# Off-Topic Discussion > The Lounge > Tech Talk >  >  Roland Music

## really

Hey, I am looking to buy a new synthesizer from Roland, and so I was wondering if someone who may have their products or experience with them could help me decide what&#39;s best for me.

So far I want to get the SH-201, because it has awsome features and yet it is around &#036;1000 aus/or &#036;700 us.
Has anyone got/tried any of the phantom series (because they look pretty cool aswell)? Has anyone tried using any of the Juno series?

Any input appreciated.  :smiley:  There&#39;s so much to choose&#33;

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## Cyclic13

We use Roland&#39;s V-synth, and MC-808, among other things...Roland has really nice equipment. Expensive as hell, though.

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## really

> We use Roland&#39;s V-synth, and MC-808, among other things...Roland has really nice equipment. Expensive as hell, though.
> 
> 
> [/b]



Yes. Expensive as hell. The V-Synth is the best out, maybe that&#39;s why it costs almost five grand...   :Eek:  I knew it... I might start with the SH lol. (I&#39;m learning) Though if I do, I&#39;ll have to get external speakers, do you think they&#39;d put up a good bargain for both the synth and the speakers (there is no inbuilt speakers), like as a discount or something? Maybe I should just stay with headphones...



So have you, or anyone else, used any equipment from other brands before, such as Nord?

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## Cyclic13

5000&#036;? its only about 2600&#036; here in Japan. *shrugs* Roland is a Japanese company afterall.

About the speakers, I would get high quality headphones because those are more versatile

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## really

Hey thanks for the replies. And by the way does the V-Synth XT come packaged with the V-Synth? Not that I will be able to afford them...  ::D:

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## Cyclic13

No, the XT is basically a rack which you run through a midi controller. In other words, a toned down version of the V-synth. Still, I believe it&#39;s significantly cheaper if you get that. We have have the regular V-synth.

Don&#39;t be so hasty to get a lesser synth. Sometimes it&#39;s better to just hold out for the better synth, rather than invest in something limited. Personally, I&#39;m holding out for an Access Virus next. That way I can sculpt organic pads, synths, basses, arps, and what not. Go ahead and check out some of the Virus&#39;s sounds... HERE


Just look at it this way, the higher the synth that you hold out to get, the higher the quality of sounds available and your style will become that much more unique and professional sounding. 

Remember: Anyone and everyone can get themselves a microkorg and call themselves an artist (LOL... and most do). However, it&#39;s those that take the big financial risks, and go deep that find the true rewards. You can never be disappointed with high end hardware. Well, not exactly true. Look around first.   :wink2:

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## really

I know what you&#39;re saying, and I agree with you, but because I&#39;m a beginner, I&#39;m not going to get the best of the lot to start with. For I have never used a real keyboard-synth before (only soft-synths), and so I think it&#39;s best for me to get the SH-201, as it is described as a fun synth for n00bs. And because I have never used a synthesizer before, I don&#39;t actually have one at the moment (I have a cheap keyboard). I want one NOW lol, and so I probably won&#39;t be seeking the most expensive one to get me started, and be saving for it for a long time you know? 

By the way, I have just another question: A patch is a sound/sample, right? Or is it the parameters or settings put up, to give the sound?

EDIT: Virus sounds pretty awesome, where did you find Access? I have never heard of them.

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## Cyclic13

Well, I only started making electronic music at the end of 2005. At that time, I jumped right in getting a super large loan with the Mac store getting, a 17 inch Mac PowerBook, with Logic 7 Pro (among many other superfluous things like; carrying case, stand, etc), and soon found the Ultrabeat sculpting tool, which is coupled with Logic, a bit lacking and bought myself a MC-808 for crisper, more solid beats. I suppose, my personality is to go all in with everything. Whether or not it&#39;s economically viable at the time isn&#39;t really on my mind. I&#39;m pretty reckless when it comes to these things. When I first got my turntables back in 2000 I maxed out my credit card and bought the best needles, coffin case, mixer, record bag, etc...LOL.

Don&#39;t get me wrong, I&#39;m definitely not Johnny Cash. I guess, my style isn&#39;t to be somewhat interested in something. If I find a passion I vest all interest without worry or regret. Maybe the kamikaze style will bite me in the @ss in the long run but so far it hasn&#39;t. 

