The U-20 is nothing special. It is a digital synthesizer that uses ROM samples of pianos, brass, strings, bass, drums, etc. However it is built for professional use and is truly a quality instrument, even though its sounds may seem like dated-eighties synth pop cheese. It's got nice piano sounds, but they're not the real thing.

The U-20 features 6 part multitimbrality with a 7th drum part, plus 2 direct outputs and 2 stereo outputs. The 30 note polyphony helps if you take advantage of this synths multitimbrality for creating entire performances and ensembles. Digital reverb, chorus and delay effects liven up your sounds. Editing is simple, but there are no filters. With several performance features, the U-20 has a full 61 note keyboard with velocity and aftertouch. There's an on-board arpeggiator, a chord-memory feature and the U-20 accepts Roland SNU-110 sound library cards. It has been used by Prodigy and Astral Projection.

The Roland U-220 (pictured above) is simply a rack-mount version of the U-20. It has all the same sounds and features packaged in a compact single-space sound module.

asbotech

June 21, 2010 @ 7:54 pm

bought this 3 years ago for £40.00 with no faults/missing keys...good sounds and then when linked to mc307( which i bought for £150) was an amazing duo for the price

Cal

May 31, 2010 @ 4:53 pm

Love both my U-20 and U-220. They may be fairly limited in terms of editing but the samples used for the pianos, the strings and "future" type sounds as well as the brilliant on-board drums make these both machines that I still use heavily. I've also got a U-110 and although it has some handy features (e.g. 8 outputs), I rarely use it as both the U-20 and the U-220 can do everything it does simply better.

Matt

March 14, 2010 @ 9:54 pm

Link to manuals has changed slightly. It's now:

ftp://ftp.roland.co.uk/productsupport/U-20/

Luis

February 27, 2010 @ 3:30 pm

Nothing special??? Maybe, but every Roland that followed was based on the waveforms introduced in the "U" products (even today's Juno's). With the add-on PCM cards, some of those sounds are still to be matched today.

c64remixer

January 30, 2010 @ 7:42 am

When compared to the improved General Midi sounds we get these days the U220 isn't anything special. Not like it was when it was first released; hence the falling second hand prices.

This module is still a classic though and can still hold its own in the studio particulary for its strings, piano and its 80's drum sounds. Performances can be routed through the 2x stereo outs for better mixing results and has a good track record in commercial recordings.

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