I have watched and heard this video many times over the years and I am still coming back to it in 2023 because of how you bring the wonderful sounds of the Roland U220 back to life. I have this unit, but you inspire me to dust it off the shelf and use it! Thank you SynthMania. I have been following your channel for years and years and I can only imagine how much hard work and dedication you have put into making these videos for us, especially your 2 videos on the search for the bassline of "Illusion" - Imagination (it would be good to make a modern update of this using only a VST (instead of hardware) , a MIDI controller and pitch automation in Ableton.) I still come back to these videos and other videos of yours from the past.They are an invaluable source of information to sounds of the 70's, 80's and 90's wiithout which we would struggle to find the answer to "where did that sound come from and how did they make that sequence?" All the best to you, my friend. We all really appreciate your work and it shows that you have a lot of fun making these videos for us! 😄
Two years ago there was a lady playing the keyboard version (U-20) in an old-fashioned 19th century folk band. She had the keyboard inside a custom wood shell made by her husband. You could not tell what type of keyboard she was playing at all, and that piano sound fit really well into the band's music. The whole thing, inside its case, looked like a clavichord (NOT a clavinet).
Funny thing is : The converters of the U220 sound much smoother and better than the 2080. The U220 has practically the same base sound as the JV880, if you turn off the FX. The sounds of the U220 are pretty basic, but If you like them (as I do) go for it! Units go for 50-100€ at the time of this writing.
The U220 Piano sound was heard in various Disney Channel bumpers in the late 80s-early 90s. Peter Lurye used this for composing Magic School Bus and Bear in the Big Blue House. One of the patches he used is the acoustic piano patch. (He even uses the vibes and shakuhachi patch)
It might have been the U-110, U20, D70, SO-PCM-01 Card, or SR-JV80-07 Expansion Board but Billy Straus, Steve Sandberg, or Josh Sitron also used the U-220 piano on Seasons 1-4 of Dora the Explorer.
I love my U20. The pads and bells are beautiful and outstanding. It has that charming HQ-lofi sound of the 90s and remembers of the sound from amiga-MODs. Some Windows 95 system-sounds were created with an U20/220....
@@BookieKillah No, I was never able to find a source referencing the U220 being used for windows 95 system sounds, there is one sound on the U220 that sounds like the notification sound in windows 95, but beyond that I am not sure how the other sounds were made.
This was when synths sounded great before they were watered down with GM/GS sound. I had and gigged a U20 for years and loved it. I still think it had one of the best sounding pianos and the strings, choirs and pads were great too. In the end I replaced it with a Korg Trinity which was more flexible but still did'nt have as good acoustic piano sound.
I had one of these when they first came out in the late 80s; still have the CD demo songs I got at NAMM done by Eric Persing. To this day, one of the best 'horn section' sounds I've ever used was a custom patch where I built up multiple horns with tuning and panning on the U220.
I wanted some great Roland sounds at a budget price in the mid 90s and bought a used U220. It had some truly amazing patches for the time including the acoustic piano, strings, choirs, solo trumpet, vibraphone, that infamous muted electric guitar sound and even some brass sounds. It was a perfect sonic match for the Korg T3ex, Roland DR660 and Alesis S4 Plus that I was using at the time for my music production
Amazing! I owned the predecessor U110 when it came out; it was a no-frills sample player. Some weeks ago I found the U220, and what a surprise when I noticed that it actually allows editing of sound parameters such as ADSR, random pitch/panning etc. Still limited compared to the later JV series, but amazingly versatile and inspiring.
7:55 - that piano sounds so solid and full of tone; a tad bright perhaps and lacking some sample layer dynamics but apart from that it gets the juices going.
J'en ai un que j'ai acheté en 1989 (hé oui, je suis un vieux con) et je n'ai aucune envie de m'en séparer. Je l'utilise toujours dans des productions actuelles. Ses sons (comme on l'entend ici) sont absolument géniaux et parfaitement utilisables.
I have one since they came out . It made a great live piano which cut through the mix and had body. The unit sort of died last year so I got a u220 to replace it. It had the orchestral strings card with it which sounds amazing
2:20 That sounds like that one bell from Kirby 64! Also, happy 1K likes! 6:44 A lot of Kirby fans will recognize this sound. 8:22 I feel like I've heard this somewhere in Kirby music. 9:45 sounds familiar.
