Weird thing is, sometimes Roland get it right… and often they get it wrong. And you never know which is the case for a new bit of gear until it’s out. Good example of where they got it right (IMO)… the TR8S. I’ve found the TR8S pretty straightforward to use, not much menu diving really… and what there is becomes second nature quite quickly.
Examples of where they got it wrong… lots. But Jupiter Xm is a recent example. Really wanted to like that synth, but the UI was such a mess. I’d put the dumb stuff around pattern and patch saving on the SH4D in the same bracket from what I’ve read (until Roland fix that in firmware, anyway).
What I find frustrating about modern Roland is that they seem to get the interface wrong on their more powerful boxes over and over; and their instruments are otherwise quite good. Maybe the company has a case of Yamahaitis (the deeply held corporate belief that consumers don’t really want to program their own patches, hence don’t need intuitive deep-dive programming controls.) They can’t be testing this stuff on users early on or they would be told how tangled up it is.
To be fair I’ve never used the 8S, and from what you’re saying that’s a smoother experience. I love the rompler engine of the XM (enough to keep the synth), but of course it’s the rompler that requires the most menu dives.
I had the tr8s and if you want make something complex it has a lot of menus. I didn’t like it and don’t like know the sh4d on the save thing and the problem when you save and it stops
TR8S menu diving isn’t a lot of menu diving by Roland’s standards! They’ve produced far worse than the TR8S over the years. Personally… I don’t find the TR8S UI and menu structure to be a problem. A few things aren’t immediately obvious without the manual but most of it is either ‘press button’ or ‘shift+button’ (and with the main alt functions printed on the TR8S front panel), and from there it’s just a case of scrolling through a ton of options (and there are lots to go through TBF). I’ve seen a lot more baffling menu layout design decisions than that from Roland…
On the other hand, from what I’ve seen in reviews, the SH4D UI/menu structure seems more messed up than something like the TR8S, especially the whole pattern/patch/rhythm saving thing which looks really confusing on the SH4D.
And any device that allows you to lose a pattern you’ve been working on just by switching to a new pattern (so the pattern you’re leaving isn’t held in memory, nor do you get a ‘save pattern’ prompt) is pretty dumb. Roland are going to have to fix that one quickly because it looks really annoying.
I was gonna buy an SH-4d for some sound design. Is it correct you cannot wipe the sounds clear and have all “INIT” presets in this machine? If so then this is no good
So you only get say 128 slots for saving your own presets? You are stuck with the stock presets at all times? I was hoping that I could empty the synth of all factory sounds Oh well
That seems to be the case, although others who actually own the machine might want to confirm. It‘s so baffling why in 2023, there are still locked factory presets. Especially on machines clearly made for sound design, it makes absolutely no sense. I honestly can’t think of any good reason why a company would do that. It’s the same on Sequential stuff, but at least you get more save slots there.
kinda, afaik if you then tweak them and want to save them again, the original factory preset that was on the slot will overwrite your patch. And you have to jump through some hoops to overwrite the factory patches, definitely not encouraged by Sequential.
I’m having a problem with setting a gate length for a single note. Even I set to TIE it only plays for just the step. I can make it play shorter though. Am I missing something?
@x0x oh no it’s not that obvious - as that’s exactly confused me a bit. yea but the problem is when I set them to infinite they do stack on top of each other. And I’m not sure if there’s a setting to set poly synths to be mono (apart from the "poly/mono engine’ ofc lol)
@what_gives Same problem though, they just stack on top of each other regardless I’ve tied them or not. I also assumed it was TIE’ing up the gate until another note is played. Well… I got it literally 2 days ago so forgive my ignorance ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°)
I’ve been only playing around only samples though. Maybe I’m just confusing with samples and there’s no other way than assuming the length of it.
Hmm this is a shame. When we did the factory sounds for the Blofeld or Pulse2 we could basically have bank A is all init presets then copy all bank A through H as I recall during beta test thus wiping all individual units free of factory sounds. I’d have thought being 2023 this kind of thing would be normal on a hardware synth. It’s a bit of a bummer not to be able to empty the stock sounds on such a promising synth such as this. I may still buy one tho because I like the sound of the Sh-4d for sure.
