My Roland story is a Jupiter-4. A friend told me he'd seen a used JP-4 for sale at a local dealer. I tested it out at the store and fell in love with the sound and bought it then and there. I didn't do my homework though because one of the 4 voice cards wasn't working properly. Taught myself electronics trying to fix that synth and eventually diagnosed a broken op-amp. Managed to buy another broken voice card and salvaged its op-amps and repaired the JP-4. I still have that JP-4 in my studio and love it to bits.
Custodian, archivist, researcher, historian, storyteller, composer... musician through & through--damn, Alex, you make some wonderfully valuable content. Cheers for sharing it with us!
Broke my back in a ski accident. Stucked in my room in pain and so depressed... my parents rented me a D50 to cheer me up... and let me tell you it cheered me up all right... never felt so happy in my life... forgot the pain and all...!
Fantastic stories Mr. Ball! My notable Roland story, aside from being named Roland at birth, an evergreen opportunity for jest by salespeople at music stores, is that I found my first synth, a Juno-60 on the street, intended for pickup by the local refuse company the next morning. As I often do on "garbage night", while walking back from a restaurant in my San Francisco residential neighborhood, I paid attention to what had been left out for the next morning pickup. I've found lots of great stuff over the years, but nothing like what I was about to find. Leaning against a tree, next to a garbage bin, was what looked like fairly large keyboard. Moving closer I saw that it was a very dirty Roland Juno-60. While I pulled it away from the tree to examine all sides, a woman's voice, raspy and suggesting a heavy smoker, penetrated that night's thick fog. "It works. You just gotta plug in some headphones." I asked if I could take it, she said yes and I brought it home. The cord was attached with only the ground broken off. I plugged it in. It powered up. And after a few minutes it was producing sound. The key transpose button was missing, but otherwise intact. It cleaned up nicely and although I should still bring it in for service, it works admirably well. This was about 10 years ago and the beginning of a mid-life synth journey.
I bought my SH-5 in 1996 (7500 SEK Swedish crowns). It was 20 years old and newly serviced. That was almost 27 years ago. Just seeing it inspires me. It's very much alive and never quite stops bleeping and blooping. The filters sound really special and sending drums through it gives this sweet distortion. Brutal, but never harsh.
The SH-5 is a really great one, I can imagine that continues to inspire! I also love how they put "computer interface" on the rear of it, meaning "this is where you connect the CV/gate to a sequencer". That and the Data-70 font and you can see where their head was at, but the analogueness of it is what it's all about. Glad yours is still getting love.
Got a Jupiter 8 for 'chump change' many years ago off Craigslist.... guy was selling it for his friend and was sitting in the back of a closet of old practice space for some time. It was missing about 1/3 of the guts inside and a bunch of cables were cut, looked like a mess but I bought it as-is. Sat in my closet for a few months since I assumed it would be quite a project..... Pulled it out one day and within an hour or two had it up and running, worked perfect! The only guts really missing was just the power supply, and 1 wire harness to a card that was flipped backwards. God I love Roland!
I was stationed in the UK in the 80's at RAF Alconbury near Huntingdon & Cambridge. I was a gear head, still am and spent a lot of time at the Cambridge Rock Shop. I was noodling on a Juno-106 they had and asked if I could buy it. The price was a little steep but I traded a DX-7 for it. The 106 followed me around the world, the case is bent Ive had to replace a board and repair another due to movers, but almost 40 years later sounds great plays great.
I call the 100m "the Godular", but amazingly, the System 700 sounds even fatter. Although there is an even fatter 70s synth.....and I got one that's being restored. Watch this space. 😀
So one day maybe 20 years ago I was able to get my hands on a Jupiter 4 - for about 50 pounds - imagine! It was not in great condition, but it could do the one thing really really well. The LFO goes into self oscillation which makes a magical sound. I toured with it for many years and it always thrilled me to do the track where it would shine! The band dissolved and I put the JP4 into storage until I got a studio up and running. I took out the keyboard and switched it on and smoke started filling the room… I guess it was mad at me for keeping it in a closet… now it sits as a centerpiece in the studio and even though it doesn’t work, it fills me with inspiration and joy. I’ve started picking up circuit parts, ic’es and so on and will soon attempt to restore it… Thanks Alex for the best RU-vid channel on vintage gear by far!
The JP-4 is a lovely thing. You should definitely get that up and running again, they need to live on and keep making music. Glad it makes you smile in the meantime!
