Roland has released a lot of synths over the past few years, including revamped Juno and Jupiter lines, its Boutique emulations of vintage gear, the pocket-sized Aira Compact range and lots more besides. In my personal opinion, the SH-4d is the best thing in the company’s current lineup – and it’s down to an absolute bargain price on Amazon this weekend.
Like a lot of Roland’s current crop of hardware instruments the SH-4d makes use of the company’s Zen-Core engine, but its unique design sets it apart from the bulk of the company’s Zen-Core keyboards. The SH-4d is a five-part groovebox, with four polyphonic synth channels and one multi-track drum machine. Its sound engine makes use of a mixture of virtual analog, digital synthesis and sampling in order to offer a spectrum of sounds that range from vintage gear emulations to modern tones and an array of percussive kits.
