Upon my first inspection of the Roland SH-201, I was a little intimidated. First of all, there are tons of knobs and faders and blinking lights that could overwhelm an inexperienced synth user like myself. But as I became more familiar with the layout of the board, things just seemed to make more and more sense. Each section is organized so that it flows into the next (i.e., the oscillator goes to a blend stage and from there it goes to the filter stage). This makes creating and tweaking sounds extremely easy. After becoming a little more comfortable with the interface, I began to test out the presets. They were all great! Some of them would stand a little less chance at a practical application but they were still cool in their own right. And the best part is, there is no screen! I am a guitar player myself and very rarely do I have to deal with screens and soft keys and all the other stuff that makes synths and keyboards intimidating to me, so navigating through the presets was a breeze.
One of the best things I’ve discovered about the SH-201 is its ease of use. From the time you turn on the machine, you can make sound. From the presets to your own user sounds, everything is laid out in a very logical fashion, which makes workflow a breeze.