My first memorable Roland story was back in 1990 and the autumn vacation that year. I had saved up about 1500 NOK (approx 150 USD) to buy the less fabled Roland MPU-IPC-T, MIDI interface for my 80286 AT at the time. My mom drove me the entire 1,5 hrs drive from our hometown down to Gjøvik Musikk - the closest and at the time, best music store there was. Now, at this point, I only had my Technics KN-1000 arranger keyboard, and nothing else to use with it. However, being totally awesome (and they still are), the guys at the store let me borrow the CM-32L for the entire week I had my vacation. I remember playing every possible computer game from Sierra, Lucasarts, Microprose and all the other until I almost collapsed early in the morning! At the time, this module cost about 500 USD and was well out of my reach, but just a year or two later it was dropped to about 150 USD and I of course snagged it instantly! I still have this in my collection and have added several of the others and some extras these past few years. I also remember borrowing an MKS-30 at this time from a guy, but I never realised what I was holding in my hand and I didn't really care for the sounds then. Without the programmer, it wasn't easy to use either. This and an Oberheim Matrix 6 was almost forgotten in my bedroom. It seems I could have kept them and the guy wouldn't notice... but being honest as I am, I told him about it and returned it. Kinda wish I hadn't these days, but I have my own MKS-30 now, so it's alright. ;)
Ah, those are some nice stories. I contributed to the section that covers the CM-32L in the Roland book funnily enough. Matrix 6 / MKS-30 - that is interesting. I guess there was a period where these were just dated synths that sounded like music from 10 years ago, making them basically useless. Who knew?
Love the System 100M-stories! :) I have a few similar, but seldom related to Roland. My dearest Roland memory involves my very first analogue synth. It was a SH-09 that belonged to my high school in the late 80's. It was my first encounter with synthesis, synths in general and the raw and unprocessed sound of a plain mono through an amp and I was hooked. Add the digital craze of the day, my mum the music teacher, communal cleaning frenzy and me being there to save it from a bin and presto... it's still here in my studio to this day. bonus: My SH-5 was bought from a hip hop collective who had just used it as a (very bulky!) bandpass filter. :D
Ah, glad you saved the SH-09, I salute you! I've heard similar stories of amazing synths (e.g. ARP 2600) being cleared out of educational establishments. I think Daniel Miller even got a Synthi 100 that way. SH-5 - a great bandpass filter, perhaps a tad big, ha. Reminds me that a friend sold an RS-505 to a band who used it as a giant chorus pedal via the external in.
My schoolmate bought a 606 in 86. We ended up using on House music demo’s that DJ Jazzy M played on his radio show the Jackin Zone on LWR. I still have a couple of the shows on tape, but found even more stuff he played of ours on YT which I’d forgotten about. In some cases I’m glad I did forget:). Also used on the first few records put out. I know he sold the 606 years ago as we started using samplers. I still use many Roland VST’s, escpecially the 727.
Impressive that the tapes survived! You've reminded me that I have a 606 that's been out for a couple of years now. Will have to grab it back soon, fun little box.
So much Roland-gear I’ve had and loved. Started with a Juno-60 in 85 at the age of 11. Also managed to have RE-201, JX-3P, TR-707, S-50 and SH-2. Then got my very own Jupiter-8 in 1994 for a price that will make everybody cry. That one was stolen from me in London a few years later. I’ve been on the lookout for that sweet sound ever since and only just found records of it’s serial number and the good old owners manual ;) My current Roland setup consists of a JX-8P and an SH-09. They actually sound pretty good together and I’m finally getting past grieving the Jup, bless him 😊
My First Roland was a battered TR 707 at the monthly big flea market (what you Brits might call a "car boot sale") at the Rose Bowl Stadium in Pasadena, California It was 1998, I had just started getting into synths and been introduced to the legendary Roland gear thanks the recent release of the Rebirth software. Finding an original piece of kit was quite the experience! It was $50 USD. That piece kicked off my vintage gear journey. The messages I got was "There's treasure out there! You just gotta find it!" In those early years I was lucky to score things like a tr606, cr 68, Moog Prodigy and Linn Drum for $50 or less each. This was before the internet took the hunting out of the mom and pop music stores and put it online What a time to be alive!
Star Trek’s Wesley Crusher, or Wil Wheaton in this life, was/is a fan of 808 State. When Pacific State came out, in the days before t’internet, he tried to find out where this brilliant band came from, and arrived at the conclusion that they were from Hawaii, what with the whole Pacific State thing, and the dialling code for Hawaii being 808….I wonder if he was disappointed when it tuned out to be Stockport. Massively appreciate your channel, it deserves a much bigger audience.
