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.

The signal path is printed on the panel, so you know exactly where your tweaking is acting.
Knobs, buttons and sliders are big enough to be clearly seen on a dark stage. If you are not going to use it midi-sync'ed, the only way to set tempo is by pressing the tap button, what may be
complicated. I would have provided something like a pedal to do that. Important: read the manual, since (as another reviewer properly noticed) the combinations required to change some important parameters
are not intuitive at all. I printed a copy of the settings from the pdf on Roland's site, for day-to-day use.
The connections are easy to set up, and the AC adaptor has two cords,
so you won't have a brick hanging from the wall and occupying precious space, that??s nice. It also is bivolted, preventing wrong-voltage damage. Very very easy to use, quite dumb-proof.
It does not come with the USB cable, so you should get one (with A-B type connectors) to plug it to your computer (just in case you, like me, are one of those who desperately needs to try out all of the features of any new toy right-out-of-the-box-!). The included software has the menus somewhat hidden. I mean, they are not at the top of the main window, instead they are accessed by buttons that simulate the looks of real buttons of the keyboard... The interface should have a better design. The software help is useless. One big problem I'm having with it is that I must uninstall/reinstall the USB driver almost everytime I need to connect it, wether to control/be controlled via computer, or to edit the patches. Once you turn off you computer, be prepared to install the driver the next time. And always use the same USB port you connected it when installing, otherwise it won't recognize the SH-201 at all. Luckily, it needs no batteries (wich are not even an available power source) to keep the user's patches. I can say that the driver (now I'm using v.1.0.1.0) is really poorly written. Sometimes it works properly, but mostly not.
Due to the software issues, 8 is fair.

The d-beam can be assigned to control any of the top panel knobs, wonderful feature to a synth in that price range. The oscillators (two for the upper tone, two for the lower tone, total 4) can be set to generate sawtooth, square, asymmetrical square (or pulse, some say rectangular), triangle, sine, noise, feedback oscillator (similar to guitar feedback, with adjustable feedback amount), roland's supersaw
(something like "seven sawtooth waves played simultaneously", similar to strings) and audio-in.
All these waves can be combined in mix, sync (one of the waveforms will start when the other starts) and ring (waves are multiplied, resulting in bell-like sound). Sync and ring modes can not be used with audio-in sound as source.
The LFO's (two per tone) can be assigned to change pitches, pulse-width, filter amount, amp amount and audio filter.
The LFO may be tempo-sync'ed, good when you want some rythm over an already programmed pattern.
The keyboard layout can be splitted, so you can play sounds of the upper tone on the left, and lower on the right, for example. You can also program an arpeggio pattern to play one of the tones, or both.

The recorder is really useless, if you need it go get an external sequencer.

Other feature I only discovered after purchasing is that it can be used as a limited audio/midi USB interface.
I had no idea of such capabilities, Roland is being foolish not to market it as such.
As a midi controller, the manual says that the knobs and buttons can control external sound modules, but only one knob (the audio cutoff) can be assigned. Keyboard section and pitchbend/modulation lever work well. Forget about controlling soft synths. Tried on Propellerheads Reason and Native Instruments FM7.
It can stream audio through USB, so you can use it's out connectors to hear the sounds from your computer, or use it to record audio into the computer, because it is an audio interface. I recorded some guitar sounds, and it's own synth sound into my PC, good quality. Rates of A/D D/A convertion: 44.1kHz/32bits (nowhere else you find this information, not on the roland's site, nor in the manual, and I only got to know this from my ASIO4ALL screen). That??s very useful since my soundcard is a very cheap and ordinary one.
I can bypass the need of a full-duplex sound card, being able to route some channels of my soundcard to monitor or to external FX, e.g.

Using the editor software you can detail the sound you create, and also program arpeggios yourself. But the arpeggio editor is a real mess to work with, I wish it had some feature that allowed me to
record the arpeggios on realtime, quantized, directly into the editor by just playing the keyboard.

I am experimenting with ways to use the SH-201 as an effect-box, since the stereo audio-in can be chained to the filters and LFO's as any of the other waves. You can filter the audio-in signal with the LFO's, thus getting tremolo, vibrato and other interesting effects for use with mics and guitars, as long as you provide some preamping first (since it's a line-level input).

(I really wanted to open it up and make some mods, a tap-tempo pedal, circuit-bending and so. Think I will do that someday, but found it would be something too cruel to do to something that already sounds great. Unlike the cheap casio's that I've pimped this way)

Since the main reason I got this was performing on stage, it is perfect so far. As midi interface, it is very limited. If Roland ever fixes this button/slider/knob issue on the next driver, that would great.

