Pharmasonic Roland System-100 cloned for Eurorack. Buyer beware?
3,5 / 5,0 | 
Pharmasonic 101 and 102 · Source: Pharmasonic
Pharmasonic 101 · Source: Pharmasonic
Pharmasonic 102 · Source: Pharmasonic
Pharmasonic has released a pair of massive single-panel clones of the Roland System-100 Synthesizer 101 and Expander 102. Fully modular, patchable and impressive in 64HP. Unfortunately, controversy is swirling as to whether these units are actually available, or part of an internet scam…
Roland System-100
This is one of those stunningly retro-futuristic synths that looks like it came from another world. It could easily be part of a control panel in Space 1999 or Buck Rogers in the 25th Century. The system starts with the keyboard-integrated Synthesizer 101, which was undoubtedly a prelude to the SH-101. But then you could add other sections to your Roland console, like the Expander 102, Mixer 103, Sequencer 104 and Model 109 speakers. It was all connected internally, although there were some patch points for redirecting signals.
The Expander 102 was essentially a keyboard-free version of the 101, adding a whole other voice to your System-100. It did have some differences. It had a Sample & Hold and a Ring Modulator instead of the portamento/glide and noise generator.
The Roland System-100 is a stand-out 1970s synth that nothing has been able to touch in terms of style, and it also sounds pretty wonderful.
Here’s a good walkthrough from Melbourne Electronic Sound. It gives you a sense of the amazing physicality of the machine.
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Pharmasonic 101 and 102
Pharmasonic tells us that these are exact modular clones of the Model 101 and Model 102 synthesizers. And that’s all the information it’s prepared to offer.
Pharmasonic 101 · Source: Pharmasonic
Looking at the photo going from left to right, we start with a utility panel of inverters and mults. Then we go into the portamento and glide sections, complete with the red button manual trigger. Next, we have the modulation section with an ADSR envelope and four-waveform LFO. In the middle is the VCO with some useful modular extras.
You get outputs on all three waveforms rather than a switch, FM inputs and what I think is hard and soft sync labelled “weak” and “strong”. Then there’s a pink and white noise generator followed by a three-channel mixer. This would normally be the mixer for noise, VCO and external input, but here, it just has there patchable inputs for anything you like. The VCF has lowpass and highpass modes, two inputs and two outputs with CV modulation. Finally, at the end of the chain is a VCA.
For the 102, you can see that the portamento and noise sections have been replaced by a Sample & Hold and Ring Modulator; otherwise, they are identical.
Pharmasonic 102 · Source: Pharmasonic
In my view, what does let it down a bit is the rather plain front panel. Switching to knobs from the sliders of the original is ok and necessary to keep the width under control. But the look of the System-100 is so iconic that the Pharmasonic 101 and 102 needs something a little more groovy.
Availability
However, these modules are also available in kit form, with all the modules as individual PCBs. The 101 and 102 are really just a complete front panel for what are also available as individual modules. So if you are building your own, there’s no reason why you couldn’t add a little bit of paint to it before you screw it all together.
Pharmasonic is over in Japan, and so all the pricing is in Yen. The 101 and 102 come in at just under £600, which seems pretty decent to me. If you fancy a bit of a project, the PCB set and front panel will cost you only £65, but you also have to buy the components. It would be really interesting to see these modules in operation.
Buyer Beware?
When I first published this article, I immediately received a number of comments from different people claiming that Pharmasonic was a scam. They alleged that money had been taken and goods were not supplied to the tune of hundreds of dollars. I was directed to a Facebook group set up to gather information from customers who had trouble with Pharmasonic and to a forum thread on ModWiggler, which laid out some people’s difficulties. It made for uncomfortable reading.
This puts me, as a synth journalist, in a difficult position. On the one hand, we have a new product that’s worth celebrating; on the other, there are accusations which are difficult to ignore. Gearnews does not want to spread unfounded accusations against anyone. However, saying nothing would also be doing a disservice to the synth community.
The easy answer is to drop the article and have nothing to do with it. But these products exist, the company is operating, and all I actually have is allegations. In the forum thread, there are both happy and unhappy customers, and I know, having worked in music retail for many years, that sometimes customers can get things very, very wrong.
So, I reached out to Pharmasonic yesterday, hoping that someone could offer its side of the story or assurances that it’s genuinely trying to run a synth business. I’ve had no reply so far. It’s impossible to infer anything in either direction, so all I can do is refer you to the information you would find if you googled the company. Doing business can be hard, and it’s in Pharmasonic’s best interest to engage with the synth community in order to repair any damage these accusations are doing to its reputation. We will update this article if we hear anything.
