Alesis Micron/Roland SH-201/or Other...

[AFABS]

So here's the deal...I play guitar in a band and i want a synth to add cool ambience/effects, maybe some bass action, and some weirdness. I definitely want some real time manipulation for live playing. I also want to get the synth to record some personal stuff, add some synth to some guitar/vocals. I'm not looking to do trance or techno, but maybe some chiller electronica stuff. These are the two synths i've been looking at. Price is an issue 500 USD was my limit but i might be able to find the Roland on ebay for 5. Anyone have an opinion on either. It looks like the micron has more presets and maybe some cooler sounds, but very little real time manipulation. The roland seems a bit lacking in sounds but has a lot of knobs and probably more user friendly. Anyone's input is appreciated. I just got my tax refund and I'm itching to buy one! -Thanks, Alex.

[Dogboy73]

Personaly I find the SH-201 quite offensive. Partly because it carries the 'SH' tag & has nothing what so ever to do with the original!! If you can stretch to an Alesis Ion you'll be in VA Heaven it would seem. I've heard some excellent things said about the Ion. By all accounts it's a fantastic synth.

[tehLORD]

Take a look at the Korg MS2000 as well.

Great VA synth (they still use the same VA engine in the newer Korg synths) and it also has a killer vocoder on it too.

[Dogboy73]

Take a look at the Korg MS2000 as well. Great VA synth (they still use the same VA engine in the newer Korg synths) and it also has a killer vocoder on it too.

Got one of these myself. It's a great synth I think. You can probably pick these up second hand on e-bay for a decent price. Not the biggest sounding thing in the world but capable of some decent sounds. It's got plenty of hands on control & some nice features such as the virtual patch, step sequencers & vocoder.

[AFABS]

thanks guys i'll look into those if i can find them used around $500. i'm reluctant to spend a lot of money because i'm completely new to synths and fear i won't "get into" it. i don't think that'll be the case though.

[tehLORD]

I sold my MS2000B a few months back for about £300 so the price should be right. Make sure you track down a B model as it's got a front mounted vocoder mic.

Lots of tweakabilty, I would imagine it'd be a great live synth and also a great synth for wierd noise too. you could probably run the guitar through it too

[AFABS]

i think i'm gonna go with the Micron...but it's not set in stone...

now i have another question...

how do i go about recording the exact sounds from a hardware synth on a recording program? Right now I'll be using garageband unfortunately and do want the keyboard to control GB synths. Do i need to run it through and audio interface? And if so do I run it through as MIDI? Sorry very new to this, but I'm reading this can be a difficult task, in GB at least...Enlighten me please.