All user reviews of 5/5 for the Roland GAIA SH-01

The SH01 "Gaia" is a small synthesizer, very light weight, compact, with a 37-note keyboard to touch my faith fairly standard. Polyphony spans 64 channels.

It has built-in 8 banks of 8 presets sounds, WORM, 8 banks of 8 sounds users to store their creations, and 8 slots for recording musical phrases. Moreover, one can add a USB drive that provides 64 additional memory for sounds and 8 additional slots for the musical phrases.

Besides the traditional small Roland joystick to control pitch bend and modulation, there is the famous D-Beam, this invisible beam that can be assigned either to control volume, pitch, and in any parameter Synthesis ( filter, effects, LFOs, etc.). It is possible to connect a pedal (sustain or expression).

From a connectivity point of view, besides the port for the USB cited above, it has MIDI IN / OUT, a pair of audio outputs, a headphone jack and a USB port "Computer"; the latter allows to use the card as SH01 digital audio when using joint in a DAW. I use it without any worries in conjunction Reason 6: The Office of SH01 is perfectly sound card, allowing me to save the SH01 directly in Reason, with a single connection!

On the upper side, it has a mini-jack to process an external audio source. I have attached a small Monotron which, via the internal effects of SH01, takes on another dimension.
Whether to make a complaint is not having a button to "mix" for metering the volume of what comes from the DAW (via USB) compared to what comes out of the HS01, but it is easily circumvented (this is possible for example on UltraNova Novation).

UTILIZATION

Setup is simple: we have everything at hand. It's almost a button = one function. I say "almost" because some second settings are accessed by pressing a "Shift" key. But the key is directly accessible by the many buttons and faders.

The manual is, as always with Roland, remarkable clarity and for its French version, translated well.

SOUNDS

It is, with the HS01, in pure electronic sounds, if you want to imitate the piano, the trumpet or the choirs of the Red Army, this instrument is not for you, if you are looking for a way to quickly create synthetic sounds, as is my case, do not hesitate one second.

The factory sounds are not great, admittedly, but I see an incentive to put his fingers on the buttons, fiddling with faders, in short, to create his own palette. Especially with the storage of sounds on USB stick, there's plenty to see coming ...

The sound structure is simple: a patch consists of one to three "tones", each tone based on an oscillator, filter, LFO and amp. All these people, once assembled, goes through the filter section.

The wave oscillators are basic, but they are all there: sawtooth, square, PMW (with adjustable width), triangle, sine, noise and saw the great which is reminiscent of the "feedback" of JP8000. And louder each wave has three variations.

Side filter is also very compltet: high pass, low pass, band, bell, and "bypass" filter for nothing. And all are accessible by -12 or -24 db / oct The filter has its own ADSR envelope.

The LFO generates triangle waves, sine, sawtooth, square, sample & hold and random. Can be assigned to the modulation filter, pitch, the volume and the panoramic, with or without delay.

There is an additional global LFO applies to the patch and is activated via the wheel pitch bend / modulation.

The effects are simple, but excellent: reverb, delay, phaser, flanger, pitch shifter, distortion, fuzz, bit crusher. Two settings by direct effect, plus two more with the shift key.

OVERALL OPINION

I've had it a month and I am completely happy. I owned an earlier Ultranova whose ergonomics, based submenus, was terrible, the tones were good only embedded in the internal effects, and that the audio via USB was catastrophic - perhaps because of drivers.

I like the ergonomics of SH01 Gaia: it is simple, effective, well thought out, made to sound creation. We can succeed easily and quickly create complex electronic sounds. And even by cutting the internal effects, the HS01 sounds undeniably good.

I left to keep it for a long, long time.

