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the definitive guide to old roland instruments plus some more.....

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part one.. update 10 APR 93
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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:

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the sh-0x series
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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

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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)

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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.

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the almighty (x)0(x) series (sh101, mc202, and tb303)
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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:
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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
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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

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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

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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.

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other weird roland shit: (the rs-09, vk-09, mc-8, msq-100)
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the rs-09 organ/string synth

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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

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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

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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

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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.

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the end, for now....

sines