Surprise! Roland bores us to tears for one more year!
From the original Analog Industries archive. Some links and images from that era no longer resolve.
“The A stands for Access. Fantom power for the masses!” Just what the world needs. Four more Fantom workstations. Hey, guys at Roland R&D? L stands for fucking Lame. Roland is the Stevie Wonder of the synth industry. In the 70s, they were The Shit. In the year 2006, they’re just shit, with ten iterations of the synthesizer equivalent of “I Just Called To Say I Love You.”
12 comments
I take it the SH-201 didn't inpress you then? Or the VP-550?
Doesn't the V-Synth line count as cutting edge?
Are the other major manufactureers doing any better?
V-synth is about all they have going for my $ and only if i was forced to buy a roland product.
the Sh-201 looks like a fisherprice trainwreck. they need some new design people.
the VP-550 could be interesting. though it is also... ugly.
i dont think the other majors are doing any better though. there's always a good market for workstations i guess but in general this is the kind of hardware that loses out in the argument of "why do i need hardware when i have a laptop/computer?" but that's their market so what can you do.
there's much better things happening w/smaller manufacturers anyway. roland shmoland...
Looks like the SH-201could be fun for a synth n00bZ0r like me. I might get one if the price is low enough for my modest budget, but it's so damn UGLY I wouldn't even dare showing it to my friends.
It's so early '90 pseudo-techno looking it almost hurts.
But what do I know, 303's where considered effing lame when they came out.
I hear they added d-beams and vocoders to all v-acordians.
The SH-201 looks like a virtual analog model of the products they were making 25 years ago. If that's what you want, pick up an old Juno 106 or Super Jupiter off eBay. Then you could at least rock out with some old school credibility. The 106 would probably even save you some money.
The new small machines look great to me. After reading reviews of the V-Synth, esp. the vocal section, I wished Roland would chop it up and release some more affordable, smaller machines with hands-on controls. And that's what they did. A sequel to the VP-330? Please, this is an awesome idea. I'm delighted...I hope they sound good.
Does anyone outside of hip-hop buy workstations anymore?
Sure. Lots of people do. Like this guy:
http://www.analogindustries.com/blog/entry.jsp?msgid=1134105670177
Viz. the earlier comments on the SH-201, avoid it like the plague that it is, unless it is $89. There are about 45,600 synths already available just like it, and 9/10th of them are better. As the Music Thing blog points out today, you can certainly get a decent vintage analog for the price, and it won't be made out of plastic.
-CR
"There are about 45,600 synths already available just like it, and 9/10th of them are better. As the Music Thing blog points out today, you can certainly get a decent vintage analog for the price, and it won't be made out of plastic."
Fair enough!
it's worth spending a few extra dollars to get something a little better..
so even if the 201 is priced cheap, if i were a noob out for a synth, i'd still get something like an evolver or a used nord or as suggested up there a juno-106.. so many better options...
That fact that Roland has ripped off Access with the VST control thing shows that they may be starting to get an idea of what relevant synth companies are doing. Part of me would really like to see Roland make a come back with interesting products. My first synth experiences came from a Roland Alpha Juno (which is still sitting next to me as I type). If Roland could learn to ditch the gimmicks and produce a product that appealed to people other than the christian rock/church/karaoke rip-off people, I would be happy for a few seconds.
Which brings me to my next point. If so many of the boutique companies are managing to make full on analog machines, with much acclaim, why are all the major manufacturers stuck in this virtual analog rut? It seems like there are enough people out there these days looking for true analog that even the marketing people at the major companies (Roland, Korg, Yamaha, Alesis etc.) could recognize the demand. I'm guessing that this has something to do with the fact that cheap fab plants don't do analog so well these days, but I'm sure they could if someone had the balls to try it. After all, someone is managing to install all these damn tubes just fine.
The Juno-G is fucking hilarious, check out the silkscreening. The demos at the booth were pretty ridiculous, especially the VP-whatever. They did cut down on the amount of Boss pedals on display, although the ones hanging on the wall are really old and discontinued.
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