Anyway my point is, I still recommend going all in even if you are a beginner. Why not? The way I look at it is, there&#39;s no use wasting your time on [email protected] equipment that will only limit your musical development.


Technically, all sounds on a synth are samples, either sculpted from a simple tone wav or already uploaded into the synth fairly structured to begin with. About a patch, yes, it is a completely new sound/sample that has been sculpted in conjunction with the parameters of that particular synth. For example, I ripped a sample off of a movie I liked using the V-synth and layered it with a beat and effects, etc. If that movie sample I took were official and coupled in a Roland patch update, that&#39;s pretty much about all it is, someone that took the time to find and make a cool sound. We were pretty lucky and got a big artists patch flash card with the V-synth when we bought it. Kind of a promotion thingy at the time. It had sounds from artists like; BT, Chemical Brothers, and many others... Of course, a lot of the sounds sucked big time but you could see how they sculpted it so it was like a quick tutorial.

PS. I&#39;ve known about the Virus as long as I can remember about equipment. It&#39;s constantly winning awards in sound production so it&#39;s always in some magazine. Only problem is, that the Virus is an import for me being in Japan so it&#39;s list price with no discount. You can imagine being in Japan, Roland and Yamaha equipment are pretty cheap since it&#39;s not import.  :wink2:

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## really

> About a patch, yes, it is a completely new sound/sample that has been sculpted in conjunction with the parameters of that particular synth. For example, I ripped a sample off of a movie I liked using the V-synth and layered it with a beat and effects, etc. If that movie sample I took were official and coupled in a Roland patch update, that&#39;s pretty much about all it is, someone that took the time to find and make a cool sound. 
> [/b]



Yeah sorry (I&#39;m n00bish), more questions:  

So do you think you could rip a sound from the computer to work from on the synth? Like a patch, but that means it has to be a certain filetype to work on it, right? Or can you only download patches from the updates on the web? How would you create your own, would you just use a seperate program altogether?

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## Cyclic13

No problem, ask away. Everyone has to learn at some point. 

A high end synth should have 1/4 inch cable inputs which you can run from your sound card and do whatever you want with. That is, if the synth allows sample editing. I sampled vocals from part of a dvd playing on my computer to add to a drum and bass track. Then I clipped it, sped it up, timed it, cleaned it up, and added effects afterwards. If you were to hear it I doubt you would notice it from the original movie. It&#39;s pretty amazing what you can do these days. The sky&#39;s the limit.

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## really

Nah that won&#39;t be possible, I will only have: USB (MIDI+Audio Streaming), DC IN, L+R IN, AUDIO OUT, SUSTAIN, MIDI OUT, MIDI IN. I don&#39;t think you can record directly from the Audio IN.

So I&#39;m guessing that I can use a seperate program to create/record samples, and convert it to a patch. Like you said, the sky is the limit.

Samples are supposed to be small in length/size for CPU and looping reasons, right?

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## Cyclic13

Well it depends on how high quality of a sample you are trying to make and how much on-board sampling ability you have. A sample is just a recording afterall

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## really

Thanks for your help.  :smiley:

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## Artelis

let me argue that roland sucks and korg is a much better choice.  The workstation is pure brilliance.

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## Cyclic13

Different strokes for different folks...

 The motif series are good for different reasons. I had a motif 6 workstation before and now have the rack. They are pretty good. By no means the best. There is no end all be all synth. That&#39;s the catch... they leave features off of all them on purpose. 

they are like pokemon... You gotta catch &#39;em all...

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## Artelis

motif is yamaha... not korg.

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## really

> they are like pokemon... You gotta catch &#39;em all...
> [/b]



Haha, well said.  ::D:

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## Cyclic13

> motif is yamaha... not korg.
> [/b]



LOL... oops, you&#39;ll have to pardon me. Don&#39;t know why I thought of motif for a second there. Personally, when I think of synths korg hardly ever comes to mind. That, and it was about 5AM here in Japan and I posted right before bed. 

I&#39;ve always thought of korg as cheap synths for the masses...The mini korg... kaoss pads... and the like are pretty useless. I&#39;ve been misfortunate enough to have been able to use those in my early days. Absolute wastes of time and money if you ask me. 

Well, I know the Korg Oasis and Triton are really good, but personally just because of my previous experiences with their products Korg isn&#39;t the first company to come to mind. I know I&#39;m probably just being biased but old habits die hard...