The first synth I brought brand spanking new was a Roland JP8000, purchased with my first two months salary after leaving uni. I'd only gone into the music shop to buy a couple of MIDI leads. 23 years later, a few internal battery changes, and a complete refurbishment, it's still going strong. I have no idea what happened to the MIDI leads.
@@AlexBallMusic Just remembered another Roland story, but this time a near miss. Back in the early 2000s, I used to walk past a second-hand shop on my way home from work, and they had a Juno 106 in the window for what must have been several weeks, or even months. They were asking £350 for it, and that was what my monthly rent was at the time, so - as much as I drooled - I couldn't justify the purchase. Jeez, how much do I regret it now!
Alex your work is a joy for all to behold! It is no accident these incredible pieces ended up in your hands. I can think of no better person to have such an honor than you my friend. Cheers!
Alex, brilliant as always - the Interlude Juno 6 piece took me right back to BBC Schools Programming in the 1970s / early 80s, the genius of the BBC Radiophonic Workshop. Bravo!
I have an SH-1 that I bought for $50 because the previous owner didn't like the fact that it "never made the same sound twice". I've had it for years, and I've cleaned it up a bit, but I don't want to properly restore it because of the exact reason the previous owner wanted to sell it. Thing's a bass beast.
When I was about ten, an uncle had a friend with some gear ( this is circa 84' ) he brought me with him to pick some "stuff". To keep me distracted from the illegal activity I was put in a room with an mc-202 and a sh 101 any this began my love for electronic gadgetry and it all started with 2 awesome little machines so big up and Happy 50th anniversary to Roland...also stoked thAT the re 201 space echo went on sale the year I was born 74'
Very much so, yes. I know others with an equally unique system with a different prototype in it. Maybe one day we could get them together. 3 found, 2 to go.
Great video Alex! My Roland story? As a teenage synth pop addict in the 80s, my fantasy career was to stand nonchalantly behind a keyboard on ToTP. So when the first student loans were handed out in the early 90's, I headed to Denmark Street in London and spent the lot on a Juno Alpha. Imagine my excitement on the train home. Then imagine my disappointment as I plugged it in and remembered I had - and still have - absolutely zero musical talent. With regret I sold it a few months later and bought a large pair of loudspeakers instead which made a much nicer sound than I ever could.
Yeah, every time I look at that 141 I have a little moment of disbelief. As only one exists, Rob Keeble decided to make a Eurorack clone for his System 100m style series, which is super cool. amsynths.co.uk/home/products/modulators/am8141-adsr-gate-delay/
Couldn’t think of a better care taker of that system 100m ! My stories aren’t anywhere near that spectacular. But a friend recieved a mint JX-3P and PG-200 (in box!) as payment for some work he did for the local school back in the 00’s. I myself managed to get a JX-8P for free from a friend who was moving out of town and couldn’t be bothered to bring it with him :) Both machines are still with us to this day 🎉
great stories, great storytelling. my roland story: as a teenager i saved all my pocket money to buy a juno-60 as a first synth back in (probably about) 1985. with a midi converter box included in the deal. second hand from a guy i didn't know at the time. years later we happened to play in the same volleyball team. sold the synth for a much too low price somewhere in the early years of this century. will regret it until my end. 🙂
Lovely stuff Alex thank you :). A very famous song writer / producer would visit our little island of Jersey in the mid 80s & befriended a local studio owner. This famous song writer sold his friend the studio owner a Jupiter 8.. By the late 90s after years of use it developed a fault & was relegated to the garage, years passed, a friend borrowed, the studio owner moved away., 20 years on, a few friends garages later its ready for the bin… Luckily ( being a small island, we all know each other ) this Jupiter 8 has now found its way to the loving hands of our local loved synth repair guru where it is slowly but surely being rebuilt.. Heres the thing.. this isn’t any old Jupiter 8.. the famous song writer that visited was the late, great Rod Temperton..... its always been a part of local legend between the few that knew, but this is with 99% certainty the Jupiter 8 that 'Thriller' was written on !! 😯 ( and many other massive Temperton tunes during that period )
I don't have a story... Yet. I just respect Roland as the best overall in the industry. All synth manufactures have their advantages and their aesthetics but Roland will always be my favorite
JD800… percussion and leadlines for my songs in the first WipEout game on PlayStation One. Instantly fell in love with the sound and all those sliders!
