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quinta-feira, 12 de janeiro de 2017

Some more synth porn! Inside a Roland RS09

Some years ago I ended up getting a broken Roland RS09 in a trade.



It was an original version (with rocker switches) that looked basically like new, but unfortunately the only part working was the ensemble effect (I could still use it as an external effects processor, but it would take way too much space for that...).

I was hoping to bring it back to my home studio and have it fixed then, but I ended up never finding a spot for it in my luggage, which made me start thinking of putting it up for trade...

So when a nice offer came, I ended up getting rid of it, but not before I took these nice photos of the inside that I'm sharing with it!

It ended up being a good deal as the problem was in fact due to a broken chip that was needed to bring it back to live, and that chip is in fact really hard to find nowadays...


It's a true shame as old machines like this one are not usually in such good cosmetic shape, and honestly if I was to get another one, I doubt I'd be lucky to get one in such a great cosmetic shape!



I'd still love to try a working one, as I really love how old string machines sound and unfortunately I never had the pleasure of trying one so far...




Listening to the demos available online, it seems to be a pretty nice sounding machine, with a nice amount of editing possibilities (for a string machine, that is...).

And like with all analog string machines I have tried so far, effects can really have a great impact in the sound, so I'd bet it can sound much nicer than what those demos show if I would use some of the nice effects processors I have available ;)











In fact, that sounds like a nice topic for a future post, to show how amazingly nice can string machines sound when using nice external effect units (going beyond the phased string sounds made famous by Jean-Michel Jarre, using his classic Eminent 310u + Electro Harmonix Small Stone phaser combo), and I hope to have some time to write some posts more effect related soon!






Another thing I find to be a big plus on this machine is that it is probably the most compact analog string machine I can think of!

If you don't have much space available, it is easy to fit it in a small spot or store it without taking an insane amount of space (my Crumar MultiMan S is a huge monster compared to it, for instance...).







The sad part is that it ends up being much heavier than you'd probably expect it to, so it is not that easy to carry it around (a bit like what happens with the Waldorf Blofeld keyboard...), but I doubt you'll find a real analog string machine that weights less (if you know of one, be sure to post about it in the replies!).








Oh... One nice feature it has, a gate output, which means you can can run the paraphonic sounds into an analog mono synth with external input to process the sound with a real analog filter!


But without trying a working unit, I guess all I can say more is, enjoy the real analog circuits in the photos, and if you can find a working one for a nice price, don't hesitate and get it and then let me know how it sounds! ;)





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