You can easily get many original sounds from the SH-201. The preset sounds are not extraordinary, but offer some classic sounds. Downloading the 1.10 version of the sound editor you obtain patches from Richard Barbieri, Jean Michel Jarre, Jordan Rudess and Hisashi Saito, but I don't believe I will use any of them.
I'm not into straight electronic music, I play like alt/indie/electro rock. And I really like to create my own stuff. Satisfied. The overdrive is adjustable, useful to obtain fat sounds and add body to lo-frequency waves if you like "pure sine". The reverb and delay effects have time and depth controls, so you can get flange, phaser, delay and reverb using them with criteria.

Issue: when slowly tweaking the knobs or activating the d-beam, you will hear the sound changing in a sort of "stepped" fashion.
At it's heart it's digital, so it was expected to happen, but the degrees of change could be more subtle.
No problem if you tweak fast, or with some reverb. Another issue: you can set the keys sensitivity, but proceding as prescribed in the manual (using a combination of buttons) don't work. I had to go into the editor software to get it. I took weeks to discover that. So, if you don't have, or don't like, don't want, or can't use a computer, forget about key-sensitivity.

I think it will last long. Weighs 5,2 kg, light for it's size. All-plastic. Only to be careful about liquids that would erase the printed panel. Sometimes I leave it on for hours, no heating, no sound alteration. The knobs are a little elevated, so one should be careful if not transporting it in a good case.

Here in Brasil we do not believe such esoteric entities to exist at all. Never needed, plain trust in Roland. But I sent an e-mail about some details, they did take long to reply "submit your question to the technical section of our site"... very ugly manners!

I bought it aiming at its performing capabilities. Still had no opportunity to test it on stage, but rehearsals are going well. As I said, I'm into alt/indie/electro rock. I get the sounds I need, and being it my first synth, is very easy to use. I considered to go soft and use a midi interface, but dealing with computers and their connections on the stage was something I didn't want.
The lesser the possibilities of crashes and bsod (blue screen of death) on live situations, the better.
The D-beam can be really very useful. I think it should have more patch memory, because I think I will use more than the 32 available for the user, but connected to a laptop I can have infinite (not exactly, but depending of HD size) user patches made by myself (but will have to keep the files well organized).

Considering its price, deserves a 10.

hi. SUPER wonderfully easy to use. manual is probably fine, but I never had to look at it. I'm a relatively experienced synthesist and as such, the layout of this piece couldn't be any easier to work with. and they weren't lying about it being fun. it is just straight up FUN to use.

features are fine for the price point

here's the thing...i had to take mine back. it just sounds horrible. I had myself talked into the fact that i could just cajole a reasonable sound out of this thing with compressors eqs etc ... and sort of a can, but It got boring quickly trying to be a sound designer anytime i wanted to wrestle a good sound out of this. I get that its only $600, and its wonderful...it is aimed for a novice user, but I'd like to suggest that if roland made a high end version of this thing that looked and felt like their 80's synths...the way that the voyager looks and feels relative to what moog is, that there would be an enthusiastic audience for it. this synth is my dream synth in terms of sitting down and making what i want right away, but if only it SOUNDED good. the dave smith poly evolver is brilliant, right? great? but I, and I'd argue a lot of people like me, are too damn busy to get into it. if a synth sounded that great and was as easy as the sh 201 to play with. i say big winner.

i think so, yeah.

if you are just starting out and looking for a way to get into making sounds, adding a piece to add some fun to making music becuase soft synths aren't fun...(they aren't...)...then by all means, get this. but if you demand a pro level out of your gear, this might not be for you. in context for what it is, i give it a 9, as a synth on its own merits agains everyting else out there, i give it 5, so lets split the diff and giver it a 7
SO, ROLAND JUST MAKE A HIGH END VERSION, TOO! C'MON!!!!

The SH-201 is designed to be easy to use, so good marks here.
The layout of the controls is such that you understand the signal path through the synth. All controls that you need are hard-wired, so no browsing through all sorts of menus. You switch it on, and you can go to work. Do not get thrown off by the presets that Roland have included. They still don't seem te realise that we no longer live in the '90s.
The manual looks OK, but I haven't really needed it so far, because the instrument is so easy to start out with.

It's a basic but decently equipped virtual analog synth. It has 2 voices per patch, which can be used on their own, together or split. Each voice has 2 OSCs, a LP/HP/BP filter, 2 LFOs, and some basic effects.
The option to use an audio input signal as the basis for your sound is cool of course. I would like to have seen an FM-option on this synth, but alas. Even though nearly all necessary controls are present on the synth, it has an extra PC_based editor. This allows you to store many patches on your PC easily (This is usefull, because 32 user patches is not that much), and fine-tune some more parameters. You can also create custom arpeggios.

