Misguided though the notion might be, they pride themselves on their legacy sounds. I’m sure they honestly believe that they’d never sell another synth without including those sounds, and ultimately preserving them for posterity.
I’ve never known any other company to recycle parts, tech, and sounds to such an obsessive degree. The sad part is, however, that they’re probably right. Decades in our wake, yet it seems people still can’t see past the Roland synth and drum sounds of yore, and aspire to nothing more.
But why force people to keep these sounds though? Give people options, best of both worlds. User stock was doubled on Jupiter XM in a later update, maybe this might happen here as well.
I read once that synth manufacturers often do this so that they receive less help requests from people who can’t get a sound from their synth - eg. A user buys a synth second hand that has been wiped clean of the presets and complains there are no sounds. Of course, a different option would be to just allow a factory reset that puts the factory sounds back…
i don’t think a sequencer with polyphony, polymeter, probability per notes, 4 lanes automation, play modes normal , reverse pinpong and random is basic , even elektron one doesn’t do all of these.
Just tried the SH-4D in a store. Smaller than I thought but in a good way; looks very rucksackable. Build quality feels good, nice knobs and faders and I liked the button keyboard.
Spent 30 minutes with it. I was not instantly blown away by the sound if I’m honest, but I had just got off a flight so I’d been more or less awake for 30hrs by this point. However there are loads of presets and scrolling through them was easy and things sounded better in a pattern. The effects are great.
It seems way more groovebox-y than I thought it would be. Didn’t read any manual and was able to get patterns playing and getting into the sliders, mutes, filter and master fx for performance. So the UI didn’t seem unbearable. Seems like a fun box!
Hopefully I can go back to try it some more and compare to an mc101.
Aside: I had no idea how big an sp-404 is until I saw one in person. They are giant!
It seems to me that Roland thinks of their legacy sounds as an important piece of history, and worry that they might be otherwise be lost-to-time if they allow people to overwrite them; in turn, perhaps even eroding the perceived value of their synths, both new and used.
As I previously stated, in some respects, they’re not wrong. People really do lack vision and creativity, most of the time; never mind a healthy sense of objectivity, perspective, understanding, and reverence for what has come before them.
To which end, however, Roland simply needs to provide more memory for user patches; if only so that the rare-few who actually aspire to push these machines into uncharted sonic territory can do so unabated.
A question for owners of both SH-4d and MC101/707: how does filter compare to the one on MCs? Do you like it? On MC-707 I prefer VCF type for more analogue feel, TVF can get a bit nasty in extremes. How about filter drive on SH-4d?
Also, how is the S&H LFO on SH-4d? Is it actually random or is it like on MC-707, which basically repeats same pattern on each retrigger?
I was about to compare it to the mc101 but as soon as I got that hooked up someone started testing very loudly a range of guitar distortion pedals right next to me, which somewhat interfered with my experience of the mc101. I found the ui on the mc101 much more challenging to work out what was going on, how to edit or load sounds. (But as with sh-4d I didn’t have a manual to hand to follow so not much of comment on the ui of a complex box)
This isn’t a fully formed opinion, but I sometimes feel like filter and basic synth voices can sound a little bit so so BUT when you remember that there is also a really good FX per voice plus the master FX plus the overall compressor and EQ it can actually sound really, really nice.
It took me a fair bit of farting around with the compressor to get it to sound decent but then when it did I was pretty happy.
The filter is entirely functional but it’s also kinda meh in some instances.
I’m starting to really like it. I could see this working out. Was a bit surprised how little I liked the chorus effects though. Might feel different after trying it on big speakers though…