I have this one in my rack. thanks for rediscovering the nice sounds of this. Your conclusion about the choir is right. It compared it with the Korg M1 and they sound nicer on the U220
Funny - I have a D-20 and a U-220 as well. I thought the same thing w/r/t the Choir sound. Mind blowing, huh? The Fairlight partials (Vox) sounds were amazing as well. Still a nice piece of kit. The internal effects really helped make this module sound great. Eric Persing's internal demos always blew me away on all Roland gear. I think you press Jump and ^ (up) while powering on the unit to get into the demos. Always disgusted me I couldn't ever reproduce any of that on my own... heheh. Of course with a moderately well equipped laptop, DAW software, and Omnisphere these days, well, there's Eric Persing again! :D
great demo...i have the U110 and still use it from time to time for it's acoustic instrumentation. didn't realize that the U110 and U220 have very different presets.
I considered buying a U-110 and some sounds like the saxophone are better on the U-110. But when I found out the U-220 had a few extra sounds including synth pads from the D-50 I decided to get the U-220. But maybe as these modules are only 1U size and the chance of me finding a Korg M1r or 01R/W seems remote I might also buy a U-110 as you can still buy them quite cheap. I also have a CM-32L and CM-32P.
0:10 For some reason, this made me want to sit down to eat, and use a napkin for once... 1:40 Simpsons theme?... 2:20 Frenté - What's Come Over Me?... 3:15 Knock On Wood?... 4:13 Haddaway - What Is Love... 5:15 808 State for a couple of seconds there... 5:43 Albinoni's Adagio For Strings?... 6:54 Art Of Noise - Moments In Love... 9:26 The start of any number of Steven Seagal/Jean Claude van Damme movies of the late 1980s... 10:52 So familiar, but can't identify this intro...
@@luhmayo647Yes, I have heard that too. But I have also heard people saying it’s the D-70; which in some ways overlaps the sound character of the U-220. I’ve also read someone suggesting the 01/W. It always confuses me a little😅.
Hi there. I am new to synths and keyboards and midi, but have always loved the old 80's sounds (my youth). I jumped at the opportunity to buy a korg 03r/w and a Roland pc300 controller, along with a Roland u-220 and a Roland A-880 patchbay. (I still can't believe my luck!). BUT! As a total novice, the manuals are like reading how to build rockets for engineers who understand how to build rockets and I am not an engineer! I have spent months on trying to get them to go - the patchbay is sitting idol in the too hard basket for now. I am really struggling to understand the midi channels... The korg and the u-220 both default to channel 1 - but I want to play both separately - at this stage anyway. Korg on midi channel 1 (I have nailed that) and the U-220 on midi channel 2. I don't even know if the u-220 is broken - and I have done factory resets and reinstalled the sysex files etc - but I make the midi channel to 2 and many patches play at the same time as the korg on midi channel 1. I am literally pulling my hair out and everyone I ask tells me stupid stuff like I am making things more complicated than I need to, which is not helpful. I simply would like to set the U-220 to midi channel 2. Would someone please please PLEASE give me easy step by step instructions on setting the u-220 to play on midi channel 2 so I can enjoy these wonderful sounds and continue on with my learning journey :(
Sharing my choir sound making experience (related with the choir sound in the vid starts at 6 minutes) The more "key by key" the sampling, the better the choir sound gets and actually nothing else matters more than this...... Making various choir sounds (working on a recent project of mine) every type of choir sound idea came out very well if the recorded human sound was chromatic scale recorded. If the program (patch or kit) was recorded using less samples the pitching kills everything!
I used to have a U110 in the nineties. The piano sound might not sound so high-end compared to todays standards, but it was the best piano sound around for live gigs, since it had so much body and cut through the mix at all occasions. 90GB sample libraries never gave me that experience, I've owned also JV and XV rompers after the U110 but the pianos all sound weak compared !
I have a U-220 and a D-20...haven''t pulled them out storage in a decade. Maybe I will just for laughs HAHAHA! :D Nice playing tho sir...love your newer videos - very interesting gear you have - WOW.
You can pick up the U-110 or U-220 for almost nothing at the moment. Which one is better? I think the U-220 is the newer one, so maybe it has more sounds? The sound it not that different to the Roland JV series?
The U-220 is the better of the 2 even though there are a few sounds that sound slightly better on the U-110. The JV series sounds are based on tight compressed versions of the U series sounds while others like the acoustic guitars and strings are new samples plus some of the JV stock sounds are based on U series PCM card samples.
Enjoyed watching this, I actually quite like the piano sound at the start, wonder if this is as great rave machine as my D-110, if I see one cheap I'd be tempted to give it a go.
heavily used by Pete Parsons who engineered/co-produced a lot of the atmospheric drum and bass on labels like Lucky Spin and Dee Jay recordings that found it's way unto LTJ Bukem's Promised Land cd. That and the Korg M1 were staples for that stuff before the JV1080 came out.
