Roland SH-201

Sorry, im not even wasting my time with a full review. It just doesnt seem needed. Ok so im going to skip alot of bs and get to the point. i bought one because at first glance i was super impressed by the setup of this synth. 41 KEYS,FULL KNOB EDITING, USB SUPPORT, NOT EVEN A LCD SCREEN!, ALL EDITABLE FROM THE FRONT PANEL!. IN A VA THATS UNDER 700 BUCKS!? Wow thats sounds like a sweet deal. not to mention an arpegiator, and chorus and reverb that can be removed in a matter of seconds like everything else. Ok in theory this couldve been one of rolands greats.

But, its actually the worst synth ive ever purchaced taking the place of a yamaha dx21 i bought in 1997. OK first off you cant knock the enclosure. Sh-101's had a complete plastic enclosure and actually felt real cheap. and by a analog standard sh 101's were not that full sounding. not much of a fat bottom or warm feel to them.
Now with that said i soo wanted to love this synth. it had everything i wanted in it for a lead and bassline synth. the problem was the sound engine in it was garbage. and the max polophony was horrible. id play a chord with a pad and it would emediatly cut out. this is 2008, come on you cant put a better polophony in there for that price? everything about this thing sounds pretty aweful. the filters are horrid. the occilators remind me of a 91 casio toy keyboard. i cant imagine putting this thing in a mix with proffesional gear and it not getting outted for being nothing more then a really expensive toy. Heres a real problem. if you cant sound better then a freeware softsynth then your not much good for anything. so i took mine back and opted to finally get a roland m-vs1 vintage synth module and a novation drumstation(808,909 clone) YEAH i picked up both of those used for the price of this POS! and actually had 200 bucks to spare. man that sounds so effing sad to say. i actually pitty anyone who bought this junk and got stuck with it. i still love some of rolands gear. but i think im going to stick to waiting for there gear to get discontinued before i take a risk like that again. ok to sum it up.... go buy a casiotone from a pawnshop and a electro harmonix micro synth and youll save alot of money and will probably have better results. and if not at least youll still have one things thats worth a rats ass.

very easy, very fast, turn a pot here, hit a button there

loads, a future classic i think, all plastic, metal and wood will be around forever, high grade light weight ultramodern with a nod to the glory days. i put my korg ER1 through this then into a fat 1 comp, no expert on filters but again just a little tweaking and see what happens. USB to pc, pc editor, LFO to input sounds, can put input sounds through the whole machine if want be, basic effects thank god.

middle of the road dance music "big sounds", for me less is more, nice for layering into the back ground of the drums, get those LFO's working, nice and clean, no hissing, the SH201 is in the back of the mix there doin its thing

a few crashes, no big deal, i crash all my syths all the time, i use live to record too, i crash that a couple of times a night also. really though its as rough and strong as i need. i'd rather this hit the floor than say my laptop or valve comp, bomb proof, no.

havent been there, bought from thomann

its really grown on me. was,nt crazy about it at the start but now its in the mix all the time, which is more than i can say about a lot of my other synths, plenty of machine for your money,

super simple, just like a real synth

its a synth, in the classic sense, you don't need a display etc, it doesn't sound like a grand piano, I love it.

once again, its a synth, I'm 40 years old, my 1st synth was an SH-101, this one is as much fun. I peronally turn off the effects as muddy the sound a little.

Very very light, but the knobs etc seem solid enough

never had a problem with a Roland yet.

Its a proper, real old fashioned styly synth, unlike all of these dreadful workstations etc, it sounds like a synth, not a pseudo sampler.

I think most people are missing the point, my other synth is an Alesis Micron, which sounds stunning, but like most modern synths is a bitch to use, the SH-201 is simple and fun and sounds surprisingly like Rolands of 20 years ago before they lost their way.

The manual is very well written and gives a fantastic tutorial on subtractive synthesis, so even a newby could get making their own patches in no time.

The keyboard interface is intuitive, there's no hidden menus and everything has a knob, slider or button to control it. Patches can also be editted on the PC.

The presets are reasonably good, though obviously aimed at fans of dance music.

The SH-201 is ten-note polyphonic, which isn't too bad for the money. It has built in reverb and delay, which are essential as it's quite sparse sounding without them.