i've got some old roland gear too but my fondest memory is getting the jp-8000 back in the day when it was released. i think there was a 2-page advertisement in future music where the synth looked very gorgeous and mysterious. a real centerfold synth if there ever was one! finally my local music store had one for sale and i traded my first synth, a korg prophecy, to get the jp-8000. i still remember turning it on and going through the first presets and how amazing it sounded. it was also so much more hands on tweaking than the prophecy which encouraged me to really start creating my own sounds. the jp-8000 was an integral part of my sound for many years. later on i had to down size my studio and sold amongst other gear the jp-8000. i regreted it almost instantly as it was almost a family member. a couple of years went by and i found a 2nd hand jp-8080 for a decent price. it's still in use and i love its sound potential. it's so much more than just the super saw..
Love your stories, and the gold Jupiter X is very, very nickable! I'd do exactly the same... I think I told this story on a recent video, but...Juno 6 for me too. Back in 1990, my secondary school got a budget to do something for Glasgow's City of Culture shindig. A mate and I co-wrote the score, assembled the pit band and set to putting our stuff together: we had offers of and access to, all kinds of wonderful things, but ended up with a rented Rhodes PCM760 as the 'sensible' machine, and the school's own Juno 6 for all the gonzo stuff and crazy FX. The poor thing had languished in a cupboard for years, unloved and caked in dust, and I'd like to think we saved it. It was cantankerous and temperamental, it never made our lives easy, but it thrashed the Rhodes senseless in 'smiles per hour'. The organ 64' stop sound we made through a bass amp had fittings in the school hall resonating! Just utterly joyous. I was offered it a couple of years later for (iirc) £250, but I turned it down, cos no MIDI, and I couldn't be bothered doing the mod. Yep, I'm kicking myself now, better believe it.
Fall 2005: I was 20 and had moved to Olympia WA earlier that year and had saved up my tip money to buy my first synth- a MicroKorg (for 350 used, thin on the ground then!) and was pretty quickly disappointed by it. In walks this new housemate to the place I was living carrying an SH-09. We get to talking in the kitchen and bring them both out to try on an amp and I say "I really like that synth you've got" and he went "I really like the synth you've got...wanna trade?". After thinking about it for a day I came home from work and we immediately swapped for my first analog synth and the one for me by which I measure all others. The rest is history. I wound up having to sell it years later (that guy still owns it!) and I magically got another one with the silver vinyl gig bag. Never letting this one go, missing grounding pin on the power cable and all!
I got my SH101 ridiculously cheap on ebay (at least half of what they typically go for). Was some guy who found it in the attic and wasn't 100% what it was. All it had was the typical power button issue and a few crackly sliders - since I fixed those up, I could easily sell it for cheap and still get a profit. My first experience with vintage Roland synths was when I used to work in a small music shop back in 2005/2006. In a small Irish village, no less. They had a whole storage area full of them upstairs - Juno 60s, Jupiter 6s, JX10s, JX3ps, TR606s etc, just gathering dust! I used to sneak up there during lunch, plug them in and play with them - most were still working perfectly.
First synth was a Roland SH-09 received as a birthday present circa 82, after prolonged begging of my skeptical and not particularly financially blessed parents. There had been a Roland ad in one of the music magazines that showed a SH-09 next to a CSQ-100 and I got very obsessed. Surprisingly versatile for a single osc and capable of great Human League style filter resonance bass drums. Still love that brief era when their products appeared to be made from recycled tanks.
i was 15 in 1985 and lived in Australia, when i purchased a Roland Jupiter 4 complete with a road case.... which was huge and both synth and case weighed a bloody ton! It was $400 and got it out of the Trading Post in Brisbane after selling my Korg Mono/Poly to fund the purchase of the Jupiter.
In 2015 I did a midnight run, moving out of an abusive GF's place and landed in a house with a few guys and when I arrived to move my stuff into my room there was a Roland SH-3a on the floor. I asked who's synth it was and was told it was the previous occupant of that room and when he showed up a few days later I asked him about the synth and his response was " It's yours if you want it" ... He was the original owner, had it since he was a kid .... and it became my first vintage mono synth. I've since had it serviced and it works and sounds great ( I also own a JX-3P and 4 of the Boutique reissues)
In around 1987 or so, a local Canadian music store had a TB-303 under glass. I was very familiar with the 606, and knew nothing about the 303. The guy behind the counter said they wanted to get rid of it and he'd sell it to me for 70 Canadian dollars. (That was about 50 USD, or even less GBP) I was with my buddy/bandmate at the time, with cash in my pocket. I asked him if he thought I should get it and he said "it probably sounds like shit." I shrugged my shoulders and went on to look at mixers.