+jonesgerard The manual states 30, but not ever having used one, there could be a extra 2 for the seperate drum channelIf you play a preset consisting of 2 voices, you get half of the 30 notes, making it 15 notes at once
The "tromborn" typo can perhaps be explained by the quirks of Japanese phonetics when borrowing English words: "trombone" becomes "toronboon" ( トロンボーン ), and "horn" is "hoon" ( ホーン ), and in Japanese phonetics an "h" often changes to a "b" when it appears after an "n". So it's understandable for a Japanese person to make a mistake that assumes that the "-bone" of trombone is actually from "-horn", and somehow ending up with "tromborn".
Hi thank you again for this very nice video I have bought one unit However i wonder if there is a cheap way to get a very good piano sound from a cheap M-audio keystation 88 thanks a lot and kind regards gino
Salve Signor Paolo,ho un problema e spero che mi possa aiutare.Ho un XV3080 con le schede Pop,Tecno e Orchestral 1. Il problema è questo:non capisco perchè il preset "Snow "Flakes" non suona quando il 3080 è in modalità performance. Quale potrebbe essere il motivo? Grazie in anticipo
Excuse me, I bought this module, but the user patch are setting all at the midi channel 9; I change the channel to 1 and write the patch, but when turn the power on its again to the channel 9; remember you how make that the changes working out?
@@andrewscott1253 I think you are talking about the flat sounds you use in a Multi. Because, in the other case, with two waveforms, two FM engines, and two EFX unit, you can cover all the spectrum of frequencies you desire. It was, probably, the only synth able to be warm and cold at the same time as the musician desire. You always have to compare the SY77 with the market till that time: when she arrived, people used to deal with M1, DX7, D50. If talk about "cold sounds" from an SY77 you have to listen to a DX7 or a D50! (But also here we can open another topic>> if you are Live, on the go, this approach to the sounds is powerful, if you are recording, in your tracks you'll have too much you cannot control directly in post production. So you wold like to have some less structured sound, and work on two different steps in post.... BLA BLA BLA... sorry! too much words out of topic!! :D hahaha) In the case I'm talking about I agree with the word "cold". It's a matter of architecture of the synth (and the synths in general). On the SY there is one FX unit (with two busses) for all the machine. It is very powerful on a single sound. But if you want more than one sound coming out from your baby, you need to get to a compromise using Multis. This, of course, happens with all the synths, if you ask more than one thing. The sound you listen in a program, sometimes, is quite different from the one you get inside a Multi. If you want the IcePad and the GrandPiano working simultaneously in a project, you'll be disappointed from the result. Sometimes the sound is "just effects" on a very poor sound or a waveform. In a Multi you can set up all your sounds for a production and, globally, use the two efx on the four outputs. But still a compromise. That's why the two couples of separated outputs are there. You can use them to "bring out" the clean sounds you can process with external gears, and use the powerful but limited efx for what you really need. in the VST world you don't experience this limitation as you don't experience polyphonic issues: if you need another sound, usually you call a new instance of the same synth and it brings with it another, independent, machine. On a single sound, there were no competitors for that era in matters of digital synthesizers. And that "big" display (for the time) was amazing to get access to the complicated and amazing FM synthesis. In my setup, there were synths like Wavestation A/D, 01W, Akai S1100, TX 802, TG100, D70 and others. So you can imagine what was the time. With the 01W, for example, now that I think about it, you could experience quite less of this issues on a Combi, always because of the architecture of the synth and the way it generates sounds. The general rule dealing with that synths in 90s was 1 synth = one voice. More sounds = More takes. Even if you have a trillion of polyphony notes. And I finish with the opposite consideration about a Multi (or a Combi in Korg language): If you use a Multi as a single program, you can create VERY complex sounds merging all the waveforms and FMs you want under your fingers. Give a kiss to your SY77 for me.
@@lucderan Thanks for your deep insight. I will fiddle with my SY77 and see what can make it do. It could of course just be my copy and many it needs a service. I will kiss my SY77. My it has an interesting history in being in quite a few factory pop hits of the 90's according to its former owner.
@@andrewscott1253 Listen: in my experience (and i discovered it was common) the volume faders, after years don't work properly. Usually You cannot ear nothing (as in my case), but, may happens that, for different reasons, could just affect the outputs even if you ear something. Same as for the 3.5 Jacks connections. There could be a mess in therms of sound quality. If it is a very used synth (mine is without writings at all! all faded away after millions of pushes!! easy way to evaluate the use of a synth as a synth or as a keyboard !! :D ) You should make a comparison at least listening the same presets from a different source (a youtube video with presets isn't the best, but is enough to notice some serious problem on the output). Hope it will help. And happy FM!!! :D
Mine has been in it's case for possibly 15 to 20 years. Just thinking of getting ti out again, check if it still works and writing some songs on it as I did many years ago. My only gripe with it is that the keys aren't weighted enough.
