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Roland SH-09 (Midi-fied)
 

Roland SH-09.... I got my SH-09 cheap, thinking i would rackmount it anyway, so it was very tatty and old and rusty when it arrived...

 

 

It's really pretty bad...

 

Panel is rusty

Paint has scraped off

And a slider cap missing...

 

So basically it was in very bad condition. Previous owner has found this rusting n his cellar...
The keyboard works, but the CV pitch would go mad if u hit it harder...
But since External CV works, and i was gonna modulefy or rackmount it, I thought it's OK for the price i paid.
 

 
But...

The SH-09 is actually not that bad, it has got proper CV/Gate IN's and OUT's.
It even comes factory equipped with External Audio IN to VCF as standard.

 

 

This is how it looks like now... (as of June 13, 2004)

Still one slider cap missing, but i've changed that to the Portamento slider....

 

 

Roland SH-09 and C Y
bulletAlways wanted an SH-09. They're slightly less common than the MC-202 and SH-101. I think the SH-09 is a the last derivatives from the SH-1000, SH-2000, SH-1, SH-3, SH-5, SH-7 series. Then they went on to make the SH-101 and MC-202 in more plastic styling.
bulletRead somewhere that Eurythmics' "Sweet Dreams (Are Made Of These)" and A Flock of Seagulls' "I Ran" were largely based on the SH-09. It sure does great PWM sound...
bulletAlthough similar sounding to the SH-101, MC-202, i think the SH-09 does have a slightly more RAW feel and guts to its sound....well, talk about raw, look at all those dust....

Love & Hate of the SH-09
bulletKool little synth, powerful, nasty....
bulletDamn rusty, wish i had got a better one...this one's Kbd pitch sometimes would drift : (
bulletThe front panel flipped up and the 2 PCBs are mounted there, PSU, transformer and Bender are on the keyboard side. The 2 PCBs are very clearly labelled, section by section, very easy to work with, and you probably don't need to take out all the slider caps to start modding it.

bullet

Wires are connected via connectors headers, and can be easily pulled out, so the top/front panel can be removed from the keyboard part very very easily.

bullet

I think this is one main big difference to the SH-101 and MC-202 - these have more complicated jam-packed PCB design, rather than this nicely laid out Section-by-Section old school design...
bullet

Still wanna rack it, but the PCB is longer than 19'', so i need to cut it. Problem is, there are 2 PCBs plus the Power Supply PCB and so on, wouldn't fit in a small 1u 19'' rackmount....

Took me 2 days to modify this SH-09. (Well, it's been nearly 4 months since I last modded anything!)
Didn't do much, but i think it's good enuf. It is now MIDI-fied.
Still wanna rackmount it... i am running out of space for keyboards... damn...

 

 

 

C Y 's Mods on the SH-09
bullet Mods: IEC Mains Plug/Socket, Noise Routing, Filter/Bender Control Switch
bullet MIDI: Internal MIDI-to-CV with additional controller, Midi Switch/Routing
bullet Other Stuff / TO Do's

 

 

Some Roland SH-09 Soundz
Just some soundz....
bullet SH-09 Basic VCF+SubOsc
 Basic 16' tweaking the VCF Cutoff and Resonance...
Then with Sub-osc turned up...
bullet SH-09 PWM 1
 8' then add Sub-Osc, then add PWM
bullet SH-09 PWM 2
 16' PWM, varying the LFO Rate
bullet SH-09 VCF Reso High
 With the Resonance turned right up, tweaking the Cutoff can produce those high pitched drum/FX
bullet SH-09 S&H
 LFO->Sample&Hold - just controlling the Resonance Hi and tweaking the VCF Cutoff...
The S&H pattern is very standard...
bullet SH-09 Feedback
 External Audio patched to Headphones Out... turning up the Ext Audio level....
-> Play ALL
 

 

 

Other Links on the SH-09...

bullet The Home of SH-09 with online manual (sometimes down)
bullet Hyperreal Music Machine SH-series page - Incl. some Pics and Mods.
bullet elab Japan SH-09 page... somehow his site is gone since Spring 2004... Has Noise Mod and Info....
bullet K.T's Site (Japan) has old catalogue section that has original SH-09 coloured catalogue scan from 1978.
bullet Synth Museum's SH-09 page with info and large image of the SH-09
bullet Analogue Solution has some SH-09 mods you can buy...
bullet Google Search on Roland SH-09

 

 

C Y 's files on the Roland SH-09
Owner's Manual.zip
bulletThis is the Acrobat PDF Owner's Manual.
I've actually converted the Online Manual on The Home of SH-09 website back to a PDF, so i can still have it viewable when the site if offline
Service Notes.zip
bulletThis is the Acrobat PDF Service Manual.
This used to be available from one of the links on the The Home of SH-09 page, but it seems the link is gone.
bulletI think this is still available on the Synthesizerarchiv.de Roland Service Manual page
bulletPart of the Roland SH-09 Schematics (Extracted from the PDF) with Coloured Codings for easy reading!

 

 

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