Leak! Is this a Roland SH-101 Boutique?

23 Jul 2017 by Robin Vincent | Approximate reading time: 1 Minute

Screen capture of Nick de Friez Instagram Story · Source: Nick de Friez Instagram Story

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Spotted in an Instagram Story the fleeting glimpse of what is clearly a Roland Boutique instrument that we haven’t seen before. In blue, with sliders, a handful of knobs and buttons how can it be anything other than a Boutique version of this:

Roland SH-101 in blue · Source: Matrixsynth

The classic Roland monosynth, the SH-101.

We were first alerted to the Instagram story by Sequencer.de who posted a blurred screen grab of the video. It comes from the account of Nick de Friez who, according to Synthanatomy.com works for Roland. The thing is that Instagram Stories vanish after 24 hours so by tomorrow we may never get another look. Although the images are really blurry, and I’ve tried all sorts of ways of getting a better shot, any synthesizer enthusiast will know that you just saw a slightly altered SH-101.

So….. I tried to video the video, and here’s an animated gif of the best passing shot.

Screen capture of Nick de Friez Instagram Story · Source: Nick de Friez Instagram Story

I think that’s pretty conclusive, don’t you?

There’s been a plug-out version of the SH-101 for the System 1 for quite some time, plus the virtual VST version found in the Roland Cloud. So, all the work’s been done, the ACB technology and the software already exists. They just have to build the hardware interface – job done. If it’s in someone’s studio, if if a member of staff, then it can’t be too far away. Which leaves us with just one question – will they release a mod grip attachment for the K-25m keyboard?