You are bringing up old memories here. For years, my U-220, my Yamaha TX 802, my Korg 05r/w and my Proteus 2 were my go-to sound modules. Until about 2007, when I ditched my hardware synths in favor of virtual instruments.
Why does the piano on the U-220 sound better then the piano on my JV-1010 or is it just me? I thought the piano should be the same sound? I may have to find a U-220 if it's different. This piano sounds really nice.
You can also consider getting an SR-JV80 series expansion board for your JV-1010, the Session and Piano are quite nice - I have demos of all the SR-JV80 boards at my HTML website if you're interested: www.synthmania.com
I haven't tried the Apollo, but it gets rave reviews, so it's most probably very good (plus it has the plugins). The strong point of the Alpha-Link compared to the many all-in-one audio interfaces on the market is the number of analog I/Os (24 x 24) which I need for my mixer. Frankly, imho today all audio interfaces are really, really good, even the inexpensive ones.
I have watched and heard this video many times over the years and I am still coming back to it in 2023 because of how you bring the wonderful sounds of the Roland U220 back to life. I have this unit, but you inspire me to dust it off the shelf and use it! Thank you SynthMania. I have been following your channel for years and years and I can only imagine how much hard work and dedication you have put into making these videos for us, especially your 2 videos on the search for the bassline of "Illusion" - Imagination (it would be good to make a modern update of this using only a VST (instead of hardware) , a MIDI controller and pitch automation in Ableton.) I still come back to these videos and other videos of yours from the past.They are an invaluable source of information to sounds of the 70's, 80's and 90's wiithout which we would struggle to find the answer to "where did that sound come from and how did they make that sequence?" All the best to you, my friend. We all really appreciate your work and it shows that you have a lot of fun making these videos for us! 😄
Thank you - Yes, it was the Roland SH-1000, so you can use any modern VST that replicates that type of Roland SH sound
Two years ago there was a lady playing the keyboard version (U-20) in an old-fashioned 19th century folk band. She had the keyboard inside a custom wood shell made by her husband. You could not tell what type of keyboard she was playing at all, and that piano sound fit really well into the band's music. The whole thing, inside its case, looked like a clavichord (NOT a clavinet).
The fretless bass on the U220 is still about the best I've heard on any module before or since
signature50 yep, I remember that sound! :-)
I had a U-220. It was great. I am not a "musician" but MIDI and sound modules like the U-220 helped me to create some cool music.
u will always be a musician. Dont let these guitarists be exclusionary.
Someone who makes cool music is a musician, isn't he?
It's been 5 years since you uploaded this demo and it still sounds as sweet as then.
Thank you very much for sharing!
Funny thing is : The converters of the U220 sound much smoother and better than the 2080. The U220 has practically the same base sound as the JV880, if you turn off the FX. The sounds of the U220 are pretty basic, but If you like them (as I do) go for it! Units go for 50-100€ at the time of this writing.
The U220 Piano sound was heard in various Disney Channel bumpers in the late 80s-early 90s.
Peter Lurye used this for composing Magic School Bus and Bear in the Big Blue House.
One of the patches he used is the acoustic piano patch. (He even uses the vibes and shakuhachi patch)
It might have been the U-110, U20, D70, SO-PCM-01 Card, or SR-JV80-07 Expansion Board but Billy Straus, Steve Sandberg, or Josh Sitron also used the U-220 piano on Seasons 1-4 of Dora the Explorer.
I love my U20. The pads and bells are beautiful and outstanding. It has that charming HQ-lofi sound of the 90s and remembers of the sound from amiga-MODs. Some Windows 95 system-sounds were created with an U20/220....
Can you please link or reference to where you found out about the u220 being used for Windows systems sounds?
@@XTheNicksterX Did you get anywhere with that?
@@BookieKillah No, I was never able to find a source referencing the U220 being used for windows 95 system sounds, there is one sound on the U220 that sounds like the notification sound in windows 95, but beyond that I am not sure how the other sounds were made.
@@XTheNicksterX Yeh, would've been nice for *Stephan S* to provide a bit of citation there...
Sounds to me that the piano has more character than the more modern modules. It would be a perfect expander for my Korg M1.
OMG that Future Pad sound at 10:21 is so beautyful still today.
Simply beautiful playing
This was when synths sounded great before they were watered down with GM/GS sound. I had and gigged a U20 for years and loved it. I still think it had one of the best sounding pianos and the strings, choirs and pads were great too. In the end I replaced it with a Korg Trinity which was more flexible but still did'nt have as good acoustic piano sound.