The SH-201 has MIDI, though annoyingly Roland decided not to put a dedicated THRU port on there.

Patch editting can be done on the synthesizer itself, or via your PC if you connect it via USB. If you edit the patches on the PC you gain a lot more control and flexibility.

There is a built in arpeggio that is quite handy and can be tweaked substantially.

The keyboard lacks velocity sensitivity and aftertouch, but it has quite a nice action and feels very well made.

It's also got a vocoder and stereo inputs, so you can use it as a signal processor.

You can store 32 of your own patches on there, and you can also upload banks of patches you create on the PC to the synth.

For the money, it's fantastic.

The SH-201 is a very limited synth. For the first few hours you use it, you'll find it really endearing and easy to use, but then you'll begin to realise it's short-comings.

It stuggles to excell at anything other than the types of sound that make up the preset banks, though some of the string sounds it can make are very good for the money. It's filter is very raw and harsh sounding. The patches are very thin sounding and low frequency sounds, such as deep basses break up quite badly. But then it's a ??250 synthesizer, so you'd be a lunatic to image that it'd be a rival to a Moog.

The biggest problem is that the keyboard is obviously designed for dance music. No matter what you do, the sounds end up sounding like something off a happy hardcore record. If you want to make dance music, you'll love it of course! I don't so, it's quite a hindrance.

It lacks velocity and aftertouch, but it has two LFOs and the "D-Beam". The "D-Beam" is the only outstanding part of this synthesizer. You can control the filter and pitch by moving your hand in the air! Brilliant fun and great for experimental music and breakdowns in songs.

The built in effects are a good reverb and a reasonably good delay.

This is without a shadow of a doubt the flimiest built keyboard ever created. It's very cheap made entirely out of plastic. Every time I do a gig with it, it comes home with one less slider cap! I don't even treat it badly, even with kid gloves it falls to bits. I somehow get the feeling it won't be working in ten years, put it that way.

The actual internal workings are fine though, I've never had any issues like stuck oscilators and at least the build of the keyboard is very good for it's price.

I've been in touch with Roland a few times to ask for new slider caps and they're very, very friendly and helpful. Their website offers lots of support, software updates and patches for free. You can't argue with that.

If it were lost or stolen, It wouldn't be the end of the world. I probably wouldn't buy another SH-201 to be honest.

I still use it at every gig and every rehearsal, but it's in a very limited capacity for something that has the specifications it boasts on paper. It's sounds simply don't have much about them and it's very limited in scope.

It's in the same price range as the MicroKorg and the X-Station and it's better than both of those. However for the money you could easily get an old Korg Poly 61 or a Roland Juno, and they both blow the cheap VA synths, like the SH-201, out of the water.

If you like dance music, you'll probably think it's fantastic.

Lots of knobs and slides, llike a lot of other VA synths. Nothing new, but fun to use.

If you are looking for a superb onboard multi-fx, forget this one. Here you'll find only good reverb and delay with limitaded editing. There's overdrive too,but a little too electronic to my taste.

I love the sound this baby can do - only synths, no acustic emulations. Very fat, with that Ronlandish hi ending. Very punch - capable. It helps a lot for riffs, phrases and leads. The D Bean is much better tham expression bars, specially for fast left-handed players

Use on stage without problems. Construction is not one of its strong points - lightweight, too much plastic.

Roland Brazil is just fine

Good sounds, just "enough to stage" effects, and construction quality could be better.

Very easy to use synth, you don??t have lot??s of layers like in a virus for example. It??s a no brainer.

Well, on this days it almost don??t have any features, the big improvement is that roland put an audio interface, 96khz and 24 bits and the synth interact with your computer like virus or novation (i really like this), the converters are good and clear, but talking about the synth features you don??t get much. Only 64 preset??s are really boring for a synht, eve the moog litle phatty has 100 preset??s and it??s a real analog.

Here??s where the review really falls, i??m not wrong on this, i have lot??s of boards, expensive or not, have in mind (moog, virus ti, nord 3, nord 2, X-Station and dave evolver).
The filters on this unit are from very poor quality, there??s no tone on the filters and don??t matter what you turn up down, it just don??t sound good.
I??m not even trying to compare with something like a virus, but my X-Station witch cost me 50% less has 200 presets and better filters and also aftertouch on the keys...

