So I received my sh2 today. First I have to say, I'm mad because the keys are re triggering big time. I can't test if this goes away with cv because I don't have a midi cv interface and I don't have a controller keyboard. But for the price I paid it shouldn't be doing this.

My question however, is this. Does the sh2 not have the ability to play like a mono synth? Meaning, when I play a note and hold it down, then press amother not, it should skip to the next note. I have to completely lift my finger after every note I play to trigger the next note or it won't play. Is this the nature of the synth or is it messed up?

The re triggering seems to go away the more I play so it may need to be broken in. I had this problem with my Juno 60, but it went away on it's own.

Can u guys give me some insight? Thanks

it will go away with cv. and if you are lucky go away on the keyboard the more you play it. my sh2 is near perfect (sometimes I slightly think it wants to double trigger). my system100 is going in for repairs for the problem. common.

regarding monosynth style play - the sh2 is low note priority. you are probably used to last note priority (sh101, etc.). it does what you want but only for notes below the one you have held.

i wish it was switchable but it is not. good news is that if you use cv most cv interfaces will allow you to choose the re-trigger mode.

The more you play the old rolands the better the key response. If they sit around they get weird. I just live with the occasional glitch.

By Re-Trigger mode do you mean "high note priority" ? Never played a synth that has low note priority so I've never heard the terms.

As far as the re-triggering its completely gone. I played it for an hour straight and it dissappeared lol. Just like my Juno 60 did.

Still trying to decide if I like this synth or not. It sounds kind of sterile? Maybe I'm used to my Juno having built in chorus to spread out the sound.

Just for fun, while I'm waiting for the response to the CV interface being able to make a high note priority :-) . . . . here is an example of what I've made in the first hour of using the synth. Just fun, not proffesional. What do u think? Pretty mean synth.

doesn't sound sterile to me. it sounds like an excellent source that is unencumbered by shitty on board fx... run it through the ones you like.

I think it's the same as the SH-09.
There's an envelope trigger mode switch at the far right next to the envelope generator. When you put it Gate mode you should be able to play legato, and if it's like the SH-09 it has high note priority. If you put the mode in gate trigger it'll retrigger for every note, regardless of if previous note is still held. It sounds like you have it in gate mode but you want it in gate trigger mode.

Nope, gate mode-trig is on. Still low note priority.

Yha. I'm still trying to find its sweet spots. I thought I could jump into it just like I program my Juno, but I'm finding that even though the knobs are the same, the sweet spots are completely different.

just wait til you get your cv/gate interface then you dont have to touch the sh-2 at all and won't have these issues!

Ok, thats good then. Thanks Xero.

How are you liking the Sh-2?

its pretty fat...i recorded a live session with a friend of mine recently and was playin some pretty groovy basslines on it. That lfo mod in your demo is pretty cool sounding, i've yet to make mine sound like that, but i'm thinking the sliders might need some cleaning cause the range seems a little wonky on a few...nothing serious though....these things are old so i always expect issues....

the keyboard on the sh-2 is so blah, i like the later roland ones better like the one on the sh-101 feels soo much better to me

The SH-2 is a lowest note priority keyboard. Lowest note priority is fairly common (pro one, minimoog model d) and can work very well in certain application such as when playing a decending run. Most of the available midi to CV converters give you a choice as to which note will have priority (lowest, highest, or newest). Look into getting a midi to CV converter and you should be able to set it up for highest note priority. In the meantime, try and find your groove with lowest note priority. It can be really advantageous to know you limitations with each form of note priority.

I no longer remember does SH-2 uses wires, if it does, open the unit and clean golden wire contacts below keys (and the main contact) with alcohol and ear sticks. The problem will go away.

Wow. I never knew this. This is the first mono analogue I have ever owned. Every synth I've played has always been newest note prioirty. Good to know a CV converter will change that. I'll try to get used to the lower note priority, but I've never encountered it before.