I had one of these when they first came out in the late 80s; still have the CD demo songs I got at NAMM done by Eric Persing. To this day, one of the best 'horn section' sounds I've ever used was a custom patch where I built up multiple horns with tuning and panning on the U220.
beautiful playing
I wanted some great Roland sounds at a budget price in the mid 90s and bought a used U220. It had some truly amazing patches for the time including the acoustic piano, strings, choirs, solo trumpet, vibraphone, that infamous muted electric guitar sound and even some brass sounds. It was a perfect sonic match for the Korg T3ex, Roland DR660 and Alesis S4 Plus that I was using at the time for my music production
Wow this module is about 30 yrs old and you can still make it sing!!!
It sounds even better than I thought ! Great playing.
Amazing! I owned the predecessor U110 when it came out; it was a no-frills sample player. Some weeks ago I found the U220, and what a surprise when I noticed that it actually allows editing of sound parameters such as ADSR, random pitch/panning etc. Still limited compared to the later JV series, but amazingly versatile and inspiring.
Each demo segment was a style appropriate to the sound. Cool.
Fantastic playing and demo!!!!
You make it come alive because of your ability to match genres to the sounds. Brilliant demo!
Wow, the solo brass and winds are insane
7:55 - that piano sounds so solid and full of tone; a tad bright perhaps and lacking some sample layer dynamics but apart from that it gets the juices going.
The D70 was a U20/U220 with added time variant filters and more complex envelope generators as well as that supposedly novel DLM processing.
It seems like a lot of these sounds, along with sounds from the R-8 drum machine made their way into the Sound Canvas series.
Yeah. I can't trust that acoustic guitar and some other instruments were taken from U-220.
U-110/220, D-10/20/110, and MT-32, as well as R8 Drum Machine, are the modules that made rock solid foundations of the Roland Sound Canvas series.
J'en ai un que j'ai acheté en 1989 (hé oui, je suis un vieux con) et je n'ai aucune envie de m'en séparer. Je l'utilise toujours dans des productions actuelles. Ses sons (comme on l'entend ici) sont absolument géniaux et parfaitement utilisables.
Mad organ and choir are fabulous!
getting one of these tomorrow, so excited
Great playing, especially on the acoustic guitar!
I have one since they came out . It made a great live piano which cut through the mix and had body. The unit sort of died last year so I got a u220 to replace it. It had the orchestral strings card with it which sounds amazing
0:49 good lort that was smooth
Beautiful sounds
THIS WAS A HUGE PART OF MANY MANY PRODUCTIONS I'VE MADE! U-220!
This synth was used by Peter Lurye who composed The Magic School Bus. In it, you hear the piano and shakuhachi, and vibraphone.
He also used the Universe synth from the Korg M1.
I had the U-110. It was a great sample player. I used it mostly for drums after I sold by TR707 and TR727.
This is a lofi dream!
2:20 That sounds like that one bell from Kirby 64! Also, happy 1K likes!
6:44 A lot of Kirby fans will recognize this sound.
8:22 I feel like I've heard this somewhere in Kirby music.
9:45 sounds familiar.
Yep, I can recognize a lot of Kirby instruments!😄
3:15 sonic advance 2
@@tl1882, oh, wow! I didn't even notice that.
So this one of the synthesizers that’s been used in Kirby games since the 90s(such as the iconic Syn Vox and Trumpet used 😅in Kirby games)!😄🤩😎👌
Ha, thanks :) That's from a song of mine called The Turtle iirc, from an album of Lounge music that eventually I'll release
I have this one in my rack. thanks for rediscovering the nice sounds of this. Your conclusion about the choir is right. It compared it with the Korg M1 and they sound nicer on the U220
Funny - I have a D-20 and a U-220 as well. I thought the same thing w/r/t the Choir sound. Mind blowing, huh? The Fairlight partials (Vox) sounds were amazing as well. Still a nice piece of kit. The internal effects really helped make this module sound great. Eric Persing's internal demos always blew me away on all Roland gear. I think you press Jump and ^ (up) while powering on the unit to get into the demos. Always disgusted me I couldn't ever reproduce any of that on my own... heheh. Of course with a moderately well equipped laptop, DAW software, and Omnisphere these days, well, there's Eric Persing again! :D
Own 2 of these, awesome sounds from them
***** Unfortunately they are in use with music production
I own 3 of these: the 1st is at home, the 2nd is in my band's rehearsal room, the 3rd is the spare.
Yes on Shakuhachi.
Many voices great for ambient music.
Bass and piano, you got it, the gift
great demo...i have the U110 and still use it from time to time for it's acoustic instrumentation. didn't realize that the U110 and U220 have very different presets.
