@@mastercylinder1939 It was 30 years ago, I was young and didn't know any better. 'Synths' I had previous to that were mini Casios, so yeah, I still consider it my first 'real' synth.
@@SianaGearz For those days it was the bomb & the only afforadable sampler for me😊 You know how much fun it was in school calling the teacher names & i drove the neighbours dog to insanity😀
It's all about context, dated tones can always be post processed or left alone. We are stopping electronics land fills by keeping, using and repairing these synth icons. I'm proud of anyone hanging on to old gear that can still be used.. bravo!!!!
Firstly, U110 cards have two prices. The one is what the seller asks for them, the second is the one a buyer pays. I bought all my sn-u110 cards for less than 20-30 euros including shipping, from sellers who finally understood that no one pays what they are asking for. Which makes them still overprized for the sad amount of waveforms they provide. My Proteus 1 rules over all of them combined. Secondly, I really enjoy my U220 and it is a great module if you like what you get. The converters are soundwise identical to the JV880, with no noise issues at all, and if you turn the FX off the unit's sound is even better. I wouldn't buy a U20. The U220 is cheap, available, usually with no issues. The mere idea of having to refurbish the keyboard to save it from the red glue plague gives me the creeps.
I blew my U220 budget on a Proteus/1 and have regretted that for decades. There were sounds in the Roland that the Proteus didn't come close to but the money was spent 😭. Hopefully a Bad Gear video will put up the price so I can sell it! 😀
Has anyone developed a way to dump the sn-u110 card memory onto an aftermarket memory interface? I searched and found some custom M-256/M-512 replacements for things like the D-50, but no solution for sidestepping the scarcity of those sn-u110 cards for the U-110/20/220. There is a 3rd party vsti including 13/15 of those cards, although I cannot attest to how faithfully they were captured.
@@brianjams9150 I saw the video of the 3r party. I had some difficulties recognizing my U110. Technically, for a simple rompler without filters, there should be little difference. But I was somewhat disappointed. I rather like to use the original.
Ooooh PROTEUS. Now there's a name I've not heard in a long time... a long time... :) Florian, you should cover the Proteus. I remember everyone thinking E-Mu was "The bees' knees" BiTD™
I'm fairly sure the Prodigy strings sound you were looking for is actually the "Strings 3" tone presented at 2:37. Just play G-C-E, G#-C#-F, A#-D#-G and C-F-A stacked chords and you'll instantly hear intro of "Out Of Space". IIRC Liam used to put fat chorus over them. Same keyboard also contains bell sounds used on "G-Force" and "Omen".
This was my very first "real" synth ever. I was SO proud of it. I probably bought it in 91 and kept it for over a decade. Back then, I was so obsessed with learning how to make the sounds I heard on albums, and I learned as much as I was capable about that keyboard in order to achieve what I did. I know I had the Special FX Rom expansion card and at least one ram card for my own backup. Of course I wanted more synths but was lucky to afford that one at the time. I read Keyboard magazine every month and always wondered what a filter was as I read every other keyboard review, haha. I have very fond memories of the piano sound and many others, and I made splits and layers out the wazoo to try to cover songs in various bands I was in. Thanks so much for the video. I really enjoyed it!
Great episode! I own a U220 for 10+ years and it’s my goto “80’s in a box”. Also one of the cheapest rack romplers i could afford at that time. Love to play the strings patch and play some Max Romeo samples on it.
I got my U-20 in 1991, I still have it. It was a part of my live rig and my studio rig for the better part of 25 years. I used it mostly for string ensemble sounds, and piano with vocal sounds, in all cases, I created my own patches for the keyboard. It is also often overlooked that the U-20 had polyphonic aftertouch for its own internal sounds.
This thing reminds me of my D70. Same bender & sliders, same dying keyboard, very similar sounds (but with a filter). The red-headed step-sibling of the mighty D50 could make for a great Bad Gear episode...
