Roland SH-201 User reviews -Page 1

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Average rating: 3.5 out of 5

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saminos from indonesia writes:

In the early Roland SH201 go to the market, I hope this synthesizer is more powerful than Juno6 & Jupiter6 . . I bought SH201 few years ago, the sound its is not what I expected, its a like a toys . . maybe SH201 good for beginner..

Rating: 3 out of 5 posted Sunday-Apr-08-1212 at 05:40

Pugface from UK writes:

Ok i have a VirusTI (the one that has the reputation for being the best most advanced synth at the moment), a Korg M50 and an SH-201. Ive had them some time and i am in a good position to comment. I use them with Cubase 4 or Ableton Live 8.

The SH-201 has it own sound. It big and in fact produces fatter sounds than the virus thanks to it huge cappacity to make SuperSaw and PWM sounds. To say its a toy is wrong. The filter is raw and does put its own tone in to making sound. Its not as advanced as the Virus's filters. But never the less it will make new tones that can encourage you. The famous feedback OSC and SuperSaw is there as used in trance stuff.

I will never sell my SH-201. Its light, well designed, robust and a pleasure to work on. The only change i would like is having tempo synced delayed effects.

Rating: 3 out of 5 posted Wednesday-Nov-24-1010 at 08:42

Ossorian a part-time user from Ireland writes:

I was a late comer to the world of SH201. If you are clever with your patches and locations and oscillators and stuff, you can get more out of the SH201 than you think. By keeping my patches a bit simpler (i.e. making a lead sound) I can make a second sound of my choosing in the lower section of the patch. (say, a nice sweeping or spatial pat) so in actual fact you can if you want to have 64 seperate sounds. Half the fun of going analog or modelling is to tweak on the fly. Besides most real analog synths had no user programs. Another thing is that if you play upper and lower in unison, you have 4 oscillators. I'm partially sighted so the display is kind of irrelevant. My only regret really is that I didn't buy 2 because if you compare it to the competition (other boards in the same price range) it's got more polyphony than the microkorg and a better interface than the blofeld and the new Gaia is smaller and sounds more like a juno-D. Modelling synths shouldn't come with GS. In short, I've had nothing but fun with my SH201 and have gotten some wicked sounds. I have used other boards like the Poly800, and the CZ1000 but for me, the interface on the SH2-1 is the most suitable, Just in case anyone's curious, my other boards are a Yamaha MM6 (light with some nice pianos) and a Korg Triton Classic (The original 1999 model).

Rating: 5 out of 5 posted Thursday-Jul-22-1010 at 20:09

Mark Svoboda a hobbyist user from USA writes:

Love the SH-201. I hope people out there continue to regard it as a "toy" and sell used, if only to provide an even better deal for the folks out there that think a synth needs to weigh 20 lbs to be "quality".

Things that are great: Really light. Low price. No confusing menus. Versatility of waveforms. Sound of waveforms themselves. Sound input as OSC. Arpeggiator (particularly when set up in software). Effects unit (if you think its just 2 parameters per FX, I suggest you crack the manual :). EASE OF USE - show me a synth that is any easier to get under the hood of a sound. Shortcuts: Mod destinations are MUCH more flexible than what you see. USB = awesome. You can turn the 201 into a sound card, you can play out a software synth on your computer via 201's MIDI, and get the soft synth's sound output (along with the 201's sound output) together over L R Phones, no latency. USB also = convenient MIDI. Load and Save programs. Aliasing - some great sonic stuff is hidden in the realm of high-note aliasing. Use a FB OSC, PW or Super Saw, turn on a fast delay, play some really high notes and then adjust the width of the waveform. Put a slow LFO affecting pitch, and you are listening to a COMPLETELY different machine than what you bought. Then there's the software, it opens up a LOT more settings, try it.

Things that suck: Filter is not unique. There is a lot of stair-stepping when turning knobs, which can sometimes produce pleasing "digital" stuff but overall it's a problem. Knobs feel OK but not that solid. Only 32 spaces for user patches. Although you can get creative with the D Beam's destination, personally I think as an input device its a piece of garbage. Not exactly a theremin.

Overall: There's quite a bit more here than meets the eye. People who knock this synth GIVEN ITS LOW PRICE are either suffering buyer's remorse after buying a Virus TI, are paid by Korg, or are just stupid.

Rating: 5 out of 5 posted Saturday-Apr-24-1010 at 12:29

I have some others sintes in my studio (a Micro korg, a Yamaha MM6, a N5 Korg, and two Roland XP10). But the reason I buy this SH201, is because my first sinte was a Roland SH09, a monophonic sinte that I accquired 30 years ago, and is still working today. This old dinosaur is one of my treasures, and when I go out to play with my band, all the people that see the SH09 is surprised, because they canÂ´t believe that my sinte has 30 years, and is still making very good sounds. It's obvious that this new Sh201 have not the same kind of technology that the SH09 has, because 30 years ago you can only get analog sintes, but the SH201 has very good sounds inside, and if you spend a little time exploring this toy you can get also very nice sounds. As always, you get what you pay for, but I think that the SH201 is a good keyboard in his price range, and has all the character that all the Roland Sintes have, no matter the year that they where build. best regards.

Rating: 5 out of 5 posted Wednesday-Jun-11-088 at 17:31

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