I considered buying a U-110 and some sounds like the saxophone are better on the U-110. But when I found out the
U-220 had a few extra sounds including synth pads from the D-50 I decided to get the U-220. But maybe as these modules
are only 1U size and the chance of me finding a Korg M1r or 01R/W seems remote I might also buy a U-110 as you can still
buy them quite cheap. I also have a CM-32L and CM-32P.
Sinth Vox 1 - Moments in love, and Shakukaki sound for me the best. Great demo.
I have many demos of the SN-U series cards at my html website. However, I do plan to do demos of them on youtube as well
Could not find it anywhere, would you please share the exact link? Grazie mille e un saluto
@@davidd5403 www.google.com/search?hl=en&source=hp&ei=tXQ1YMK4Lvmw5NoP5P6xoAg&iflsig=AINFCbYAAAAAYDWCxSwuzBZrkIVMDEQ_9Qy1mk3IqcwQ&q=synthmania+SN-U&oq=synthmania+SN-U&gs_lcp=Cgdnd3Mtd2l6EAMyBQghEKABOgsILhCxAxCDARCTAjoICAAQsQMQgwE6BQgAELEDOgsILhCxAxDHARCjAjoCCC46AggAOgUILhCxAzoGCAAQFhAeOgUIABDNAlDwG1j3SmDCTmgCcAB4AIABRogB5QaSAQIxNpgBAKABAaoBB2d3cy13aXqwAQA&sclient=gws-wiz&ved=0ahUKEwiC5-ng-oDvAhV5GFkFHWR_DIQQ4dUDCAg&uact=5
I still have the U-220 and I use it. ;-)
AMAZING MAN, thanks for the video, i had one this ....and search for videos reviews......thanks for posting
0:10 For some reason, this made me want to sit down to eat, and use a napkin for once...
1:40 Simpsons theme?...
2:20 Frenté - What's Come Over Me?...
3:15 Knock On Wood?...
4:13 Haddaway - What Is Love...
5:15 808 State for a couple of seconds there...
5:43 Albinoni's Adagio For Strings?...
6:54 Art Of Noise - Moments In Love...
9:26 The start of any number of Steven Seagal/Jean Claude van Damme movies of the late 1980s...
10:52 So familiar, but can't identify this intro...
The sound called mad organ on the u220 is called Organ 3 on the sound canvas modules and there the same exact sound specifically the sc55 4:11
And it has also been used on What is Love by Haddaway!
@@luhmayo647Yes, I have heard that too. But I have also heard people saying it’s the D-70; which in some ways overlaps the sound character of the U-220. I’ve also read someone suggesting the 01/W. It always confuses me a little😅.
many very epic sounds! tahnks for sharing!
Hi there. I am new to synths and keyboards and midi, but have always loved the old 80's sounds (my youth). I jumped at the opportunity to buy a korg 03r/w and a Roland pc300 controller, along with a Roland u-220 and a Roland A-880 patchbay. (I still can't believe my luck!). BUT! As a total novice, the manuals are like reading how to build rockets for engineers who understand how to build rockets and I am not an engineer! I have spent months on trying to get them to go - the patchbay is sitting idol in the too hard basket for now. I am really struggling to understand the midi channels... The korg and the u-220 both default to channel 1 - but I want to play both separately - at this stage anyway. Korg on midi channel 1 (I have nailed that) and the U-220 on midi channel 2. I don't even know if the u-220 is broken - and I have done factory resets and reinstalled the sysex files etc - but I make the midi channel to 2 and many patches play at the same time as the korg on midi channel 1.
I am literally pulling my hair out and everyone I ask tells me stupid stuff like I am making things more complicated than I need to, which is not helpful. I simply would like to set the U-220 to midi channel 2. Would someone please please PLEASE give me easy step by step instructions on setting the u-220 to play on midi channel 2 so I can enjoy these wonderful sounds and continue on with my learning journey :(
i remember the heavy guitar sound-was great for dance-i used it loads in bottom octave
Sharing my choir sound making experience (related with the choir sound in the vid starts at 6 minutes)
The more "key by key" the sampling, the better the choir sound gets and actually nothing else matters more than this...... Making various choir sounds (working on a recent project of mine) every type of choir sound idea came out very well if the recorded human sound was chromatic scale recorded. If the program (patch or kit) was recorded using less samples the pitching kills everything!
Thank you! ❤ That was great a lot of fun! I wish I could write you a check!
I used to have a U110 in the nineties. The piano sound might not sound so high-end compared to todays standards, but it was the best piano sound around for live gigs, since it had so much body and cut through the mix at all occasions. 90GB sample libraries never gave me that experience, I've owned also JV and XV rompers after the U110 but the pianos all sound weak compared !