I've heard legends of the Yamaha Anniversary golden DX7 with the glow in the dark keyboard, it would be the most incredible thing ever if someone could actually use one of these with the golden Jupiter X for the ultimate 1% 80s jam.
I wish I had any Roland stories other than the fact that I absolutely adore both my SP-404's (the A and the Mk2). Bought them from a shop like a boring person. And they're not rare. I'm a late bloomer. Nearly 50 and only just started, really... Love your stories though. Those module stories are so serendipidous it's insane.
My first Roland (and synth) was an MC202 back in '93. I'd seen an SH-5 in a local music store for £150, I went to grab my dad to ask for it as a 21st birthday present (as I was on a waiting list for a TB303 from Music Control). In the 30 mins it took to get my dad and return to the store, the SH-5 had gone and I got an MC202 instead. It had no manual, so I learned to program it from the quick start guide... My 303 arrived at the beginning of '94, Music Control asked to borrow it for a while as a comparison machine for the Deep Bass Nine they were building.
Loved these stories. It is amazing what you used to be able to get old analog synths for. Here in Japan, I bought a Juno 106 missing a slider for less than $100 on Yahoo Auctions about 10-15 years ago. I ended up selling it to my friend for the same price when I moved house as I didn’t have the space. He brought it with him to San Francisco when he left Japan and got the slider fixed and had it serviced. It’s now in tip-top shape in his home in Berlin. I’m glad it got the love and attention it deserved.
My first experience with Roland was at a friend who - back in the 80s - owned a Jupiter 8. That machine was just wow, wow, wow! My own synth, a Formant modular was only monophonic, therefore the pure polyphonic goodness of the Jupiter just blew me away and since then I am a Roland lover. Today my studio is home to a JD 800, a JP8000 and a D50. 🥰
Wow I always knew your music had some a grade Morph history to it as a Brit from yorkshirehaving grown up watching Saturday Superstore and Timmey Malllet etc all these sounds in your youtube tracks instantly hits home and gives me nostalgia vibes from growing up and I LOVE it its a time of music that shouldn't be forgotten and I'll be honest your the ONLY person I know who's not only using the synths of the time but also some of the more esoteric arrangements for kids TV and adverts from the UK. I always assumed we were just of similar age (I was born in 81) and you loved that sound from being a kid and just found a niche sound but to hear the real story that the who thing started from a job that wanted you to recreate that sound to put to video and you kept that sound in your repotoire years later just adds to the real awesomeness I could hear the theme right through one of your albums I bought. Love your channel. Love your authenticity. Just a minutes let me put my jumper on xD
We're very close in age, yep. There are memories of hearing this stuff growing up, although probably more in the 90s as a teenager, as you no doubt remember too! But it was indeed my work that started off the retro hardware thing and I never looked back.
@@AlexBallMusic I truly think outside of just nostalgia vibes i truly think it makes your channel stand out in the world of youtube music synth videos and gives a unique sonic backdrop to most of your vids. Sounds somehow fresh again!
I would rather have that 50th-anniversary book than the Golden Jupiter. HA! And Alex - please give us that coffee table book. Born in 1980, I’ve been alive for most of Roland’s biggest sellers. However, I didn’t learn about most of them until I was 20. The first time I got my hands on an analog polyphonic, it was my mentor’s JX8p w/ PG800 programmer - both of which now belong to me. The first reaction I had was how thrilled I was to be playing and noodling on a classic analog (for what little I knew of them at age 19), and my second one was what a great educational tool it was for someone like me that had to learn about both subtractive synthesis and patch memory storage from the ground up. It’s nearly 2023 as I comment. In the 24 years since I first touched the 8p, I’ve done most of my comparisons where Roland is concerned off of it. That includes the similar models I have also bought in the time since (JX10 & MKS70). Most people gauge Roland polyphonic off of the Jupiter/Juno models and monophonic off of the SH models. However, the 8p has been my litmus test most of the time.
Thank you for your stories! Amazing stories and how you tell them, it'd be great to more stories from people on the internet, it's funny how we go through experiences just to acquire this things. ps. Jupiter X Gold is a right proper bad boy keyboard - never seen that before.
