The argument that Roland has possibly abandoned and given up on ACB technology has now been proven to be wrong, thanks to new products still using the system.

Meanwhile, a successor to the System 8 has been talked about a lot on various threads. The original System 8 has a lot of fans and is actually a very good VA synth in native mode, before you even start with the plug-outs.

I have made a rough mockup including the features I would like it to theoretically have, which I realise isn't to everyone's taste. Am assuming the 3 BMC chips needed to power the original have been replaced with a more up to date central processing chip to deal with the extra features and grunt it would need for such a configuration.

So lets say they decided to do it. What would you hope for?

Roland System 16

• 5 Octave velocity and AT equipped semi weighted keybed + Metal case + chassis
  
• Full control of LED colour selection (pic is green as I couldn't change it easily)
  
• 6 Plugout spaces with Multitimbral capability.
  
• Extended native synth engine with an extra osc, 2nd LFO and new waveforms.
  
• bigger screen to see split/layer info far more clearly
  
• Extra f/x channel with more up to date f/x algorithms
  
• Sequencer with song mode, double the amount of steps and the missing metronome/count in for Realtime recording.

Do away COMPLETELY with the plug-out nonsense I say. This in my mind is mainly for marketing purposes.

Use the variation mechanism on the System-8 panel to facilitate vintage Roland oscillators and filters, and keep it one unified engine. A sequel to the System-8 engine, basically. More voices, more modulation, more multi-timbrality, less plastic and no lights!

If it is sporting Jupiter, Juno etc filters and oscillators that should be enough to lean on from a marketing point of view. The plug-outs on the System-8 are the most boring part of that synth. Having the oscillators and filters should suffice to give us the essence. S8 right now only has the filters, not oscillators. Keep the FM, that adds really nice timbres.

Nickel and dime us with preset packs, not complicated plug-outs that need a convoluted light show and Roland Cloud system to beam them into the synth via a DAW - awful!

The system-8 engine right now is very underrated and is a modern classic. It sounds phenomenal, it just needs more LFOs and voices etc.

I would change the Sub section to Noise shaping, maybe even with power similar to what is in Lead 3. Otherwise it's kind of wasted space to have two control sets but one mixer input for both. Another thing I would change is transpose effects section one right, eventually giving it more flexible routing in menu. Thus giving us FX1, FX2 (with potential modulation, like chorus), Delay, Reverb.

I am still not on board with all this plug out mechanism. I think it might backfire in a decade or two. I would be less worried, if they made them free and not connected to any host in internet, giving people freedom of installing them from files. I know it won't happen, but this is why it is my source of concern.

Me personally, I love the ACB stuff, I think they sound fantastic and indeed I subscribe to Roland Cloud. But my iMac is Late 2015… so it’s running its course. If a beast came out like this hypothetical you posted, I’d be all in.

But general consensus these days… for hardware, seems to be leaning towards at least including analog filter and vca. Roland would have to kick it up a notch to attract folks I think.

I share your perspective. ACB by its nature (and what Roland claims it's doing) should give potentially possibility to build modular synths, so given more strict architecture it would be matter of only exchanging some components in models. Sometimes giving new unpredictable results.

Rainbow : May not be liked by synth users

Rainbow

I had a paint program that would pick out colours and changed them. since I got a new pc, I never re-installed it.

Can you do one in all red or deep orange (like left hand side of your pic) as this at what I ultimately wanted to show.

100% agree. Make the System 16 more like Diva, but with even more granularity, and by that I mean I can choose a different oscillator engine for each oscillator, and give me one of the ROMpler engines as an option, but make it like the System 100 in terms of modulation. That would be a must buy.

Red or deep orange? May the JDXA be of service?

Yes, I had one of those. Unfortunately, unlike the System 8, you couldn't dim them. They were way too bright imho

Yep.

Someone did a custom job here, dimmed the lights by marking the LEDs physically with a black pen, looked amazing. Unfortunately the pics are gone.

orange and red

Superb

I will never get tired of looking at that picture!

Anyway, we need to be careful not to go OT too much, because both those synths share property of being just a little bit short of being a lot more, with JD-XA being a lot more desirable with also double polyphony and maybe, just maybe, having encoder in place of buttons. I mean: we could all dream about more improvements, but when minimising cost of development, there is so little to make them so much more. ;]

The only thing I really want out of a System 8 successor is multitimbral operation. If I could get four parts of System 8 I would absolutely use this synth way more than I do (and I'd gladly shell out for it!). I usually gravitate to the Virus or Nord Lead for that reason. It doesn't really fit my workflow to record a part so I can reuse the synth.

The Roland Cloud plugins are great but they're a bit heavy on my system. and I find I can only get a couple parts going on the computer before I have to dial up the latency enough to screw up the composition process

I remember that guy who painstakingly removed all the green leds and replaced them with red ones on a TR8.

That's devotion for you. Not something you'd nip down the garden shed with your old soldering iron to do!