Can??t say anything on this, i sold mine with 1 month of use.

don??t know, never use the suport, synth is very auto explicative, it??s a no brainer like i sayd.

If you are looking into a cheap board, please look in other hardwares, i simply don??t recomend this.
And if you really want to get the Sh, take your hands on it, and play with other boards to make your mind.
but for 600 you can get a beast with at least 500 presets. No audio interface but what really matters in a board is the sound, right ?

Editing this is no big deal. Read the words under the dials and you'll see what they do. Works like any other analog style synth. Presets / patches more or less cover what this unit can do.

Didn't have time to check out all the features, I played with this 15 minutes while I was waiting in a music store. Overall construction is nice, but nothing special.

This is where I definitely have strong opinions. This is just another VA synth with low quality parts. The filters have a 'quacky', 'honky' sound to them that are better than the ones on the MS2000, but not great. I have an SH-101 and believe me, it buries this little bleeping unit. I heard distortions, zipper noise (when moving some dials), the oscillators sound weak, especially compared to a REAL analog. This is cheap junk - the only people buying this are newbies with stars in their eyes (or maybe britney's crew, seeing as sound quality is hardly an issue with them). Look at all the dials! and all the buttons! this sounds like a real analog synth that I heard once on the radio!

Looked solid

This is cheap compromised gear. Unless you need a controller with a lot of dials, save your money and download some free plugins for your PC that will definitely sound better than this.

Roland SH-201...a VA synth. The presets sounds 'nice and polite' as most VA synths does. Editing patches is a breeze, and the manual seem reasonable. Easy easy to use, especially for noobs.

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I tried one from a local store, but wouldn't buy it.

Not from Roland Canada.

Like I said, this is a strange animal. I own several (4) SH-101s with the MPU-101 CV-MIDI interface. Like a small modular system, it STOMPS all over the 201. I have no idea what Roland is trying to achieve with this synth. Even my 'toss-around' SH-32, has more mojo than this, and this is from a dude that own Jupiters, Junos, MKS line of synths, and the S-Series samplers. Same problem with the new Juno-D and Juno-G. They all sound 'clean and very polite'. They are 'models', meaning, they wear pink suits, high-heeled shoes, lipsticks, and like most models they are malnourished and thin. There is lack of MUSCLE, HEFT, and POWER. My collection of the COSM VAs stopped at SH-32. Sorry Roland, but give something that is really 'worth it', and not a product that is going to be replaced in three months.

Lets cut to the chase.If anyone has any real hands on experience with the Jupiters 4-6-8 and the juno's then one has to be aware that Roland just doesn't make em like they use to.I borrowed this sh-201 from a friend.I don't like the looks.The feel is cheap.This is a soft synth plug-in built into a cheap controller housing.Sure the former keybordist from Japan is using one...why risk the good stuff to the hazards of the road.This keyboard has enough to get the job done under those conditions and it's affordable.Ok great.That said.They are simply appealing to a market with a simple synth that has good live performance features.Roland needs a retro synth to compete with Korg.Yet,unlike the newer korg stuff,There is nothing interesting or suprising in this synth.Not even a subtle twist.D-BEAM?.I'll take Jim Beam.

I really dislike how roland robs Peter to pay Paul.You get reverb and delay but no chorus...yet the other roland synth you had before in 1998 gave you chorus and delay or no reverb.Thanks!Lots of knobs and buttions and sliders.We like those.Please keep these.This is a start.My one most desireable feature is somehow totally elusive.I would simply like to lock the apegiater to the MIDI clock in my sequencer.There is nothing I could find in the manual except that I could drive other devices with the 201 as "master"and other other useless ways of hooking this thing up.A scratch sequencer?No extra wavetable occilator?Even the new korg ms stuff has it.IT'S 2007 GUYS!!!Wake up!!!

I cant stand it.This thing is total jive lame ass sounding without any serious tweeking.Thomas Dolby and Vince clark are laughing at us mortals as they stare at us from on top of the peak of modular analog and discreet! This sh-201 is a toy you give your kid at christmas because he's/she's in a band(insert Paul Mitchell hair style) that has some 80's influences since having dug into your record collection.

