Tool: Roland 50 Studio
As part of my preparation for class on teaching synthesis, I came across a website that I completely forgot about. The Roland 50 Studio site is an amazing FREE site that includes some of the most iconic Roland instruments in celebration of their 50th Anniversary in 2022. A few years ago, this site started out in 2020 as a way to play the virtual versions of the Roland TR-808 Drum Machine and the TB-303 bass synth. It was created by Yuri Suzuki and Roland engineers. For the 50th Anniversary, they added the SH-101 (a synth), SP-404 (a sampler), the TR-606, TR-707 and TR-909 (drum machines) - all for free. If you are not familiar with these Roland products from the 1980’s, they really were innovative and wildly popular. I personally owned the TR-505 - I wish it was included! Here is a short video that provides an overview of the site:
Believe it or not, you can do a LOT of cool things with the tools on this site. Aside from playing around and creating music, samples and beats using the virtual versions of these classic hardware devices, you can actually record your creations!
The virtual versions of the hardware aren’t 100% true to the original functionality of the devices, btu I don’t really mind that at all! The point of the site (IMHO) is to allow users to to utilize simplified pattern players that give you the most important controls and ethos of the original and they are a LOT of fun to play around with. You can either click in your own patterns or you can hit the Random button to hear some pre-programmed beats and basslines. Your students will LOVE it.
The SH-101 is the only synthesizer in the collection and it gives you a very simple set of oscillator controls, filters and modulation. Unfortunately there is no way to connect a MIDI device to the site (at least I couldn’t figure out how to do it) so you need to click in your melodies with a pattern grid, which is similar to the way you interact with the TB-303. There is, however, a VERY cool Arpeggio button that cycles through random arpeggios every time you press it. There’s also a pitch bend and portamento controller and a choice of three background colors.
If you click on the collapsible menu in the upper right hand corner of the screen, you can select Master Class, which is a VERY cool video of a musician named Risa T who shows you the capabilities of the site.
If you teach a music technology class, or you are just interested in exploring some vintage Roland devices, I HIGHLY recommend bookmarking this site. You can never get enough free tools in a music classroom - especially ones that don’t require any kind of login or email address. I hope you find this site useful and share it with your students. Happy 50th Anniversary, Roland!