If your keyboard "dies", you may want to watch this repair video: ru-vid.com/video/%D0%B2%D0%B8%D0%B4%D0%B5%D0%BE-3Th9R0t17kw.html shows in detail how to refurbish almost any Roland Keyboard, the D-50 is used here, but the keybed used is almost the same from all those Roland ones back then.
@@mrz80 If you don't have warranty on it, open it up, and see if it is a similar issue, could be! Dust and particles are synth enthuists like us enemy #1.
This was a dark period in synth history. I worked at a music store at the time. All customers wanted was realistic piano and sax sounds. Nice job on the vaporwave video. Your videos don't get enough credit for these "little" bits of video that you probably spend a billion years doing.
For a young student this was actually a very bright time in synth history. The local music shop was basically throwing away the "old" analogue gear to make room for the U-20s and JV-80s of the day. As a high school senior I was able to outfit a home studio with a JUNO-6, Chroma Polaris, SH3, SH-1000 & 2000, TR-707, and a bunch of other gear that had come in as trade-ins. I don't think I ever paid more than $200 for any of my first wave of synths.
@@lo-firobotboy7112 Fair. That's how I got my HS-60 (Juno 106) and later an Alpha Juno, and then DW-8000. All cheap. Buying the Juno 106 also got me a job at the music store I bought it from. Good deal for a 17yo :)
I had a U-20, I didn't love it like I loved my D-50 but it was the backbone of my little studio back then, awesome to see this review/tribute to it and yes - it plays you!
I love seeing these videos. It's almost like a budget series since hated audio gear usually sells for cheap so this series is great for inspiration on what low cost gear might be a hidden gem.
This is the second time I send thanks for another super honest tongue-in-cheek review! I was about to sell my U-20 but this video, the sounds and very low sale prices, made me keep it.
The preset list sounds amazing (in my humble opinion). I did not expect that. The acoustic piano sounded great, if a LITTLE artificial. The strings, bass, and electric guitar are on point though. I was genuinely surprised at how good the internal library sounds
I think the acoustic piano on the U-20 sounds a lot better than many electric piano's sound, that are dedicated electric pianos, plus there is a PCM card with more grand piano patches that sounds great to my ears.
I have one that’s been in its case for 15 years or more. I do everything with VSTs, samples and beats today, but this great video inspired me to try taking a recent song and re-assigning the midi to the U-20 sound patches - just for fun.
How'd it turn out? I was seriously considering a U-220 rack module until I stumbled across a busted (but eminently fixable, as it turned out) Alesis QS8.1 for fifty bucks. It scratches my ROMpler itch very nicely, and it's got a very capable multi-fx engine built in. I just have to rebuild my desk to make room for the thing 'cause it's monstrous. :D
@@mrz80 a few of the keys are inconsistent. I tried to clean them with compressed air and contact cleaner, but really… the contact strip needs to be replaced.
I'm not old enough to have any nostalgia for this thing - all I can say is that it JAMS! . Not a "classic" synth in the traditional sense, but it nails a hyper specific sound - if you need that low budget late 80's/early nineties sound the U-20 will take you there 👌
Suggestion for future episode: Yamaha SU700. Sampling drum machine that basically landed on the market with a thud & I've never heard of anyone beyond RU-vidrs using it since. Surely there's reasons why?
Yep, and certain Dutch Techno producers (cough Speedy J cough cough) used two Yamaha SU 700’s as turntables as well as a laptop in the early 2000’s (!).
Thank You! It is in deed a synth which always attracted me. I bought a U-220 for 20€ a few years back and I'm not jet to sell it again. I still like it and am still using it up to this date! Awesome Video!!!
I've been using the U-20 since 1992, and used it playing full time on gigis for over a decade and then in my music room for playing / recording since then. The battery hasn't even gone out. I don't understand the "bad gear" part. My Alesis sequencer bit the dust, but worked great for many years with this keyboard. I don't like whatever music is popular now, so I don't care how "up to date" the sounds are.
