The SH-01A brings back the legendary growl of the 1980s SH-101, that monosynth staple for fat basses and soaring leads, but squeezes it into a pint-sized Boutique module with fresh polyphonic tricks up its sleeve.
Using Roland's Analog Circuit Behavior tech, it nails the original's single digital oscillator—now with expanded octave ranges down to a rumbling 64'—feeding into a classic 24dB/oct low-pass filter modeled after the IR3109 chip, complete with cutoff, resonance, and mod from a versatile envelope and upgraded LFO sporting six waveforms including saw and ramp. You've got four voices for Mono, thick Unison stacking, true Poly for pads, or Chord mode that layers and transposes any four notes. Hands-on control comes via over 20 recreated knobs and metal-shaft sliders, plus dual ribbon controllers for pitch bend and mod, a 100-step sequencer saving 64 patterns, and an arpeggiator with up/down/random modes, note hold, and transpose. It's super portable at 300 x 128 x 46mm, runs on four AA batteries or USB, includes a built-in speaker, stereo out, headphones, CV/gate, trigger in, and full MIDI I/O including USB audio/MIDI.
Players love how it slots perfectly into modular rigs or as a compact stage weapon, praising the authentic SH-101 vibe and modern workflow, though some note the mini sliders and touch ribbons take practice for live tweaks, and there's no onboard effects.
