Return of the Roland SH-1 – update. 🧻🧻🧻

Then

In 1979 this was my first ‘professional’ synthesiser. By that I mean I already had the Kawai 100F and that was a lot of fun. But this was a Roland, actually capable of what most people call music. It was still on sale new when I bought one second hand along with the CSQ-100 sequencer – such I could orchestrate a whole track to tape from kick to strings. I sold it later to buy the TB-303 which was an appalling mistake. Yes that could keep a sequence when the sequencer was turned off. But the TB303 sounded like utter shit. It was replaced with the MC-202 and eventually the SH-101. Which just didn’t feel the same.

Polaroids suck. They bleed out. Here is 1979 – the CR-78, CSQ-100 and the SH-1. All around them a bevy of Electro-Harmonix stomp pedals: Memory Man, Clockworks, the drum machine and Electric Mistress. Up the front are two Crash Pads.

Now

In the last week an SH-1 came up for auction and it struck me that I have less time left in life than years passed. It’s Japan price but in mint condition. I could be sensible – but prefer descent into glorious nostalgia. And my missus fully understands it’s not going to lose value so my funeral still remains paid for. She even made an unboxing video. So let’s have at it.

As much as I remember the general flows and pathways I was surprised by a few features I’d forgotten. Let’s celebrate those first. There’s an audio input so you can feed in cassette tapes, radios and other instruments (which I used to do a lot) and run them through the modulated filter. The headphones port has its own amp so you can turn down the main output while madly repatching on stage – or when running two sends through FX boxes. The other trick is to ruin the output of the headphones back into the audio to get a overloaded signal – but you get more burn if you send main out to the signal in and use the headphones as your main output.

Oscillators were quite pricey back in the day. While the SH-2 has two oscillators this has two envelope generators, and a sub oscillator that can be tuned to fill out the sound. On balance that’s a better feature.

Allegedly the sound is one voice of the Roland 700 modular system which appeared in 1976 – which makes sense as they could mass produce and then package the circuits in different price brackets. These days of course you can sample the SH-1 and multitrack it if you like. I assume that the SH-2 has two of the same oscillator. The filter is gentle in comparison to a Kawai 100F or Novation PEAK. You can’t reach anything shrill and brittle… it pulls back and apologises for the fart sound. Is it ‘warm’? … I could never really fathom what ‘warm’ means, apart from dull. It’s rounded – the metallic sounds have a bit of cloth put over them so you don’t hurt yourself. I can make near screeches and warp the input audio. Pulse width modulation is good – actually the modulation is well handled all over the layout. For the majority of music making it’s perfectly good. But would I recommend the SH-1 to you?

Summary

You could just as well use Roland’s SH-2 for authenticity or SH-101 in software, or loaded onto a ACB synthesiser such as the System-8. If it isn’t exactly the same (and I’m pretty sure ACB is damn close) that really doesn’t matter in making music. And we are making music aren’t we? Yes.

If this wasn’t part of your life at some point I’d discourage you from paying a high price. The Bass Station 2 is a far far better option than the SH-1, in fact better than most classic mono synths. If you need polyphony then the PEAK will do that – or Roland’s own JD-Xi looks like it can do the job (I have the polyphonic JD-XA and that is a far wilder beast).