I remember the 80s . My greatest hope was for a machine that would let me experiment by adding many guitar effect pedals (or maybe my Tom Scholz Rockman) to mimick a synth like the Odyssey. This Roland rompler would have had me grinning ear to ear back then . To my ears it sounds amazing. That synthwave jam was off the hook . Kudos on the brilliant video!!😁
The sounds on the U series are pure cheese for the most part. The horror back then was the unrelenting ubiquity of said cheese. The Us are one of the very few Roland/Boss instrument series I never laid hands on. My ears would have downed tools. Dedicated samplers were much easier to edit and had way better libraries for the preset junkies. The cheezromplers were duly hidden in attics and garages, where they were discovered by rose-tinted 21st century nostalgists who needed to authentically experience the pain their grandparents' generation went through.
So, despite someone shitting on my first choice of synth, I recall after a bit of a think tonight paying £600 for my second hand U-20 in 1991. Shortly after I paid around £350 ish for a Juno 106. Analogue synths just weren't held in as high regard as they came to be at that moment in time. Digital romplers were 'the future', and samplers were the 'in' tech of the time. Look how that all changed!
XWP1 sounds like yellowed plastic, but has its place in cheap cover bands playing in shady places . if you get mugged, money loss is kept at a minimum... would be interesting to see it getting the bad gear treatment.
Back in the day I had the choice between one of these and an Ensoniq SQ1+. I chose the Ensoniq :) However I am looking at expanding my already big collection and seeing if I can find one of these.
Rolandlove = “ feels like a great misfortune, a monstrous parasite, a permanent state of emergency that ruins all small pleasures" to fall in love without the fall is not possible? Next week some Casio stuff?
The U20 was often used in a combo with the MC500 sequencer and it had some very nice factory patches for the time. Sadly it lacked a filter and complex envelope generators but that's where the D70 stepped in. The acoustic and electric pianos were very playable for the time, as were the strings, basses (loved the fretless), fantastic solo trumpet, nice choirs and bell sounds. Less successful were the cheesy sounding organs and thin acoustic guitars, although the electric guitars were decent and found themselves on a number of albums. I owned a U220 rack up until a bought a couple of way more superior JV1080s filled with expansion boards. Ahh those were the days!!!!
You know I love 80's synth sounds so this synth gets a pass from me. My favorite bad review you posted on the screen was "the manual was written by the antichrist." I feel like that's true of a lot of 80's gear. Nothing will ever beat the manual to the Casio XW-PD1, though. That's easily the worst manual ever written.
"The manual was written by the antichrist." lol If that's who Roland employs no wonder they are the Bad Gear kings. That said, even if this thing sucks for making your own sounds, I absolutely love all the nostalgic sounds you played today. Great preset keyboard.
I always waited for seeing this synth/workstation in one of your videos! Great to see this here! I have a D10, it’s from the same time and I love these time of digital (Roland called them linear) Synthesizers. I really enjoy these products, because they have another sound and another soul then the analog synthesisers. Great use of the U20 sounds in the video!
I know right he made me went out there and buy a jdxi when I already had the jdxa same with a Yamaha cs1 I love the carpet sound Bank on the cs1 pure '80s dark movie background synth
This was the first pro keyboard I ever played. My dad's guitar player had it in his studio back in '91. My dad liked it too, but he ended up getting the Roland JV-30 that had come out the following year. Then I got my first Roland in '95 and it was a JV-35.
@@AudioPilz had to think about it. Ive owned so many pieces of gear. I guess in a sense i did own it cause i had the rack for awhile. I think i had a sfx card with it that had a Godzilla sound on it and my old band used it to make a cheesy remake of tje song lol.
Love the tune, sounds like what many synthwave hipsters want to create. I remember playing the U20 around 1990 and being blown away but I couldn't afford it.Another excellent video
Easily the most entertaining gear channel. So much quality packed into each episode. I can only imagine how long it takes you to write all the excellent tracks and produce the accompanying visuals. This was one of your best for sure!
Who doesn't love a good romp...ler. Having just dug out my JV-880 I can confirm it's loads of fun and the strings are amazing. Don't think I could live without a filter though.