Thank you, Alex - another great video, tapping in to my love of the golden era for Roland. I’ve owned many examples of Roland gear but inevitably chopped and changed to as trends and technology developed. Central to all of this though is my beloved Jupiter 6. A much misunderstood and underrated beast, I acquired mine in 1983 from what was City Music on Pinner Rd in Harrow. They were the only place that would take my interesting but appallingly unreliable Sharma HX80 Organ in part exchange! Anyway, I gigged and recorded with it prolifically in search of musical fame and fortune - the original Marquee club probably being top of my gig list. Fame didn’t call but new technology did so my beloved JP-6 was sold for £400 - a useful deposit for the astonishing (at the time) Kong M1. Fast forward a few years and the pangs of regret become strong enough I start looking for a replacement Jupiter 6. Scouting eBay became a full-time occupation! One day I spot one in reasonable condition and start looking through the pictures, one of which showed the serial number. It looked familiar 250275. Hold on a minute - that’s my original Jupiter 6! I contacted the buyer who thought my story was interesting but let the auction run. Thankfully I won, and along with a voucher from PayPal saved £100 got it back for £1400. Like your Juno 6, it was a long way from my location though, in a studio in London. The seller bubble wrapped it, put it in a cab to a friend on Ealing who I was meeting in a few weeks time at a band reunion. So it came to be, both my first band and my Jupiter 6 were reunited for a weekend of great music. Recently I’ve seen JP6 prices have hit almost £8k, but despite my wife’s suggestion, I’ll never part with it. Keep up the great work. Mark.
That's a fantastic story. You're actually one of several people who coincidentally bought their original units back after regretting selling them. Glad to hear it came home.
Lol the story of the TB 303.. I sold one years ago in a cigar box and should’ve seen the look on the gentleman face when i presented him with the unit😂! Love the channel.
How timely! Just listened to the sound on sound podcast, you were talking with Rob Puricelli after the Arp documentary. You're a wonderful addition to our synthy RU-vid lives Mr Ball, thanks for what you do.. 🙏👏 👍
Thanks. Really enjoyed talking to Robbie, he's a lovely chap with bags of knowledge and insight. His other podcasts are superb too, I listen to them on long drives.
My first contact to Roland equipment was the venerable MT-32, wich I borrowed from a friend to hook it up to my PC running the Voyetra MIDI sequencer. Being in possession of (or being possessed by?) a Gravis UltraSound card, a short while later, had me convert a Kurzweil K2000 KRZ sound bank of MT-32 patches/samples to the UltraSound bank format and use this, instead. I always looked up somehow to keyboards and synthesizers, but I've always been a software guy. Nowadays I use "real hardware" for drum synthesis (eg. ATV aFrame) and still stick to software for all other things synthesis. The Juno-6 interlude reminds me somewhat of the German "Sandmännchen" melody. Now this gives away my age ;) Thanks for the brilliant and in-depth video!
I got my SH101 when I was 19 in 2018. It was my first vintage instrument and since then my most valued possession. It came with a hole on the case by the side of the sequencer buttons. The seller stated that the hole was made to insert something that held the buttons pressed (?). Anyways, this 101 used to power the solo shows of Hawkwind’s Robert Calvert’s s back in the 80s. The seller was in fact his keyboard player, snd stated that you can hear his (now mine) 101 on the Queen’s Hall live album on youtube.
My Roland story. My first synth was bought in 1982, a Roland SH-1000. But … I always wanted a JP8. Fast forward to 2009 & I go on eBay & buy a Jupiter 8 for $4700. When it arrived I almost passed out. It was as new. It turns out the original owner was a music teacher & he bought it to learn about electronic music but rarely ever played it & it never left his bedroom. He died & his family sold the synth. It came with the original sales brochure, manual & sales receipt! Not a mark on it. Not even a nick. It was as new … pure MINT. It’s worth a lot more now but few are left in this condition so it can’t be replaced.
Alex Ball...THE Synth Detective!... I could sit all night with you and talk synths! lol... Great video man. 😎 I'm 58 years young now, My first real synth purchase was a Korg MS500 Micro preset as used by OMD, from an advert in the selling section in a local newspaper, I did my paper round to buy that thing through very cold winter months, I saved £69.00 to buy it, got on my bike and picked it up lol...then my "major" synth purchase (£800) from Soho Soundhouse in London..was a Juno 60 in 1994 after watching TOTP and seeing AEIOU performed by "Freeze" thinking they did all that fancy sampling stuff on a J60 lol... I loved it even though it was never gonna be a sampler (which i got into soon after with a Casio SK5...but that's another story lol).. I loved my new Juno 60, then bought a SH101, then a Drumatix TR606, then a TB303, then a few months later moved to London from Hull, East Yorks, to play professionally in a band, the movement was life changing...but i'm still poor, and I loved every minute of my days lol... While in London I was "GIVEN" a Juno 6 and a TR808, yes really!... PX'd them for a Roland TR505 (shit) and a D50 (better) lol.. that was in the 90's digital revolution...please forgive me... Synths are a part of all our lives when a nerdy geek like me screws up with hindsight. Still following the dream ha!.. great stuff!
