From rare and sought after classics
to exciting new designs, Model
Expansions put world-class Roland
synthesizers in your DAW
and compatible ZEN-Core hardware.
In this video, we're going to look
at the SH-101 Model
Expansion. The SH-101,
like other model expansions, is
designed for speed and performance
in modern day DAWs.
It has a clear re-sizable touch,
friendly interface
that's easy to understand.
Even if you've never used the
original hardware and you'll see
that you can swap instruments and
load sounds instantly with no
disruption to your creative
workflow.
Since its release in 1982,
the small but mighty SH-101
has been a key ingredient in shaping
electronic music.
Originally marketed to beginners, it
soon found favor with serious
players, thanks to its
straightforward interface and head
turning sounds.
So let's hear what it can do.
So let's jump right in with an
initial tone.
Now, the original SH-101
didn't have any patch memory
or tone presets.
So this will be more like creating
an original sound on the hardware.
Just like other Model Expansions
within ZENOLOGY,
When we press the edit button, we
will expose all of the parameters
that we have to play with.
Now, let's take a quick listen to
what we have to start with.
We have a pretty simple square wave.
Now let's get a sequence running and
we'll start to create our own tone.
The first thing I'm going to do is
change the dynamics a little bit.
And you'll notice that just
a square wave is going into the
mixer right now.
And this is a single oscillator
synthesizer.
So we only have one oscillator.
But we do have other shapes.
So I can introduce a sawtooth.
Mix it with the square.
And then we've also got a sub
oscillator and
noise. We'll see a bit more of that
later on.
Let's add a bit of pulse width
modulation to the square wave.
Starting to get that really rich,
deep SH
low end.
And we'll close down the filter.
And add a bit of the envelope.
And take a listen to the resonance.
Let's take a look at some of the
presets available within the
SH-101 Model Expansion.
We open up the browser.
It's the familiar is ZENOLOGY
browser. So we know that we can look
by category on the right.
Let's pick a Synth Lead
that we can work with.
And let's run a new sequence
and we'll play around with the
preset a little bit.
It turned down my effects.
And I can hear that the notes are
being cut off a little bit right
after the gate.
So I want to change the VCA
too envelope instead of gate.
Get a nice bit of release going on.
And also, let's get
a bit more portamento.
And remember, we can assign
MIDI control to any of these
controls here.
And you can hear that this preset is
just a simple sawtooth wave
into the filter,
little bit of delay on the output,
but it's got that really nice,
almost overdriven SH
sound.
One of the coolest features of the
SH-101 Model Expansion is
the fact that it's not just a
monophonic synthesizer as the
original SH-101 107 00:04:55,510 --> 00:04:57,639 was, you are able
to do polyphonic synthesis
with the SH-101
Model Expansion. Up here
on the right,
we're going to select poly.
And let's keep this sound that we
have going on now and just play a
little bit on the keyboard to see
what type of polyphonic sound we're
gonna get.
Really cool sound.
Now, this doesn't really sound like
any other polyphonic synth.
It's got that definite SH
quality to it.
Let's check out one of the presets
that's made for polyphonic playing.
Paying attention to the categories
on the right, let's move down to
find some polyphonic stuff.
Sharimba.
Now let's run a sequence with
some chords in it.
Nice. Now, this has a very
round, obviously square
wavy kind of tone to it.
And it's also running through the
EP-Amp simulator into a chorus.
One of the combo effects available
in the MFX section.
Now, instead of doing pulse
width modulation with the
modulator, if we wanted to change
the timbre of this
patch, we can do some manual
pulse with adjustment.
Now, this will help us focus the
harmonics in and be less
round and a little more sharp.
Nice.
And you'll notice there was also a
little bit of noise in this
mixer, and that just added a bit
of woolyness to that patch just
behind the oscillators
that were going into the mixer.
Let's jump back in and check out
another preset.
Let's pull up a synth bass this
time.
Let's go with his Reso Bass.
And we'll run our sequence.
This is like an electro-funk kind of
bassline.
It can be like a lead, too.
All right.
And you'll see it's a nice tight
sound. We've got the gate setting
on the VCA, so there's no release
after the key is pulled up.
Take away the resonance out, add little
bit more of that deepness to the low
end.
One interesting and useful feature
of the SH-101 is that
it's filter is able to self-
oscillate.
No, self-oscilation is when
the filter resonance is cranked up
all the way to the max,
it starts to feedback on itself and
it creates its own tone.
Now, this is like a pure sine wave.
Now let's pull up a preset that
takes advantage of this.
Go down, we'll check out
SelfOsc Tone.
Let's play on the keyboard quickly.
And you can hear it's that nice,
pure sine wave.
Now there's a bit of an
Envelope going, adding a bit of a
click at the beginning.
I'm going to take that away.
And what you'll notice is that there
are no waveforms
or noise coming into the source
mixer. So the only
sound source is the filter itself.
self-oscillating.
And when we're doing this, the
cutoff frequency
acts kind of like a course tune
for the oscillator that
we've created.
So if I turn that down, we're going
to get some nice subs.
Now, that really rich, low sine
wave is really nice for things
like sub-bass and also creating
things like kicks and different types
of percussion, when you start
getting creative with the envelope
and sending the envelope to the
filter frequency.
Now, while we're here with our sine
wave sound, let's remember that this
is also a polyphonic synthesizer.
So let's change up,
our dynamics a little
bit on the envelope.
Putting that to the VCA and we're
going to put it to poly mode and
let's increase that cut off
frequency, just changing the kind
of root pitch of
our oscillator
and let's run a chord sequence.
Cool.
And maybe we'll add just a bit of
modulation to the filter
cut off.
Giving us a vibrato.
Now, let's take a listen to one last
preset that's going to take us back
to that traditional kind of SH
sound.
And here's our sequence.
Let's add a bit of sub oscillator.
Little bit of resonance.
SH-101 and other Model
Expansions are available for
ZENOLOGY and compatible Roland
ZEN-Core hardware.
Get them today at Roland.com