Roland GAIA SH-01 Synthesiser

The Roland GAIA SH-01 is a high-performing synthesiser that features a massive sound with easy hands-on control and old-school charm as well as 37 full-sized velocity-sensitive keys and a compact, lightweight construction. The GAIA SH-01 comes with a triple-stacked engine that places a virtual analogue synthesiser directly at your fingertips and has a control panel with an intuitive layout that is inviting to professional sound designers as well as first-timers. The easy to follow signal flow is easy to grasp and features logically positioned knobs, sliders, and buttons with hands-on control and lets you create big sounds, perfect for music students, songwriters, session players, and live performers of all skill levels and styles.

The newly developed triple-stacked virtual analogue engine is comprised of three complete synths giving you an incredibly thick, powerful sound that will captivate your audience. This synthesiser is equipped with three oscillators that work to drive a trio of multi-mode resonant filters, multi-shape LFOs, amplifiers, and nine envelope generators. The 64 polyphonic voices allow you to play massive sounds without experiencing note drop-out making it perfect for both studio use as well as on-stage live performances.

The GAIA SH-01 includes a wide variety of selectable multi-effects that help add another spatial dimension to your sounds from the grittiest growls to the smoothest of reverbs. You can stack up to five effects simultaneously for dozens of creative variations helping you sculpt your sound design. The onboard effects include distortion, reverb, fuzz, bit crush, flanger, phaser, pitch shifter, low-boost, and delay with tempo sync and panning controls. There are also dedicated control knobs for tweaking your effects in real time.

The GAIA SH-01 features a lightweight, super-robust, compact construction with a full-sized 37-note keyboard allowing performers to play naturally and comfortably with confidence and can easily be slipped into a travel bag or flight case. The synth can be powered via an AC adapter or AA batteries, giving you the ultimate portable convenience and features a battery-life indicator on the front panel, so you’ll always know how much power you have left. When used in conjunction with a battery-powered amplifier such as the CUBE Street, Mobile CUBE, BA-330, or KC-110 the GAIA SH-01 can be played absolutely anywhere with ease.

The front control panel places every control directly at your fingertips and doesn’t feature any hidden menus or controls. Simply start playing and move the knobs and sliders or move your hand over the invisible D Beam controller for drastic dynamic effects. The control panel shows you the signal path from left to right, allowing beginners to understand the basics of synthesis while professional players will love the instant gratification of hands-on control during your performances.

This synthesiser comes fitted with an integrated arpeggiator, merely hold a note or chord and let the arpeggiator automatically create your music for you, you can then alter the tempo using the tap tempo function to speed up or slow down your sounds. In addition, there is an onboard Phrase Recorder so you can instantly record what you’re playing on the keyboard as well as the movements of your knobs and sliders for modulated automation. The controller data will also independently play back to compliment the notes you’re playing in real time.

You can connect directly to your PC/Mac computer using a single USB cable for streaming your sounds straight into your favoured DAW; the USB ports can also be used to transmit and receive MIDI data so you can store your patches straight to a USB stick. You can even connect an external audio source such as an MP3 player or smartphone to the synthesiser so you can play along to your favourite songs and backing tracks which is perfect for practicing and live performances. Then you can manipulate the incoming audio using the three center cancel modes which let you eliminate pre-recorded vocals, guitars, and basses.