Back in 2007, I was visiting a friend in a town an hour away from my home. I had just started twiddling with Cubase and soft synths. My friend and me casually walked into the local music shop and there, in a corner, I found what looked like an old organ. This was before smart phones. I played with the thing for about ten minutes and I knew that I needed to have it. The shop-owner wanted 150€ and I had no idea wether that was fair or a total rip off. I bought it and it came with no case or bag. So I carried it to the train station on my shoulder, sweating and swearing. At home, my bandmates gathered around the thing and just got weird noises out of it. This was the beginning of an unhealthy obsession with synthesizers. The synth was my trusty (and by now MIDIfied) Jupiter 4. Eight years later, I met a composer at a party who was so relieved that he could now do all his work in the computer, and that he wouldn'd need all of his old analog junk any longer. One piece of gear he was particularly happy to get rid of was his 201 Space Echo, which he proceeded to sell me for another 150€. Those two pieces of Roland history are very dear to my heart. Thanks for your stories, Alex.
I started taking piano lessons when I was 6, and while I was playing the grand piano, my teacher sat behind a Roland digital piano. These Roland digital piano used to (maybe still) have this "jazz scat" sound that 6-7 year old me thought was hilarious, especially when you played at the highest velocity and got the voice to say "dao". On rare occasions I was allowed to play with the jazz scat sound rather than to play at the grand, but me, wanting to hear that "dao" played so hard at a key that the wighted hammer inside broke in two! He was nice about it though and I continued being his student until I was 18. Now I'm 24, doing a masters in composition and we're still in touch. The Roland jazz scat sound was a part of why I started liking playing the piano and what in the end decided the path I'm currently on in life!
One incredible day in the summer of 1987 my best mate and I got excused from school to drive to Cook’s Christian Music in Mt. Pleasant Michigan to rent a Roland Alpha Juno 1 to play during our graduation commencement ceremony. I took it home and committed all manner of noises and riffs to cassette tape - which I still have!
My first contact with a Roland synth was in 1979, my piano professor's brother came back from Japan with a SH-09. I was 8 :) In 1988, my friend "Nounou" lent me his blue SH-101 for a couple of months. Good vibes :) In 1989 I bought my first own synth, a Roland D-20. It still works overall but unfortunately the keyboard is slowly dying, 5 or 6 keys are dead. A few years ago a friend gave me his deceased dad's old synth. It's a Roland D-50, almost as good as new.
Not a quirky story, just a happy ending. I was contemplating selling my alto sax - "too loud man" (as the bunny said) so no practicing. Every time I wanted to play it my embouchure would die in minutes. So I had a look around the wind synth market and the Roland Aerophone was the only choice (must have bite sensor but no touch pads). AE-30 eventually arrived but for 18 months the sax was ignored because I was having too much fun with the wind synth. However, when I did eventually pick up the sax my embouchure was 90% there. Within 20 minutes I had everything under control and was busy scaring the cats (my harshest critics). I still play the AE the most but when the family goes out the sax comes out and I can play as long as I like!
Ah, that's a nice bit of serendipity. Cool that it fed back into your saxy shenanigans. I can imagine that your cats preferred the wind synth, because we all know this: www.catsonsynthesizersinspace.com/
Great video, thanks for sharing. My Roland stories… have owned and sold: Juno 60 (oh well), TR606, Boss Dr Rhythm. Made up for that by finding System 100 models, 101 mono synth, 102 expander and 104 sequencer piled up in the corner of a guitar shop. I asked if they were for sale and the manager (who didn’t know what they were) agreed to let all three go for £100 !! I ran to the nearest bank to draw cash, ran back and, trying to not to appear over excited, handed over the money. 20 years later I still have them.