Huge sound with 3 virtual analog engines onboard, each with a dedicated oscillator, filter, amplifier, envelope, and LF0
Layer up to 5 simultaneous effects, including distortion, flanger, delay, reverb, low boost, and more
64-voice polyphony for massive sounds without note drop-out
Fun, hands-on control panel that's great for instant gratification, and for learning synthesis
Lightweight, compact body with 37 full-size keys
Runs on AC or battery power for portable convenience
D Beam, arpeggiator, and Phrase Recorder onboard
USB ports for saving user patches to USB flash drives, and for audio/MIDI connection to computers

Basically this synth boasts that you can stack 3 different synths to make totally unique sounds. It has 3 different engines, all of them analog in flavor. There aren't any screens or menus. Basically all the controls are right at your fingertips, which I think is a pretty good way to go about making a portable synth. The layout can be a little intimidating at first if you aren't very familiar with analog based synths.

UTILIZATION

I produce dubstep as a kind of hobby. And I'm also always on the lookout for new tools for my studio. I have tried about every synth out there. This new offering from Roland really intrigued me. The idea is clever... The manual is pretty good, and it needs to be because I have never used anything quite like this before. This is the kind of device where you will be rewarded if you spend time with it. It's not your typical synth. The controls all seem solid and I was up and running with it pretty fast. It's easy to get bad sounds out of it if you don't kind of know what you're doing. The keys are pretty solid. Not world class but good enough for the price point. Nothing on the keyboard feels overly cheap. I have never used it with batteries so I don't know how good that is.

SOUNDS

First off the presets are horrible. Roland designed a great sounding unit here but it seems they don't know how to use it? The real goods come when you start pressing buttons. You will probably never hear the same sound twice with this synth. There's so many different combinations and effects combos that it would be hard to run out of ideas. It's a creative masterpiece in that regard. Now whether or not every sound you can get is useful is another thing altogether. The Gaia can make your traditional synth sounds and in my case it covers most of my dubstep needs okay. But the real strength here is the ability to really dig down into the unit and get some amazing sounds to come out. The demand is high but the reward can be even higher if you put in the time. The sound quality kicks butt in this price range and the variety of things you can make it do is massive.

OVERALL OPINION

Roland took a very simple concept and turned it into something that is infinitely versatile here. There is a big learning curve though. Learning how to use all 3 programs together so that you can get what you want out of it is crucial. I don't recommend this to people with no synth experience at all. But on the flip side, you don't need to be a synth genius to make it work. I love it and I will be keeping mine for a long time.

The Roland GAIA SH-01 is a compact virtual-analog synthesizer. While it’s technically not a true analog synth, it has all the sounds and controls you’d get with one and essentially operates just like one. It runs on three virtual analog sound engines for it’s tone, each with it’s own oscillator. The keyboard itself has 37 keys and polyphony up to 64 voices at once. It has all sorts of audio and MIDI connections, as well as USB ports for saving sounds and the like…


UTILIZATION

The configuration of the Roland GAIA SH-01 is just like that of a more traditional analog synthesizer, so those familiar with the controls generally associated with analog synths should feel pretty comfortable here. It’s got sections of parameters for your oscillators, a filter, envelope control, effects, an amplifier, and an LFO. Each has a nice amount of control as there really is a ton of different possible sounds between the three oscillators and all of these controls. I haven’t seen a manual for it, but if you’re at all new to analog synths, I’d recommend having it.



SOUNDS

I don’t think I’d be able to tell too much of a difference between the Roland GAIA SH-01 and a true analog synth. For all intents and purposes, this might as well be a real analog synth and it really doesn’t bother me at all that it isn’t since it still sounds like the real thing. You’re going to be able to get all sorts of analog synth sounds here, and between all the controls you should be busy with it for quite some time. It also has effects like delay, reverb, distortion, and more. I don’t believe that the Roland GAIA SH-01 is lacking anything in the sounds department.


OVERALL OPINION

The Roland GAIA SH-01 is the perfect little synth for those looking to get analog synth sounds without the hassles of it. You’re not going to encounter the same issues with this that you might a true analog synthesizer, which is definitely a good thing. The price of the Roland GAIA SH-01 isn’t outlandish considering the great instrument you’re getting. Those after an analog synthesizer need to seriously consider the GAIA SH-01.