Back in 1979, when Roland dropped this beast alongside the flashy Jupiter-4, the SH-2 quietly became the go-to for earth-shaking bass that could rattle a sports arena—its dual oscillators plus sub-oscillator setup delivering a fat, three-oscillator punch in a monophonic package.
At its core, you've got two analog VCOs with waveforms like sawtooth, square, pulse-width, sine, and noise, detunable for thick layering, feeding into a resonant low-pass filter that self-oscillates into a sine wave at extreme settings for wild experimental tones. Controls are all slider-based for precise tweaks—mixer for osc balance, ADSR envelope, LFO with sine/square/sample & hold for modulation on pitch, filter, or amp, plus auto-bend for soaring leads. It's built tough with aluminum side panels, a 37-key keyboard, and a single mono out, weighing in sturdy at around 10kg for that classic Roland road-ready feel.
Synth heads still swear by its warm, aggressive tone that cuts through any mix, from brutal basslines to chaotic effects via S/H filter tricks—though some note the lack of polyphony or sequencing keeps it firmly in the raw monosynth camp. If you're chasing vintage analog grit without fuss, this one's a timeless workhorse.