Seems dependeble since there's nothing really in it to break.Don't bother fixing one because everything is under one LSI circut.You will never need to replace anything.You will just sell it or give it away at a garage sale and buy something else.It's another reliable piece of music gear that will be forgotten about while the un- reliable and out of tune Moogs, Prophet 5's,Oberheims,Oscar's,Yamaha-cs-80's,PPG'S and anything else with a quality sound and a well thought out design skyrocket in price.You can depend on this for sure.

Thank you Roland for making yet again,another thing that is a nod to the past with very little future.You choose to ignore why people like the good things about analog and the good things about digital and choose not to make something special under one elegant roof.

I never bought it and Im never going into another mainstream music store ever again.I own a very nice selection of gear and Im a snob about it.I can't stand the consumer world right now.New Products Designed and built to a price point as cheaply as possible to be sold at a publicly traded major chain retailer for huge profit.Spending money to record at 24bit 96k only to heard via mp'3 on earbuds.Im done with my rant.Sorry if I offended anyone.

Easy to edit because there are no menus, but no menus means fewer synthesis features. The presets have that Roland sound--hyped up, with a very commercial, Los Angeles, smiley-face-EQ sort of character. You can get a fairly wide range of sounds by programming your own, but not nearly as wide a range as with other VAs like the Ion, Virus, etc. Roland has not yet learned how to write a manual. They'll tell you explicitly how to adjust the volume by turning the volume knob, but give you absolutely no clue how to perform more complicated tasks nor how to solve problems that may arise. Subtracting greatly from the ease of use is the external power supply. It will get kicked around on stage, damaged and lost, and keeping a spare around is more expensive and cumbersom than if it had been a simple power cord. Roland crows about how easy this synth is to use, so easy that it doesn't even need an LCD. Well, having an LCD to show you information and patch names makes life MUCH easier. It's easier to have enough memory for a couple hundred patches, too, but this synth only gives you 32. Welcome back to 1982, but not in a good way.

Barely more advanced than the 10-year-old JP8000. The keys are shorter than standard piano keys, and they feel lightweight and cheap to me. The effects are pretty good. MIDI is a mixed bag, as stated below. This is a budget synth, and it shows. Lots of features from other VAs are missing: no third oscillator, no third LFO, no true mod matrix, no MIDI through, audio inputs are RCA instead of 1/4", no pressure sensitivity, etc. Certainly no innovative extras like Novation's "virtual" sync oscillators, Waldorf's real-time filter routing modulation, Clavia's patch morphing, and so on. It's great that the synth is so lightweight, but that comes at a price: you have to carry around the weight of the external power supply separately, and the chassis is entirely plastic. Roland's pitch/mod paddle is still the same, inflexible design, in that you can't add modulation and leave it there unless you're willing to use one of your hands to hold the paddle in place. Unlike a mod wheel, the paddle springs back as soon as you let go.

Aliasing. Zipper noise. This synth sounds completely digital, or maybe like someone's idea of analog who has only ever heard analog synths over the radio. Honestly, very few advances have been made since 1997's JP8000. One advance that I do like a lot is the feedback oscillator. It's very nice, and not just for in-your-face leads--it does pads really well, too. No pressure sensitivity, so that cuts down on the expressiveness quite a bit. Effects are very good. It would work well for situations where it will be buried deep enough in a mix that its flaws would go unnoticed. It would also work well for people who don't care about sounding convincingly analog (although there are much better digital synths out there).

Historically, Roland synths are very durable and reliable. This one is a flimsy, almost empty plastic box, however. The knobs and sliders wiggle side-to-side alarmingly easily, and the chassis will shatter on the first drop. I would not gig with this synth, although I see that one of Madonna's keyboard players has one. I guess she can afford roadies who will pamper it.

Not from Roland. Their website has improved a bit over the last year, but it's still mostly hype and advertising. Buy this synth, and you're on your own.

I auditioned the SH201 for several hours in a store, comparing it to a Novation Xio and an Alesis Micron. For analog emulation, the Micron wins, hands down. This synth is like a caricature of analog by comparison. The Xio was better and much more versatile. At home, I have a Waldorf MicroQ and a Novation Nova, plus some other, non-VA synths. Honestly, the only thing I love about this synth is the feedback oscillator. What I hate is the digital sound, and all the missing features are disappointing. Hard to believe that 10 years of technological advances have added so little to the JP8000, which is still probably a better buy.