These audio examples accompany our retrospective feature on the Roland System 100 from SOS October 2024 issue.
www.soundonsound.com/music-business/roland-system-100
Sound 1: Stereo PWM
Just two voices of the System 100 with the same patch, one hard panned left and the other on the right. Pulse waves are used with pulse-width modulation from the respective LFOs and some nice resonance from those filters. I told you that it sounds massive and my theory is that it’s because there’s only one oscillator per voice, so it’s as direct as possible and then that’s doubled.
Sound 2: Stereo Squares
Squave waves with a more plucky envelope. Quintessential subby girth and the slight differences between the two voices gives a satisfying chorus-like effect. An interesting earlier version of the kinds of sounds you hear from the SH-101 or Juno-60.
Sound 3: Stereo Saws
Sawtooth waves in stereo, basically as per sound 1. Is it me or do ’70s sawtooth waves sound sharp, like they could cut you? You can hear the high resonance, but the bass and fatness is all still there, which is very satisfying.
Sound 4: Stereo Triangle Spring Theremin
By contrast, soft triangle waves with portamento and 104 spring reverb for a theremin type of sound, very evocative and of the era.
Sound 5: Stereo Ring Mod Spring Sequence
Using the two oscillators into the ring modulator with some added spring reverb. The sample and hold drives the whole affair and sequences one oscillator whilst the other is sequenced by the 104 sequencer that’s clocked by the sample and hold. The System 100 can create some very clangy sounds and the spring reverb makes them sound like metal objects being hit in a warehouse.
Sound 6: Stereo Dry Sequence
Altering some parameters and pitches from Sound 5 and pulling out all of the spring reverb, we wind up with a very direct and very alive sound that I could just leave running for 10 minutes and listen to. The LFOs provide a nice pendulum filter‑sweep effect on the individual channels.
Sound 7: Stereo Audio Rate Filter FM
A bit of audio rate FM of the 101 filter from the 102’s oscillator output for some formant/vowel kinds of timbres. Admittedly, other synths I own are better at this kind of sound, but it’s still fun on the System 100.
Sound 8: Stereo Oscillator Sync
Oscillator sync and a bloomin’ great‑sounding sync at that! This is the benefit of having the leading oscillator run through its own discrete signal path whilst the sync’ed oscillator does the same, it just sounds marvellous.
Sound 9: Stereo Drum Groove
Human League-style drum groove making use of the noise generator and sequencing the filter to allow ‘snare’ sounds to poke through on chosen beats.
Sound 10: Stereo Melodic Sequence
Using sequencer channel A with the 101 and sequencer channel B with the 102, but then taking the oscillator outputs and patching them into the external audio inputs of the opposite module so that there’s some interesting stereo relationships. The spring reverb is fed in and out to add or remove atmosphere.