The Roland Boutique series SH-101 emulation which has many extras including the ability to play 4 voices polyphonically as well as in Unison & Chord modes

The SH-01A is a meticulous reproduction of the iconic Roland SH-101, one of the most popular classic synthesisers of all time. Our Analog Circuit Behavior (ACB) technology reproduces the SH-101’s legendary sounds by faithfully recreating the actual behavior of the original analog circuits, right down to the fine details and odd quirks that have endeared the synth to musicians and producers for decades.

The SH-01A builds on the great sounds and creative immediacy of the original, now in the popular Roland Boutique format - offering exciting new polyphonic capabilities, inspiring new performance features, and a level of authenticity that could only come from Roland.

So says Rolands website. The SH-01A is perhaps the synth in the Boutique series which best delivered in the mind of reviewers and end-users due to it not being restricted in polyphony compared to the original which was an issue with the Boutique emulations of Roland's 8 & 6 voice classic synths.

The SH-01A offers 2 additional LFO wave shapes to the original and a more comprehensive Arpeggiator which adds a dedicated clock with clock scale, swing & a 2 octave range. Saved Patches also save the Arpeggiator settings as a bonus. In addition to the Arp' the SH-01A also sports a built-in 1-track 100 step sequencer with 64 saveable pattern memories.

Perhaps the biggest difference which allows SH-01A to do more than imitate an SH-101 extremely well is it's 4-voice synth engine which is common to all these Boutique units which use the original ACB (Analog Circuit Behaviour) modelling.

This 4-voice synth engine allows the SH-01A to not only function in Monophonic mode to copy the original SH-101 but it can also function in Unison mode with 4 stacked oscillator voices. There's also a Chord mode allowing you to arrange the 4-voices into a single key-press chord, but this feature also allows the SH-01A to create big multi oscillator sounds where for example oscillators can be pitched octaves apart with added 5ths or whatever tuning you choose. Up to 4 notes can be on/off in any chord so you can make 2, 3 & 4 voice multi-oscillator lead & bass etc patches.

The SH-01A can of course also function in 4-voice polyphonic mode and it's this polyphonic ability that allows the SH-01A to also do some ballpark Juno-60 sound emulations as the old Juno-60 was in effect a polyphonic version of SH-101 despite one using DCO's while the other utilised a VCO.

Also like with most of the Roland Boutique range the SH-01A has USB & can connect and stream its audio to your DAW via USB & also function as a USB audio & MIDI interface with a mini-jack stereo input.

The K-25m keyboard unit

Like all the Boutique range, the SH-01A can be used as a tabletop module triggered from any 3rd party MIDI keyboard controller or directly from any DAW external MIDI track, but a further option is to add the optional K-25m keyboard unit which connects to any of the Boutique modules using an included ribbon cable.

The K-25m is a 25-key, velocity sensitive keyboard designed for use with the Roland Boutique series. Measuring less than 12″ across, the K-25m acts as a dock for any Roland Boutique module, and once in place the module can be tilted at two different angles for easier viewing and sound programming, or can be laid completely flat.

The K-25m retails at around £95 from most music tech suppliers.

In summary the SH-01A is perhaps the subjectively 'best' of the ACB modelling 4 voice Boutique series, coming closest to delivering an improved but accurate representation of the original it is based on while adding bonus features with it's various 4-voice functions.

Category:

Products » Synthesisers » Modeling synthesisers »

Added: 25 November 2023
New price: £330
S/H price: £250
Company: ROLAND UK

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This product is part of
Roland's
Boutique series

JD-08

JP-08

JU-06

JU-06A

JX-03

JX-08

SH-01A

TB-03

2015 saw Roland debut a new series of modelled synth modules & drum machines derived from their old classics catalog and delivered in a portable, mains or battery powered, table-top sized format.

Initially offering emulations of the Jupiter-8 (JP-08), Juno-106 (JU-06) & JX-3P (JX-03), Roland went on to add further models from 2016 onwards until the full range included emulations of the TB-303, Juno-60, SH-101, D-50, VP-330 Vocoder, JX-8P & JD-800, as well as their TR-808, TR-909 & TR-606 drum machines.

All these modules comprise what Roland calls its Boutique series.

The Boutique series is related to the over-arching Roland AIRA collection of products which included the AIRA hardware units & related Plug-OUT software emulations. Like most of the AIRA series hardware, all these Boutique series modules can connect to a host computer via USB allowing saving & management of patches while they also function as a 24-bit 44.1kHz USB audio i/o interface which includes USB streaming of the module's audio output IN to the end user's DAW & in most models also included streaming of a physical stereo audio input from the unit to the DAW, albeit line level only with no mic' pre-amp included.

For initial Boutique models Roland used a DSP technology they called Analog Circuit Behaviour (ACB) to model the sound of the instruments and they are rated as very accurate. The downside is a reduced 4 note polyphony with the first three models. They do however have a technology built-in which allows more than one unit to be chained together, so you can have two or three JP-08's for example chained together to get a super-accurate 8 or 12 note emulation of the Jupiter-8 and the slave unit/s sync to the master allowing you to edit & control the overall synth patch via one master unit. Later 2022 Boutique series models like the JD-08 & JX-08 are less accurate in terms of absolutely emulating the original's synth engine & use a newer system-on-a-chip modelling which Roland calls Behavior Modeling Core (BMC).

All the synths in the Boutique series run off battery or mains & even include a small built-in speaker. All the synth modules can work with the optional K-25m plastic keyboard mount. The synth modules clip into the keyboard unit and can be angled at different degrees and then played via the small 2-octave keyboard.

With the K-25m keyboard/stand & the built-in little speaker, any of the Boutique synths can be played on location with no other equipment in a rudimentary way if required.

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The Roland Boutique range is a major range of modelling emulations of classic old hardware products and therefore - like the Behringer analog synths section above - we're giving them their own mini-section here so you can see the possible range, albeit you'll only be able to get some of these products secondhand now from the free ads or Ebay.