Best demo ever mr magic pinkies !
Perfect demo!
just bought one of these on Reverb, cant wait to play it! :)
The best!
I have a U-220 and a D-20...haven''t pulled them out storage in a decade. Maybe I will just for laughs HAHAHA! :D Nice playing tho sir...love your newer videos - very interesting gear you have - WOW.
I owe one and still like it 🙂
3:32 This was used in the MegaMan X soundtrack, especially in X2
Nice demo!
You can pick up the U-110 or U-220 for almost nothing at the moment. Which one is better? I think the U-220 is the newer one, so maybe it has more sounds? The sound it not that different to the Roland JV series?
The U-220 is the better of the 2 even though there are a few sounds that sound slightly better on the U-110.
The JV series sounds are based on tight compressed versions of the U series sounds while others like the
acoustic guitars and strings are new samples plus some of the JV stock sounds are based on U series PCM
card samples.
6:43 that one Kirby synth
I hope they add the U-220 to the Roland Sound Cloud.
haha wow. it may just be a 'sound demo', but this video is great. Awesome playing.
Enjoyed watching this, I actually quite like the piano sound at the start, wonder if this is as great rave machine as my D-110, if I see one cheap I'd be tempted to give it a go.
Beautiful sounds :)
heavily used by Pete Parsons who engineered/co-produced a lot of the atmospheric drum and bass on labels like Lucky Spin and Dee Jay recordings that found it's way unto LTJ Bukem's Promised Land cd.
That and the Korg M1 were staples for that stuff before the JV1080 came out.
I love your channel Paolo ; Here in paris I can find them for 50 to 100 bucks ; gonna get one for sure, at least for the piano and choir !
Have fun!
now heres the demo i been lookin for;)
Downside is 32 note polyphony, its starts note robbing, not as many effects as the U20 keyboard.
+jonesgerard The manual states 30, but not ever having used one, there could be a extra 2 for the seperate drum channelIf you play a preset consisting of 2 voices, you get half of the 30 notes, making it 15 notes at once
Woow This U220 seems better than Mine !!!!
The musicianship is stunning.
NATIVE DANCE!!!!
The "tromborn" typo can perhaps be explained by the quirks of Japanese phonetics when borrowing English words:
"trombone" becomes "toronboon" ( トロンボーン ), and "horn" is "hoon" ( ホーン ), and in Japanese phonetics an "h" often changes to a "b" when it appears after an "n". So it's understandable for a Japanese person to make a mistake that assumes that the "-bone" of trombone is actually from "-horn", and somehow ending up with "tromborn".
Hi thank you again for this very nice video
I have bought one unit
However i wonder if there is a cheap way to get a very good piano sound from a cheap M-audio keystation 88
thanks a lot and kind regards gino
amazing
Um bom músico da vida ao som. E o seu caso brother!
Had one of these in my studio during the nineties - fantastic piece of kit. Now it's all on my laptop! :-)
I still use an U-220 in a rock band.
In what doftware form is it?
those are really good sounds for 1989. when i think of the 80s i still always think of 8-bit music too much
Syn vox 1 is definitely from Kirby lol
Salve Signor Paolo,ho un problema e spero che mi possa aiutare.Ho un XV3080 con le schede Pop,Tecno e Orchestral 1. Il problema è questo:non capisco perchè il preset "Snow "Flakes" non suona quando il 3080 è in modalità performance. Quale potrebbe essere il motivo? Grazie in anticipo
i like the sound
Excuse me, I bought this module, but the user patch are setting all at the midi channel 9; I change the channel to 1 and write the patch, but when turn the power on its again to the channel 9; remember you how make that the changes working out?
6:10 Then the SY77 arrived and killed both of them setting a new benchmark!
I own one and would agree, but it felt like they tried too hard to make a breathy synth and mine at least feels a little cold.
@@andrewscott1253 I think you are talking about the flat sounds you use in a Multi. Because, in the other case, with two waveforms, two FM engines, and two EFX unit, you can cover all the spectrum of frequencies you desire. It was, probably, the only synth able to be warm and cold at the same time as the musician desire.
You always have to compare the SY77 with the market till that time: when she arrived, people used to deal with M1, DX7, D50. If talk about "cold sounds" from an SY77 you have to listen to a DX7 or a D50! (But also here we can open another topic>> if you are Live, on the go, this approach to the sounds is powerful, if you are recording, in your tracks you'll have too much you cannot control directly in post production. So you wold like to have some less structured sound, and work on two different steps in post.... BLA BLA BLA... sorry! too much words out of topic!! :D hahaha)
In the case I'm talking about I agree with the word "cold". It's a matter of architecture of the synth (and the synths in general). On the SY there is one FX unit (with two busses) for all the machine. It is very powerful on a single sound. But if you want more than one sound coming out from your baby, you need to get to a compromise using Multis. This, of course, happens with all the synths, if you ask more than one thing.