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## Artelis

> LOL... oops, you&#39;ll have to pardon me. Don&#39;t know why I thought of motif for a second there. Personally, when I think of synths korg hardly ever comes to mind. That, and it was about 5AM here in Japan and I posted right before bed. 
> 
> I&#39;ve always thought of korg as cheap synths for the masses...The mini korg... kaoss pads... and the like are pretty useless. I&#39;ve been misfortunate enough to have been able to use those in my early days. Absolute wastes of time and money if you ask me. 
> 
> Well, I know the Korg Oasis and Triton are really good, but personally just because of my previous experiences with their products Korg isn&#39;t the first company to come to mind. I know I&#39;m probably just being biased but old habits die hard...
> [/b]



 ::o: 

Korg made the first synthesizer.  Ever.

Most of their products are top of the line.

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## Cyclic13

No, I mean don&#39;t get me wrong I respect Korg big time. Hell, my band member loves Korg. I just created this preconceived notion with myself. I realize it&#39;s biased but it&#39;s hard to shake, you know?

It would be like if you didn&#39;t like this band for whatever reason and then they release this amazing song but you refuse to buy or download it out of principle...silly, I know. I&#39;m sure I&#39;d get over it if a Triton were sitting in front of me, though.   ::D: 

It&#39;s just Korg&#39;s low-end stuff....*bleh*   ::barf::

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## Artelis

> No, I mean don&#39;t get me wrong I respect Korg big time. Hell, my band member loves Korg. I just created this preconceived notion with myself. I realize it&#39;s biased but it&#39;s hard to shake, you know?
> 
> It would be like if you didn&#39;t like this band for whatever reason and then they release this amazing song but you refuse to buy or download it out of principle...silly, I know. I&#39;m sure I&#39;d get over it if a Triton were sitting in front of me, though.  
> 
> It&#39;s just Korg&#39;s low-end stuff....*bleh*  
> [/b]



haha, I suppose you&#39;re right.  Every good company needs low end stuff to sell to the noobies, though.  But, eh, the microKORG is actually a very nice piece of equipment priced only at about &#036;350 american.  We still use it at the studio I work at.

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## Cyclic13

Really? I thought the vocoder on there was pretty useless...Any studio software is better.

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## Artelis

> Really? I thought the vocoder on there was pretty useless...Any studio software is better.
> [/b]



Depends on what you&#39;re doing with the equipment.  There is a lot more functionality with the hardware than there is with a lot of software.  We&#39;ve used it a ton with direct sound input on the vocoder.

say.. isn&#39;t this you?


what is that crazy looking synth thing there in the background?

Oh, wait.

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## Cyclic13

I guess if you use a high end synth and run it through the input on there it wouldn&#39;t be so bad, right?

You can&#39;t tell me those keys on there are convenient, though. That is unless you play piano with your pinkies...LOL

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## Artelis

uhm, you can run plenty of things through it, not just another synth.  Also, I&#39;m a studio producer, not a performer.  I generally run it through a sequencer, and if I do play the keys live it&#39;s just a simple riff.  BUT, I do have it, and several other small key&#39;d synths hooked up with an 88 key weight sensative midi controller.

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## Cyclic13

I said I had the opportunity to use the minikorg and kaoss pad, right? That&#39;s a super old picture from like over a year ago. We&#39;ve long since sold the mini-korg. 

To answer your question, it&#39;s not me but my partner. He&#39;s the korg head, not me. I&#39;m the angry, pasty white boy sticking my tongue out. BLAH&#33;



I guess if you ran another controller or other shit into the minikorg it could be something better, I just don&#39;t see it equaling that price. There is just so much more out there you can get. Hell, even holding out would be better than settling for that.

I&#39;m not talking about a studio owner with all sorts of equipment at their disposal to interconnect, I&#39;m talking about someone just starting out. Like the gentleman who started this topic. It simply aint that versatile for the price. Even getting something like, Propellerhead&#39;s Reason, would be better off as a start.

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## Artelis

reason would be a terrible first buy.  No VST support = no synth options.  But I suppose.  I&#39;m giving a biased opinion seeing as though I work in a nice recording studio  :wink2:   Cubase SX would be a good first buy, but if that is too expensive (I hate to say this but) FruityLoops Producer edition is getting to be an OK piece of software.  But, eww, I&#39;d stay away from that and go for Cubase.