I've got an SC-50 Sound Canvas which I bought from a mate who bought it brand new in the mid 90's. It's always just been a great, quick way to get key sounds but as I'm a guitar player it's always just sat in my room somewhere. But only in the last couple of years did I dig deeper into MIDI and discover NRPN's and find whole new levels of functionality which brought it back into much more frequent use all these years later, helping me expand further into electronic music and hopefully grow as a musician.
I remember those! We still used them for media music in the early 2000s. NPRN - ah yes, the depths of MIDI nerdiness. Like MMC, it's something I've barely ever used. I should dig into it, but MIDI 2.0 is very much on the way.
Lovely video. Here's a modestly interesting story. A few years back, I was lucky enough to be given a Juno-60 for nix. It had been sitting in a friend's brother's attic for years and used as a toilet by his cats on and off throughout that time. Miraculously, the interior was more or less unaffected but the front panel (along with the sliders) had corroded, as one might expect. Obviously, it didn't work but, encouragingly, it did power on and moving the sliders caused the edit indicator to light on the LED display. Encouraged, I took it to my synth repair guy who managed to get it up and running at relatively low cost and dubbed it "Old Rusty". I was not confident that the arpeggiator trigger in would work but, to my surprise, it was just fine. Further emboldened, I had a set of replacement sliders installed and finally took the risk of buying a cheapie MIDI to DCB converter from the Internet. Miraculously, the DCB interface also works perfectly and the Juno is now a much loved part of my studio. As might be expected with a 40-year-old synth that has been neglected and never serviced, a few things have gone pop from time to time (most recently one of the envelopes) but it has been surprisingly inexpensive to repair. The original Junos may well have been very limited but it's pretty hard to deny that they make a very distinctive, particular sound and are a joy to use.
There's a couple still lurking online. Ironically, we wound up licensing a Drokk track for the main one and did a few covers for the others. The funniest were the radio ads where we did a total rerecord of "Pump up the jam" and had "Arnie" rapping along with the wrong words. The ad went on to say "easy to forget what you did back in the 90s..." and then went from there about historic PPI. One ad: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-cfwk0bAAfPk.html Another: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-zS9wMHXZ4Ts.html Another: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-x3i9M_ROST8.html Another: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-PZ2pRe_GF6k.html I think we did these in about 2016/2017.
I remember one Sunday morning in 1984 when I was out for a walk. I saw a brand new Roland JUNO 106 and a MSQ100 in the window of a local music store. I knew what what the JUNO was and was wondering what that strange small grey box with all the buttons, switches and one large knob was. Looking carefully at this I noticed written on the top was "MIDI DIGITAL KEYBOARD RECORDER". Being familiar with what MIDI was I new right away this little wonder had so many possibilities. So the next day both the JUNO and MSQ and of course a MIDI cable came home with me. This was the start of a wondrous life long adventure. This adventure still continues to this day. Sadly my JUNO had the famous overheating sound chip problem so I had it fixed and traded it in for a YAMAHA TX81Z and a G10 and G10c to go with it. To make a long story short. Buying, selling and trading many vintage synths I have now moved to EURORACK. Being mainly a guitar player who was a drummer this is a good match for my background music. Anyway that's my story. Thanks for the chance to tell it. P.S. I still have the MSQ and wish Roland would make a reissue of this little wonder.
My story with Roland, here we go! My first encounter with a synth was the Juno 60 when it came out, I was 12 or 13 and immediately fell in love with it, sounded really good and it was very simple to use and understand. After that a couple of years later my first synth was the VP-330, then Juno 106 and D-50. In the drum machine side TR-505, TR-707, TR-626, R-8 with a Roland Octapad II. During times with a band that I was playing with we have used the D-20, MKS-30 Planet S, JX8P, D-70, MC-500, MC-50 mkII. Today I only have the TR-626, Alpha Juno 2 and Octapad II also have a few Boss drum machines, DR-550, DR-550 mkII and DR-660. Roland is and still my favorite synth brand despite the don't want to reissue a Jupiter 8 like Sequencial, Korg and Moog wich is a shame but that's the way it is.
Lovely stories and great demos as usual! My first "synth" was a Roland E36 Intelligent Arranger Keyboard - basically a souped-up home keyboard. I can still recall my joy when I discovered I could send MIDI NRPN codes to make the (digital) filter sweep. This involved entering hexadecimal codes into my Alesis MMT8 sequencer, copied from the MIDI implementation manual. Took absolutely ages but sounded wonderful.
i cried when i turned on my fantom x7 and played a pad for the first time. the only time i really felt like i earned a beautiful instrument. still have it, still love it, still way to heavy, in a lot of ways.