The sound you listen in a program, sometimes, is quite different from the one you get inside a Multi. If you want the IcePad and the GrandPiano working simultaneously in a project, you'll be disappointed from the result. Sometimes the sound is "just effects" on a very poor sound or a waveform.
In a Multi you can set up all your sounds for a production and, globally, use the two efx on the four outputs. But still a compromise. That's why the two couples of separated outputs are there. You can use them to "bring out" the clean sounds you can process with external gears, and use the powerful but limited efx for what you really need.
in the VST world you don't experience this limitation as you don't experience polyphonic issues: if you need another sound, usually you call a new instance of the same synth and it brings with it another, independent, machine.
On a single sound, there were no competitors for that era in matters of digital synthesizers. And that "big" display (for the time) was amazing to get access to the complicated and amazing FM synthesis.
In my setup, there were synths like Wavestation A/D, 01W, Akai S1100, TX 802, TG100, D70 and others. So you can imagine what was the time. With the 01W, for example, now that I think about it, you could experience quite less of this issues on a Combi, always because of the architecture of the synth and the way it generates sounds.
The general rule dealing with that synths in 90s was 1 synth = one voice. More sounds = More takes. Even if you have a trillion of polyphony notes.
And I finish with the opposite consideration about a Multi (or a Combi in Korg language): If you use a Multi as a single program, you can create VERY complex sounds merging all the waveforms and FMs you want under your fingers.
Give a kiss to your SY77 for me.
@@lucderan Thanks for your deep insight. I will fiddle with my SY77 and see what can make it do. It could of course just be my copy and many it needs a service. I will kiss my SY77. My it has an interesting history in being in quite a few factory pop hits of the 90's according to its former owner.
@@andrewscott1253 Listen: in my experience (and i discovered it was common) the volume faders, after years don't work properly. Usually You cannot ear nothing (as in my case), but, may happens that, for different reasons, could just affect the outputs even if you ear something. Same as for the 3.5 Jacks connections. There could be a mess in therms of sound quality. If it is a very used synth (mine is without writings at all! all faded away after millions of pushes!! easy way to evaluate the use of a synth as a synth or as a keyboard !! :D )
You should make a comparison at least listening the same presets from a different source (a youtube video with presets isn't the best, but is enough to notice some serious problem on the output).
Hope it will help. And happy FM!!! :D
Mine has been in it's case for possibly 15 to 20 years. Just thinking of getting ti out again, check if it still works and writing some songs on it as I did many years ago. My only gripe with it is that the keys aren't weighted enough.
the U220 guitar is sampled in mega man x2/3
You are bringing up old memories here. For years, my U-220, my Yamaha TX 802, my Korg 05r/w and my Proteus 2 were my go-to sound modules. Until about 2007, when I ditched my hardware synths in favor of virtual instruments.
Why does the piano on the U-220 sound better then the piano on my JV-1010 or is it just me? I thought the piano should be the same sound? I may have to find a U-220 if it's different. This piano sounds really nice.
You can also consider getting an SR-JV80 series expansion board for your JV-1010, the Session and Piano are quite nice - I have demos of all the SR-JV80 boards at my HTML website if you're interested: www.synthmania.com
My jaw dropped when I heard the E.Organ 9 demo, and now I don't know where it fell. :'c
haha some sounds are cheese in a good way :)
Because of their nostalgia?
@@TheMDElder More because of the limited technology at the time. Kontakt libraries sound more realistic than some old Roland patches these days.
Was 'Synth vox 1' used on the theme to Star Trek Next Generation?
Probably would have been either the original sound from the Fairlight II called ARR1, or from the Emulator II sound called DigiVcs
Are those effects on the Roland or do you have to buy sound cards ?
No sound card was used in this demo.
Do i can plug it to the ALESIS FUSION 8 HD?
5:16 (two chords) Deep House? Just hook it up to digital mixer with LP filter and you're set.
damn, that is one good sounding module!! What A/D converter did you use to record the output?
SSL Alpha-Link MADI AX
a-hah. That explains it! thx for reply!
SynthMania
Last question - how does the Alpha-Link compare to the UAD Apollo?
I haven't tried the Apollo, but it gets rave reviews, so it's most probably very good (plus it has the plugins). The strong point of the Alpha-Link compared to the many all-in-one audio interfaces on the market is the number of analog I/Os (24 x 24) which I need for my mixer. Frankly, imho today all audio interfaces are really, really good, even the inexpensive ones.
THANKS!