The sound is distinctively digital. The presets, as noted, are not that great, but in the end it's what /you/ make of it.
The oscillators sound nice, the filter isn't too great, but not useless either. You can create screaming leads, moody pads, and some nice basses as well. If you want to create a realistic piano or strings: Buy something else. This puppy was designed for electronic sounds. It's obvious digitality gives it a harsh sound, and for me, that's what I was looking for. For its price, it sounds pretty good. I'm using it in electro/punk/rock music, and their it's right at place.

It's plastic, lightweight and cheap (and ugly). It don't think it will survive a 10 foot drop, or the kind of violence I tend to apply to an electric guitar. Still, I trust it enough to gig with it. There is one thing which I noticed, and that is if you connect it to a computer and you turn the computer off, it loses it's tempo, so it's arpeggiator won't work any more, nor will the LFO's sync to the clock. I haven't tested this effect while it was connected to another device tough, but if I find out more, I'll post a follow-up.
But the bottom line is: I own several pieces of Roland (and Boss) equipment, but I have never needed their support for anything. Which means something like: Treat your instrument right, and it'll be fine.

Like I said, no experience with Roland whatsoever.

I was looking for 2 things: A synth capable of delivering the type of sounds that will scare children out of a room, and a synth which is build for live performace and easy tweakability. In this regard it definitely delivers. It is the first 'big' synthesizer I bought, and so far I'm very happy with it. For me, this is a creativity booster, I find playing around with it gives me new ideas for tunes & tracks, and I think it will continue to do so for the forseable future.
However, I'm aware that there are better products available, so if this unit were stolen or lost, I don't know if I would buy it again, or maybe save up some more cash and go for a Nord Lead or Korg RADIAS or so.
But it definitely is a fun unit to play with. It's easy to understand, and offers a broad enough range of possibilities. I like its aggressive sounds, and its hands-on layout. I find myself spending a lot of time with it.

Very straightforward. Basic synth controls with basically one knob or button for each function, like an old school analog synth which is one of the reasons why I bought it. Editing and saving patches is easy.
The manual is good if you dont already know about basic synthesis...but as far as the USB/MIDI stuff is concerned...forget it. I'm really bad when it comes to MIDI and this thing didnt help.

Effects are cool, sounds are great. Keyboard action is typical of synths. The USB audio/MIDI thing is cool, but I still havent figured out the MIDI part. One of the best features is the tap-tempo arpeggiator......great idea and I think this is the only synth I've ever seen with this feature. Also the audio input is fun for doing cool filter effects with your turntables/iPod etc.

I like the sounds...very Juno-ish. From fat basses and screaming leads to trippy pads and cheesy horns.

Is suspiciously lightweight, like a MIDI controller and seems a bit flimsy. I would use caution when packing it up for the gig.

I called customer support because I couldnt get the USB to send audio into Ableton Live 6. The smart ass I spoke to told me that USB audio didnt work with Ableton. He was kind of rude and made me feel stupid. 5 Minutes after I spoke to him, I figured out that I needed to set one of my audio prefernces in order for the USB to work. It works just fine. I felt like calling him back and telling him that he was wrong and Ableton works with USB audio just fine, but I'd rather be making music.

Ive been making music all my life and have tons of gear from pedal steels to synths. This is a good synth for what i am doing, although more experienced users may wish for more features. I got a great deal on it at Guitar Center Dallas, TX and its alot of bang for the buck.

Internal Software version unavailable, VST version 1.0

The SH201 is unprecidented in ease of use and high quality of sound. Included with the physical synth is a USB based midi/audio USB port and VST instrument interface. It's cool for those addicted to computer editing and because you have a free stereo pair of inputs, saving your Audio device the cost of using the SH201. This is teriffic for Audio interfaces that only have a few channels available.
You don't understand any of what was written? That's fine - you don't have to use any of those features to use the SH201, they just help make it easier to work with. Remember, the VSTi is essentially a patch editor on a synth that has plenty of interface elements just begging to be used instead.

The manual is a bit dry but well written. Go through the 80 pages and you'll understand the SH201 and how to program it. Personally, no matter your synth programming level, I'd suggest spending some hands on time without the manual as hearing what knob changes a sound is very effective to learning how a synth works. I would use the manual as it will help fill in the information and contains button combinations that you won't figure out without the manual.
That said, most of the combinations will probably not be used by a good amount of programmers.

