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.

Paul

December 22, 2012 @ 7:30 am

Nostalgia alert! My first synth back in the early eighties, and I had the hand grip too. Loved the PWM control and the sequencer. Set it up with a Casio CZ1000 on a Black & Decker Workmate alongside a TR505, and learned the ancient art of playing bass lines live and in time, a skill I lost when I discovered MIDI software and quantizing. Sometimes wish I'd kept the SH; sold it in the early 90s for $150. Yes, I know. I KNOW.

scififunk

November 27, 2012 @ 10:25 am

oops. meant to post the link to part 1 of the tutorial in my previous post.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B6zD0YFvEuA

All 4 parts of the tutorial cover every aspect of the SH-101's front panel.

scififunk

November 27, 2012 @ 10:24 am

This was the first synth I ever bought.

It is the easiest of synth's to program, has a great (and stable) sound and can be used for bass and lead lines with or without effects (IMHO).

I finally got around to explaining how to program the SH-101. For anyone thinking of buying the instrument, this guide might be of help.

Peter Kadar

July 7, 2012 @ 3:51 pm

For the record, the Bass Station is analog.

Whatever gets you the sound you like and need is what is correct, whether a DX7, SH-101, Minimoog, or a plug in. It's all good.

Lots of people are controlling their oscillators with voltage these days. All the Moog stuff is voltage controlled, and both my Phatty, Minitaur, and Voyager OS all sound pretty good I'd say. The technology is still improving, though not at the rate of DSP. The new Minibrute looks to turn the monosynth world on its ear!

groundislava

June 17, 2012 @ 8:12 pm

just got one for 500 very happy :) the prices on ebay are absurd! you can make some great acid lines on the built in sequencer.

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