Vintage Synth Explorer

Roland • SH-5

The SH-5 is a classic yet very advanced monophonic synthesizer rivalled mainly by its successor, the SH-7. The SH-5 has just about two of everything. There are two analog VCOs with triangle, ramp, square and pulse waveforms, two LFO's, two filters, two VCA's, white and pink noise generators, and more.

The oscillators can be modulated by the LFOs or the ADSR envelope generator. The two LFOs include controls for rate and waveshape: ramp, reverse ramp, triangle, sine, square, delay; and there is also a Sample + Hold feature. The two multi-mode filters include hi-pass, low-pass, and band-pass filtering with cutoff, resonance, keyboard tracking, envelope sensitivity (AR, ADSR or preset) and modulation (ramp, sine, square, s+h) controls plus an additional band-pass-only filter. The two VCAs offer Attack/Release and ADSR envelopes which can be triggered by the Sample + Hold, LFO #2 or an external audio trigger input.

Extra features include the standard SH-type Mixer section with 5 sliders to adjust noise, VCO1, VCO2, ring mod and an external signal levels. Each of these 5 signals can be individually sent through the VCA, the multi-mode filter, the band-pass filter or both. The SH-5 even has stereo output with panning controls in the VCA section and portamento! The Ring Modulator alone is enough to wet your appetite for this synth. A serious analog mono-synth with lots of flexibility for creating serious electronic and dance music. It has been used by Eat Static and Freddy Fresh.

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Alex J

Posted 112 days ago

I bought one of these from a used music store in the early 80's for $400.
It was my first synth and it sat nicely on top of my Rhodes 73.
In the early 90's when I got off the road, I sold all my gear, and to this day I am kicking my [beep] for being so stupid.

I basically 'threw in' the SH-5 for nothing with the rest of my 6 synths.
Looking on Ebay it seems these beauty's are selling for 2-3k, I want to buy it back but man! If I'm going to spend 3k, I'd rather spend the money on one of those new Moog Voyageurs.

I miss my SH-5, the pink noise was cool. I remember using the square waves for that song we did by the cars "Just What I Needed", it was the exact same sound.
I'm still looking to buy one, but not for 2 grand.

matt

Posted 167 days ago

yeah, good luck getting one of these for $450-$800.

so many of the estimated values on this site are way out of line with reality.

Guillermo Tin

Posted 320 days ago

... and Simon Posford aka.Hallucinogen! :)

Micke

Posted 340 days ago

The SH-5 has also been used by Rational Youth, Chris Carter/Throbbing Gristle, Tyndall (German synth-duo) and Kitaro.

Graham

Posted 521 days ago

You are right about the PWM, it definitely had this feature. You could select which LFO controlled the PWM and could select (from memory) between sine, ramp and square waves for the LFO. I owned one for a long time (bought it in the late 70's and only sold it about 5 years ago - for almost as much as what I originally bought it for!). I was just listening to some of my old recordings last night and realised what a great sound you could get out of this synth.

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