The SH-101 is very cool, especially for techno, drum&bass and ACID! It's a monophonic bass synthesizer. Its sound lies somewhere between the TB-303 and a Juno bass sound. It has a lot of simple but cool features. You can control the VCF, pitch, LFO or all from the pitch bender. It has a white noise generator, arpeggiator with up, down and up/down patterns and a simple real-time sequencer. The LFO offers random, sine, square or noise waveforms. And normal or auto portamento effects give you that elastic bass sound. There are external clock inputs for the sequencer and arpeggiator, CV/GATE inputs and outputs and a CV hold pedal.

Unfortunately there is no patch memory storage and although it has no MIDI there are upgrades available for it from many analog service companies that will allow you to incorporate it into any MIDI studio environment. It can also be controlled by MIDI using a CV/MIDI converter. It's great for bass sounds or bubbly analog effects. They come in three different flavors - gray, blue or red (there was a VERY rare white version too)! It can also be strapped on like a guitar for live performance using the optional Hand Grip.

It is used by Orbital, Future Sound of London, Überzone, The Prodigy, 808 State, The Grid, Cirrus, Eat Static, Jimmy Edgar, Apollo 440, Devo, Union Jack, Luke Vibert, Dirty Vegas, Josh Wink, the Crystal Method, Aphex Twin, Astral Projection, Les Rythmes Digitales, Sense Datum, Squarepusher, Sascha Konietzko of KMFDM/MDFMK, Freddy Fresh, Lab-4, Nitzer Ebb, the Chemical Brothers, Boards of Canada and many more.

Cleophatra

May 14, 2013 @ 12:30 pm

The original MSRP in 1982 was $495, which equals $1,200 today, so the price is lower today than when new in actual monetary value, which is what matters.

Jono106

April 27, 2013 @ 9:37 pm

*To Simon:
No; like the MC-202 the SH-101 will not save sequences once switched off.

simon

April 19, 2013 @ 2:18 pm

This synth saves it's sequence after it is turned off ? There must be a internal Battery ? Does anyone know ? Can't find any info on it. looked in the manual and the service manual ? ... Great SYNTH if fully tuned.

gridsleep

April 14, 2013 @ 8:48 am

Now that analog is 'in' again, everybody and his mother thinks they can get twice the original MSRP for one of these things. Ninety bucks just for the handle!? Who are they freakin' kidding? Fanbois are going to ruin this whole business. And in another five or ten years you'll be finding them in garage sales and dumpsters again, just like the old days.

Sean

March 18, 2013 @ 6:36 am

Nice synth, but this guy who's written the review really needs to actually check this synth out; its not just a bass synth, and the sequencer isnt real time but step time.
There was also a ULTRA rare black version.
I never had any issues with tuning or power though.
All in all a synth still worth buying but beware the fical thing called fashion and prices going through the roof.

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