Play the sounds, all 64. You will get an idea of what the SH201 can do, and a few of the patches will change your mind about the overall flexibility of this wonderful synth.

Presets are okay but too polite.

Hands on will give much greater satisfaction and allow for more rubbish and agressivity.

It has a finite feature set but they are well thought out and all very useful. Nothing is redundant and has a key role in performance.

Really, paired with my Ion, it is a nearly perfect complement (as also would the FM capabilities of a Fusion or DX/SY).

Always wanted to have a JP-8000 ever since I played with the "Chariots" preset back in the days.

So the synth is very capable. Roland always put a lot of effort in making sure the workflow and performance aspects do not deceive. It is fast.

If you want quick Skinny Puppy Front 242 type of sounds, that will get you there quickly too.

All the oscillators modes is impressive too.

The feature set may seem limited but in reality isn't.

Since the Ion already does a lot, the SH allows me to get started immediately with a very different tone. Much more aggresive.


The build quality? Heck, its will probably last 10x longer than my Juno 106. I dont use the Juno because I am afraid of losing a voice chip. I couldn't care less about leaving the SH powered on for days.

The audio in allows me to route my Ion in the SH and simply take the output of the SH to my sound system. Much simpler to deal with.

Will probably outlast any other vintage gear I have,

Sent an email without any reply

would probably want to byuy it again considering the price point.

This synth is pretty straight forward which IMO is its' main strength. The editor and librarian software lets you archive and manage sounds. The manual is very informative but it would have also been nice of them to include sound creating tips like they did with the JP-8000. If part of the target consumers with this are beginners, then they should have included a few pages to help them along.

10 Voice polyphony. The key action is good but not great. Seems to have the same key action as the JP-8000. There's worse out there (Nord Lead). Velocity can be adjusted but there's no aftertouch. The built in effects are also good but not great. I was happy that their choices was a delay and reverb since one can setup a delay to also chorus, phase, and flange. The recorder makes it easy to capture your riffs and the arpeggiator can be setup for your own phrases. It's too bad you need the software to really get at that but again, at this price point I'm not complaining.

All manner of synth sounds here. Nothing realistic and you don't buy something like this for realism. IMO, the general tone is too bright. Easily adjustable with an outboard EQ though. Does it sound good? Yes it does but not as good in all manner of sounds as my Nord Rack 2X IMO. It does beat it out in the pads and strings department and anything else you may use those Super Saws for but bear in mine that the Nord is about $400 more, has a really crap keybed, no recorder, and no phrase arpeggiator. The sound is awesome enough to handle any needs in any genre of music but as always, there are some thing better and worse in certain sound categories.

Don't know yet as I've just gotten it. The VST plug-in doesn't currently work for me within Live 5.2. I've done some trouble shooting but to no avail. The standalone editor works along with Live running just fine though.

The've been cool with me but I understand that they get a lot of flak. As humans, there is but so much of that one can take. Bear that in mind.

If this were lost or stolen, I would definitely replace it. I find it refreshing to use and for the money, there's really no reason to add this to your tool kit unless you already have a V-Synth or your completely satisfied with you JP-80x0. Gear List: PolyEvolver KB, Voyager RME, S90 ES, Nord Rack 2X, and SH-201. The SH-201 is the main synth in my arsenal in the pads and strings department. It's also the polysynth gig board that goes where the S90 ES goes. Fantastic Value!

The synth is larger than I expected. The sliders and knobs feel solid. Dozens of multi-colored leds give a very good feedback. The layout is clear and logical. The lack of screen is, honestly, not an issue.

The SH-201 is simple to use. In an hour or two you'll know everything there is to know about it.

Some parameters are adjusted with strange knobs combinations, impossible to figure out without reading the manual. The CANCEL button often acts as a shift button to access hidden features. For example: "to set the keyboard split point hold down the CANCEL button and press the TAP button, then hold down the DUAL/SPLIT button, press a key, press the CANCEL button". It can't be worse than that!

It's a shame that there are no dedicated hardware controllers for the Amplitude/Filter velocity sensitivity and the LFO fade in time. I'd rather have knobs or sliders for these standard features than the D-Beam, the Recorder or the Arpeggio...

The manual is well written. The surrealist Japanese to English translation of the old Roland manuals is, luckily, a thing of the past. The manual doesn't talk about all the available features so make sure to check the "Parameter List" at the end. You'll find there all the "magical" operation required to adjust the hidden features.

The Presets library is disappointing. It is full of outdated techno sounds that could have been created with any Roland synths from the last 15 years. I can make the same sounds with an old JV or XP synth. None of these presets use velocity sensitivity, it makes them sound totally static and lifeless. As it is a child play to create your own sound, this is a minor problem.