I love these types of threads with synth mockups.. Roland and others should be paying you guys!

Yes, fantasy synth time. Here's my take:

Roland SYSTEM-8A "A" stands for "Advanced"

• JUPITER-X's keybed (their nicest basically) 5 octave, velocity and AT
• Metal front, plastic chassis. Sexier feel but keep weight in check
• Intelligent programmable RGB lights:
  • By "programmable" I mean you can pick/set up your own color scheme per sound engine AND per preset (use this to highlight what controls need to be played in a performance). Also can select different idle animations.
  • By "intelligent" I mean use the intensity and color of the lights to convey useful dynamic information. Look at the the Circuit Mono Station for an example. Having LEDs everywhere means you can use the entire synth to display useful information, doing things more sophisticated than just turning some lights on/off.
• 16 voices, bi-timbral
• Native engine + 7 Plug-Outs, each has space to save 256 presets
• Significantly extended native engine, with all the extra controls needed for that. Keeping that knob per function ethos. I won't go into too much details but mainly a second simpler LFO for vibrato/tremolo and such expressive duties, power up the effects, additional LFO, oscillator and filter variations, but also, this is the main novelty, introducing arpeggiator variations (current, JP-8's, Scatter, pattern generators, etc) and envelope variations (different curves, looping, delayed, percussive/clap, etc). Goal is to introduce more vintage analog modelling (including from beyond Roland's legacy) but also concepts distilled from the modular world/other forms of synthesis, akin to Arturia's Freaks.
• (Speaking of Freak, have some of the oscillator 2 variations process oscillator 1 like on the MiniFreak)
• Don't forget a circuit mod knob ("vintage knob")
• Two arpeggiators, one per part. ( Set them to different arp variations for maximum entertainment ) Arps can now be advanced by the trigger in.
• Sequencer start with the same, but somehow let us transpose a sequence with one hand (instead of having to hold down a button like currently), add some form of probability, add step loop, add a control that will mess with the rhythm/articulation of the sequence in a random yet musical way, and finally add a control that will mess in a similar fashion with the melody/harmony. ( Arturia Freak's Splice and Dice, Novation Launchkey Mutate and Deviate, that kind of generative West Coast-ish descended territory)
  
• AI knob somewhere. I haven't quite decided what it'll do yet, place holder. Goal floating in my mind right now is somehow get more expressive playing but without having to implement some form of more sensitive controller/keyboard and without having to learn such a new controller. It'll likely sound fake/synthetic, and that's what I want.

I think that about covers it.

I don't know what to do with the I/O thought. Maybe a bit more CV outs to make it a better controller.

I don't know if they read these forums, but keeping a finger on the pulse of what their customers actually want would perhaps seem a good business tactic.


I forgot that one.

Seems something they could have easily tweaked in an update (as would have been a metronome and count in for the real time sequencer).

Nice. Add:
- wheels
- effects on/off button (bypass)
- internal power supply
- new plugouts: JX-8P, Alpha Juno, Jupiter-6, MKS-80
- top effect section

Less lightweight plastic. More metal and wood.

Since we're whiteboarding, LEDs that indicate a knob or slider's preset position, as well as color selectable and dimable.

Modulatable effects parameters.

Gain adjusted drive FX, or an option for it. More chorus options; don't lock FX behind plugouts.

You mean similar to the Nord Lead 3?

That could be expensive seeing as there are so many knobs and sliders on this thing...... but, this board would be expensive anyway, so why not sling them in.

Actually I'm going to amend this.. The only things I really want out of a System 8 successor are multitimbral operation and a module format. I've got enough keybeds in the studio already.

I'll join the desktop/module chorus - that would be my #1 request.

+1

Body color : White Gray
LED color : Salmon Pink

Dynamic voice allocation please.
So I can make the Jupiter 4 plug out 4 voice if I want to etc.

Bravo sir....Bravo

I realised that I'm basically asking for an evolution of Articulated Phrase (AP) Synthesis:

AP was limited to certain waveforms and had models mostly based on classic solo instruments. The new one I'm wishing for could be applied to any patch and would also have more made up models that are more electronic in nature (or actually based on nature, like the singing of birds).

But the real take away is that I'd like an additional and unusual form of expression beyond the traditional keyboard and Roland stick.

~~~

Zooming back out, I haven't said much about Plug-Outs. For me the SYSTEM engine is the main event, I love its sound and diversity, but I still like the Plugs. Not because they model specific classics but because they let me access a very different vibe and character at the push of a button. Therefore I'd be more interested in Plugs that move out of Roland's territory than in seeing the few remaining Roland classics that haven't been modeled yet (although they should do those too obviously). Can be based on other brands, can be entirely made up, I don't care, I want contrast, not slightly different shades of the same thing.

~~~

Another small detail: the main filter cutoff knobs should be BIG with really high resolution (24 bit "griffer" knob). Actually, I'd like all the controls to be high res, so maybe make this MIDI 2.0 ready, but filter is the most important.