16, 2014 8:37 am, edited 1 time in total.
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

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I like that TB-3 has a pressure sensitive touchpad, but is there any reason why ABL3 and Phoscyon 2 shouldn't be able to emulate the 303 just as close?

And why did they wait?
Intel Core2 Quad CPU + 4 GIG RAM

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electro wrote:I like that TB-3 has a pressure sensitive touchpad, but is there any reason why ABL3 and Phoscyon 2 shouldn't be able to emulate the 303 just as close?

And why did they wait?
The touchpad is not just for playing notes but it has multiple functions including e.g. adding/removing accent for each step, using as an X/Y controller, "drawing" an envelope or playing with the Scatter FX.

With the MIDI In you could also connect a keyboard to the TB-3 or use USB to send MIDI from a host software.

The touchscreen could be also used to connect patterns in a certain way, for example by holding pattern 1 and dragging it to pattern 8.

some features like additional Oscs and FXs are tied to certain presets so there are more features than are visible from the interface.


Ingo
Ingo Weidner
Win 10 Home 64-bit / mobile i7-7700HQ 2.8 GHz / 16GB RAM //
Live 10 Suite / Cubase Pro 9.5 / Pro Tools Ultimate 2021 // NI Komplete Kontrol S61 Mk1

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electro wrote:I like that TB-3 has a pressure sensitive touchpad, but is there any reason why ABL3 and Phoscyon 2 shouldn't be able to emulate the 303 just as close?
Its not really about the emu side (thats a bit of a gimmick) its about live performance controls.

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I had a chance to check out System 1 at Messe (we had to guard the drum synth and switch it off because there was only ever a mix on the headphones). It's better than expected, but it's also very "generic" in sound. It failed a few tests that we do when we examine analogue filters. For instance the filter self oscillation doesn't quite "attach" to the oscillator frequency, which I merely connotate with digital sound. OTOH controls were smooth (not steppy). Aliasing levels are not too bad. Modulations are fast and snappy. It's state of the art for a hardware VA, but it needs some more work to fulfill optimistic expectations.

Most importantly, the "Plug Out" switch was dead. No sight of SH-101, System 700 whatsoever. Just someone stating that these are planned and "yes they will be VST". I'm not sure why they had a real SH-101 there because they were not showing an emulation of it at all. I was very disappointed because checking this out was the main reason I went to Messe for. Maybe next year :-/

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Yeah, the synth is def not ready. Im still open minded about it.

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