This is a "solo" unitimbral synth with a simple sound engine. It's not a workstation like the Roland Phantom or an hybrid digital synth like the Access Virus. The features are therefore limited.

The signal flow is simple and classic: a sound can be made of 2 tones (Upper/Lower). For each tone you get 2 oscillators, 2 LFO (amplitude, filter, pulse width or pitch modulation) a filter, and envelopes for the pitch, the amplitude and the filter. Finally there's an effect section.

The oscillators can be mixed in normal "mix" mode (a balance) in "sync" (Oscillator 1 in sync with 2) or "ring" mode (multiply). The last one creates interesting metallic sounds.

There's a D-Beam controller, an arpeggio and an "external in" with its own filter. The memory is made of 32 presets and 32 user patches. It's not much, but I doubt that you'll need more...

A rather useless MIDI "recorder" is included. It allows you to record 8 phrases of 8 measures. You cannot loop the phrases, play them one after the other or trigger them live easily (to play different phrases you have to use one of these magical knobs combination). It is rather frustrating. One track of 100 or 200 measures would have been more useful.

The audio interface is a great feature. It can stream audio from and to the PC through USB. It means you can record directly the sounds of the SH-201 + its audio input in your DAW. The AD conversion of the audio input is of a good quality. I compared with other AD converter and was pleasantly surprised by the SH-201.

The PC editor works as expected. With it you to adjust the parameters more precisely and use the SH-201 as a VST instrument.

The SH-201 is not a very convincing analog emulation synth. Its "Analog Modeling Sound Engine" is not impressive. Many exceptional analog emulation synth have been released in the last few years. They are all more expressive and more powerful than the SH-201. The word "Analog Modeling" is misleading here, I think. You can create some decent Jupiter/Prophet pads with it, sure, but you can do this with any other Roland synth.

The interface and the signal flow might be "analog-like", but the synth sounds totally digital. Compare the SH-201 to a Creamware Minimax ASB (one of the best analog emulation synth available, in my opinion) or, better, a real analog synth, and you'll see what I mean.

Bad analog emulation doesn't necessarily mean bad synth. The Supersaw (7 Saw waves) oscillator is wonderful. It generates very fat and spacious "Vangelis" pads. The Feedback oscillator is great to create screaming metallic effects. I also like the very flexible dual LFO. The effects - basic distortion, reverb and delay - are excellent. The reverb is rich and warm. Roland always make really good amp simulation and effects, so I didn't expect less.

You can easily make the SH-201 sound like nothing else. The combination of Feedback and Supersaw oscillators with a strong delay generates very original soundscapes.

I was not impressed by the filter section. The filters (low-pass, high-pass, band-pass) sound thin. It's the same old Cutoff/Resonance combo that we can find in all Roland synths...

"Naked", the sounds are quite static. Luckily the LFOs, the D-Beam and all the sliders and knobs helps to add variations and modulation during a performance.

The range of sound that the SH-201 can produce is rather limited. In the 32 presets there are already many repetitions. It's good at creating screaming lead, synthetic sound pad, "acid" bass and "gated" sound effect. So if you don't like electronic music, skip it!


I'm rather suspicious about the algorithms used for the standard oscillators (Sine, Square, etc...). Playing low or high notes creates uniform and almost atonal noises ("rrrrr" for low frequencies, "sssshhh" for high).This problem is typical of sampled waveform or badly processed one (the first software synths had all this problem). To reach such a low price, Roland might have cheated a little bit to spare processor power... Don't worry, this is a minor critic, the synth sounds OK.

The synth weights nothing. It's an empty plastic box! I'd be curious to see the inside...

I never had problem with Roland products in the past (They are all still up and running). So I expect the SH-201 to last long.

I'm using Roland products since 15 years. I never had to contact Roland's customer support. I hope I'll never have to!

I would buy it again only for the Feedback and SuperSaw oscillators, the flexible LFO and the audio interface. The synth is not expensive, so its weakness are acceptable.

The SH-201 is a fun to use digital synth, but I wouldn't recommend this synth for beginner, it's too specific. In the same price range, a Roland Juno-D would be more appropriate.

If you're looking for an analog emulation synths you should search somewhere else (the Creamware Minimax ASB cost a bit more, has no keyboard, but sounds REALLY analog).

The sound engine is not exceptional but the real-time performance tools are great. Somehow the limitation of the SH-201 are also its strengh. As you'll know what the SH-201 is capable of in a day or two, you'll focus very quickly on playing it.

Overall, it's a very stimulating musical instrument!