Roland SH-101

In the 1980s, the price of synthesisers started to plummet (albeit from a fairly astronomical height). One of the first and definitely the most famous – and one you could also wear – was produced by one of the big Japanese names cashing in on the synth craze, and became one of the most iconic monos ever. Enter the Roland SH-101…

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During the early 80s, microchip technology was touching every aspect of human life. We were not quite at the stage where our fridge-freezers could order our shopping for us, but the switch to chip circuitry was having a very positive effect on the price of music technology.

Just a few years previous, you couldn’t buy a synthesiser for less than several hundred quid, but the Japanese giants of music technology world would have a thing or two to say about that in this decade. The original Roland Jupiter series once commanded four-figure price tags, but Roland then found a way of shrinking the tech into a form that would make it much cheaper, and used that knowledge in the more modestly-priced Juno series. Even so, it was still several hundred pounds a pop, so when the SH-101 appeared with a street price of around £199, it was something of a revolution. Here was a monosynth that you could really get on board with. It boasted an immediacy in sound, and that sound was huge considering its size.

The SH-101 adopted the SH pedigree from previous Roland monosynths, such as the SH-2 and SH-09, while shifting to the adoption of a number which aligned itself with other machines in their range, such as the TR-808, TR-606 and TB-303. The 303 has acquired cult status, and while there are considerable differences between the 303 and the 101, they can often have a fairly similar sound, depending on the musical context.

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