Hey, thanks Don. I'm not sure . . . but I can see when I depress a note, there are these metal looking rods behind the keys. I'm good with sound creation, but I'm not good with knowledge of the inner workings of a synth. I'm assuming its a wire. I think I'd feel comfortable cleaning it though.

With that said, the problem is gone. All I had to do was play it for a while. I bet its just dirty and that brushed some dust off or something.

I've noticed that mine goes out of tune if I play more than about 1.5 octaves. The two VCO's go out of tune with each other, and I have to keep fine tuning to get them similar. I actually dont mind this fact, I figure it has to do with the fact that its an old VCO synth, but again, I could be wrong, and it could just be the synth is broken? I dunno. Have you noticed the same thing?

My sh-2 has always had finicky keys. It does work flawlessly with my Kenton pro solo mkII. But this vco out of tune thing does sound wrong. Mine is completely stable so best you have a tech check it all out. For what it's worth, my sh-2 cost me about half what I paid for it in repairs, but now that they are done it's been smooth sailing.

Lame. I just tested it, everytime i change the range of VCO-1 it goes out of tune. VCO-2 never goes out of tune when I change the range. Ebay sellers suck man. Guess I'll have to find a repair place. I have never heard of any in Boston area.

i hear about lots of sh-2's drifting. it's a commin problem i'm sure. don't no how to fix it though, sorry!

of course it could just be bad tracking. there are some tuning pots under some small round covers by the osc wheels, maybe you can tweek your way out of trouble.

mine has a similar tuning issue. there are pots inside to fix it but i've not bothered. mine sounds great on its own. it is only really noticable if i compare to a digital synth and then it is obvious that it goes a bit flat/sharp as you move up and down the keyboard.

i sometimes think this may add to the sound that i like. i think the andromeda will let slightly detune based on note number. i'm considering trying it when i get the time.

mine is consistent between vco 1 and 2 though (as far as i know - i'm going to listen closer tonight). you may want to adjust yours.

yeah pretty typical of monos as well, they generally stay "in tune" when they're within a few octaves, but if you adjust the scaling enough the 2 oscs will become both detuned in general as well as to eachother....on a single osc synth you only noticed the first part of that equation but on a double osc you get even more fun

however it's usually very slight, i mean nothing major, tweak here tweak there....if the thing is grossly out of tune then it could be other issues

Thanks for the responses. You guys are always so helpful.

I contacted a repair shop in Boston, and he said he's pretty sure he can fix it, and he said he's pretty sure its just in need of a re-calibration. Hopefully its a cheap fix. I contacted the seller, and he said he would reimburse me for the cost of repairs. Pain in the ass, but hopefully it will be an easy fix. It gets out of tune pretty bad, but it does have a bit of character to it really :-).

As far as the synth repair goes, I'll make sure to let u know how it goes and if I would recommend them. We dont have a Boston contact so I'll add it to the list if I think they're worthy.

Thanks guys.

I think mines a bit over the edge for whats acceptable, especially considering VCO-2 doesn't do this at all, only VCO-1, so I think its a problem. Thanks for the help Xero.

You really should be able to tune the VCO yourself. It's the basically the same procedure for all analog synths. The range and scale trim pots are even accessable from the front panel on the SH-2.

It's more complex than that. It goes out of tune depending on the range. It's not just as simple as using the tune pots. It's a scaling problem.

no it isn't more complex, it's exactly what dougt said, and calibrating an analog oscillator isn't rocket science indeed...

Subby,

Was this, by chance, Dave White over at Analog Keys?

If so, fear not- he does good work. He brought my old Sh-101 (fried due to reverse polarity and battery acid) back to life for a reasonable price.

He's not exactly cheap, but then synth repair shops aren't a dime a dozen, either.

Good luck- I have a few member of the SH family (101, 1 and 2) and think they're worth the investment.

Yeah, it's a osc calibration issue if it just detunes when you play up the keys or switch the octaves.