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## Cyclic13

I didn&#39;t buy it, but got a pirated copy. I think Reason sucks, as well. However, I was trying to show that if I had only 500&#036; to spend and couldn&#39;t hold out for better I would rather get that then the microkorg I hate them that bad. LOL 

I use Logic 7 Pro, personally. worth every penny.

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## Artelis

either one is a waste of money, really.

Some of the guys in the studio use logic, but our big projects stay on cubase.

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## Cyclic13

you got any sample work brotha?

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## really

Why do you hate Reason Solskye? I&#39;ve heard some nice sounds from it.

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## Cyclic13

Personally, it sounds too midi to me and takes too much editing to get beats sounding crisp. 

Just not my cup of tea.

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## Cyclic13

Here&#39;s some pics of the new and improved setup with additions... 
-Access Virus TI Polar Desktop
-Akai MPC 2500
 8)

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## Artelis

> Personally, it sounds too midi to me and takes too much editing to get beats sounding crisp. 
> 
> Just not my cup of tea.
> [/b]



what? MIDI DOES NOT HAVE A SOUND&#33;
I&#39;m assuming you meant crappy soundcard midi fonts, amirite?  Reason doesn&#39;t really sound anything like that.  The only real problem with reason is that most people try to use it as a DAW.  MISTAKE&#33;  It only has two synthesizers, some sample players, a REX player, the combinator, and some shitty built in software effects.  No VSTi or DXi support.  HOWEVER, these synthesizers, samplers, and combinator are very powerful instruments.  Reason along with another powerful DAW (I prefer Cubase SX) is very useful.  You can use Reason with Cubase via ReWire.  Google this if you are really interested.

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## really

> Here&#39;s some pics of the new and improved setup with additions... 
> -Access Virus TI Polar Desktop
> -Akai MPC 2500
>  8)
> [/b]



  :smiley:  

Nice&#33; Tell me please, what is it like to use one of those mod-wheels (in synth, bottom pic)? They look narrow and tiny, do they feel good?

And what do you like about that keyboard, particularily? What are those little box/racks? Are they drum machines or something?

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## Cyclic13

The easy edit-ability of sound, and action on the Virus knobs are amazing&#33; Not to mention, it works in conjunction with almost any studio software that you may use. For example, I use Logic so it opens up as a virtual instrument in Logic and uses the quantized midi data you enter into logic and plays it on the Virus as a sound hub for the sounds you create, so it doesn&#39;t record as .wav but rather .mid and accesses the Virus each time you hit play or strike the midi controller. You can edit all the functions through the easy to use virtual instrument menu, or on the old-school analog knobs, whichever you like best. Also, you can save an unlimited amount of edited sounds as patches on your hard drive which save as simple small midi files. Hence the need for that thick ass USB cable on the right of the computer which it uses to communicate in realtime with the Virus. The virtual instrument of the Virus holds about 16 tracks that can all be played and manipulated at once&#33; I have no idea how it&#39;s able to handle all those sounds playing at once but it does. Definitely worth every penny I paid&#33; I would recommend a Virus TI Polar rack for any studio or serious musician. No need to pay more for the Virus keyboard when the rack is the same and about 1000&#036; cheaper.

About the drum machines, I still have yet to get the optional CD player installed on the Akai MPC 2500 but once I do I have about 6 huge sample CD&#39;s waiting that I will load on to it (and two more on the way that I won in some Sony Music composition contest  ::?:  ). Basically the MPC 2500 is a workstation/drum machine/sample editor and pretty much anything you can think of as far as sound manipulation and music production. You could take a fart  or a shit and make a song out of it if you wanted to. I wanted one mainly because of it&#39;s expansive ability to literally take any sound you want and easily put it on there and do whatever you want with it. Also, as you can see the drum pads are alot bigger and more sensitive than the MC-808 so I can make more fine tuned drum beats that were limiting me on those small MC-808 pads before. Basically, now I can take all the MC-808 sounds (and whatever other sounds strike my fancy) and put them on the MPC-2500 and do it from there with more finesse and realism. It&#39;s what DJ Shadow among many other famous artists use for their tracks. Do I necessarily NEED the MPC-2500 per say? Probably not. It&#39;s most likely overkill since I already have a drum machine. But hey, I got everything on loan so whats one more thing added on, right? 

Like I always say, &#39;If you&#39;re gonna go in, go ALL in&#39;. hehe.   ::chuckle::

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