Roland SH-2

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The SH-2 is one of Rolands' early synthesizers. It is very simple in design, look and function. It sounds much like the SH-101 synth, including the typical SH-style sub-oscillator. But the SH-2 employed 2 oscillators for a much fatter sound. It has the typical Roland SH sound - it's a monophonic bass synth that's flexible enough to provoke punchy analog basses, leads and squelchy sounds. The oscillators can be de-tuned as well, another feature the popular SH-101 lacks. But it isn't very pretty to look at as it shares the same design and layout as the SH09. Still it makes a simple and easily programmable mono-synth that can be used in place of the more common SH-101. However the SH-2 is harder to find and so it usually has a higher price than other SH-type synthesizers from Roland. It has been used by Duran Duran, Groove Corporation, Eat Static, OMD, Men Without Hats, and the Eurythmics.

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Demos & Media

Roland SH-2 Monophonic Synthesizer Demo
by
zibbybone
Audio Clip 1 Hear some demo basslines, synths sounds and other fun stuff by the SH-2.
Audio Clip 2 Every sound including the Drums were created on the SH-2. Some external fx processing was used to "modernize" the sound. Submitted by Michael nil-x.
ManualRoland has made manuals for most of their products available as free PDF downloads.

Specifications

Polyphony - Monophonic
Oscillators - 2 VCO's + 1 Sub oscillator (waveforms: pulse, square, sawtooth, sine, noise)
Memory - None
Effects - LFO with sine, square and Sample & Hold; Auto-Bend
Filter - Resonant, self-oscillating 24dB lowpass filter, mod by EG, lfo and kybd tracking. External audio input
Arpeg/Seq - None
Keyboard - 37 keys
Control - CV / Gate
Date Produced - 1978 - 1979

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