The SH-2 service manual is available for free online and it goes through the procedure. Each osc has the trimmers under some of the little rubber stoppers.

I just did this on mine a few weeks ago, it takes some patience but it isn't that difficult.

It may be wise to have the synth shop do it, since you should verify the keyboard is putting out 1V per octave, that adjustment is inside the synth itself, otherwise if you tune the oscs to the key CV it won't match with external midi sources.

After that you can do the osc scaling and tuning, and there is a trim pot for the octave switch calibration.

I don't think the service manual mentions this but it's best to do the osc tuning while set to 32', since that takes the octave switch out of the equation. All other footages send voltage to the osc and if the octave switch isn't calibrated right it'll throw off your adjustments.

The SH-2 is very stable pitch wise.

Hey, well let me put it this way. When he says "Front Panel" I'm thinking of the two knobs on the front of the synth called Total Tune and VCO-2 Tune. If this is what DougT is referring to, then its not enough to fix the synth, because I have to constantly change them to keep the synth in tune within 1.5 octaves. When I change the range on VCO-1 the synth goes out of tune again.

If by Front Panel you are referring to what this post below is stating . . .

Then that to me isn't "Front Panel" because I'm not comfortable doing ANYTHING with a synth other than twiddling the knobs. I apologize if I said it in a way that was inferring Doug is wrong. He's probably not wrong, I'm just an idiot LOL. I'm good at misunderstanding things :-).

It is not Dave White, I'm actually in contact with two people who may fix it. I spoke with Rob at New England Keys, and the price that he was charging seemed fair. I'm not too upset if its expensive, because I'm not paying for it. However, thank you for the reference. I now know of 3 active Vintage Synth repair shops in the Boston area (well one is in New Hampshire), so after this is done I think I'll list them and give a review of the one I used.

If anything falls through or feels fishy, I'll contact Analog Keys, thanks so much.

Yha, for now I'm going to take it to shop, but I'll definitely look into what you're talking about. I'm sure its very easy, but as you said a good look over wouldn't hurt it.

Again thanks for all the help guys.

I'll be happy when I can get this hooked up to a bigger keyboard, because the bass on this thing is still clear and agressive a whole octave lower than what the keyboard allows. I've been playing it with the pitch bend held down 12 notes. Unless there is a way to transpose even more and I dont know about it. That could happen :-).



Oh ... PS:

Kind of a funny story. After playing this thing for 30 minutes, my Beyerdynamic 770's that i've had for 3 years blew out. HAHA. So I guess this guy is pretty powerful. The left speaker is gone. :-) It didnt exactly make me sad though, I was kind of happy. hah

You notice I said "trim pots" in my post. These are the ones in the holes with the rubber stoppers on the front panel. You just adjust them with a screwdriver and would probably take a couple mins but if you'd rather pay a tech to do it go ahead. How much did that tech quote you to do it? I'd feel bad charging more than $20 for it.

If it's just trim pots . Seriously you can't fuk it up if you read how to do it.
You need a guitar or daw tuner plug to check you're spot on.
These things are only hidden away to stop you knocking them by accident.
You'd better learn this stuff if you want to use classic synths or you'll be off to the tech for every little thing.

However one thing that bothers me is why is it so badly out of calibration?
Is it because of an impotent scale fumble in it's past or is it a cap leaking?
I doubt any tech would bother to find out as you can porobably solve the issue with the trip pot, so why go deeper right ?

I say, read how to do it and do it.
It will be fine mate! It's easy.
If you mess up, take it to the tech for a tune up and charge the eBay guy.
Win win

I tried doing it, and its not getting in tune. The directions are confusing because it says use knob V11 to get notes F1-F4 in tune. Then use VR12 to take the notes out of tune. Thats where I get confused. I'm not sure how I'm supposed to be doing this. Its very frusterating. I've found the pots and I can noodle with them, but I cant get it in tune.