- Pharmasonic website.
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21 responses to “Pharmasonic Roland System-100 cloned for Eurorack. Buyer beware?”
Look up the brand name in Google and add scam.
Interesting. I’ll add something to the article.
They delivered quite a few nice PCBs in 2020 but in 2021 ran a ship empty boxes to fake addresses scheme to generate false tracking info and run out the credit card chargeback timeframe. I personally lost a bit over $500.
I’m sorry to hear that Nick. We’re going to take this article down until we’ve heard from the company.
“sometimes customers can get things very, very wrong.”
It’s that simple, If you pay and you don’t get the product and they ignore you, it’s a scam and nothing else. That’s not the customer that is wrong.
The product is not new, it exists for years already,
Look sometimes you have to see the good in the human race. Customer’s do not just make up stories even if this company replies it doesn’t change the logic of how the scam is engineered! These are very clever companies who steal our money!
They took my order. I inquired about ETA. They provided a fake tracking number. Never heard anything again. I had to open up a claim with my CC company and it was a nightmare. Avoid.
Ordered a couple of RX5USB units. No tracking, nothing. But one day, after like a month, the shipment showed up, all good.
So in the end just like comments from other customers at that time said.
“sometimes customers can get things very, very wrong.”
Yes. People can be typically quite lazy, they just skim, they have limited understanding, experiences, patience.
If you think this is a scam then pull the article immediately until you get clarification on the matter. What you have done is the worst option. You are either promoting a scam or bad mouthing a reputable company. Take the article down until you get clarification.
Being in cybersecurity, even calling them and getting an answer and their version of the story wouldn’t be enough. Scammers are well organised and often experts at social engineering. The fake tracking scam is a real thing that happens. Also if you wired over the money, which they might try and make you do you won’t even be insured by your own bank. Money will be gone and that’s the end. Creditcard companies might actually re-imburse you.
Isn’t the job of journalism to get multiple sources for a fact BEFORE you go to print?
Seems like the comments alone confirm the scam nature of the product, but the article tries to walk a fine line between reportage and wanting to dream it might be true.
That’s not journalism, that’s writing fiction. And should be marked thusly.
I don’t quite understand you here. I did exactly that. I received multiple reports from different sources, I reached out to the company for comment, gave them ample time to reply and was left in a quandary. The product was advertised on ModularGrid and was interesting but I couldn’t ignore the allegations. So it seemed right to present the information. To not say anything seemed wrong to me. Easier just to ignore the whole thing, right?
I’ve bought from pharmasonic in the past (syncussion module clone) with no issues and quality was good! Sad to hear that things might have gone weird, but I wouldn’t personally jump to conclusions…
The website is gone now.
I bought dozens of pcb’s of him, which always arrived. His system 100 euro clones turned out fine. But there are enough reports that everything else he sold never arrived.
Website is gone?
Would be news to me.
I ORDERED TWICE FROM THEM (SYNCUSSION AND RX5USB) WITH NO PROBLEM AT ALL.
THAT’S MY EXPERIENCE…SO FAR, SO GOOD
That’s good to hear – thank you
Scam or not, I trust only the real thing, and Behringer offers for me all what I expect, aviable reachable and with 3 year warrenty. And the sound? Its documented, on YouTube and maybe one of your friends will show you what the Behringer System 100 can do for you. I see no reason to buy unsure.
Behringer sells eurorack modules similar to the grey faced Roland System 100M (released 1979) but called Behringer System 100 modules. Then there are Roland System 100, (released 1975) which are greenish semimodular synth systems with earlier designed different VCOs, more acidy VCFs, etc. To confuse things name-wise, Roland has been very recently selling much more recently something Eurorack reissues of the Roland System 100M called Roland 500 Series in collaboration with Malekko. So to sum things up still confusingly. Berhinger 100 modules are similar to the Roland 500 Series eurorack modules and both claim to be inspired by Roland System 100M from 1979. This Pharmasonic series is based on the Roland System 100 models 101 and 102. I was able to order them successfully in 2020 but was scammed by Oliver in 2021 for $500. To the customer who bought the Syncussion PCBs, I wanted to do that too, but your order must have been like 2019 or earlier. Had that been available in 2021 I surely would have bought a few …and been ripped off.
Never had problems with Pharmasonic, everything arrived in perfect conditions (ordered several times some System 100 modules) and in fast time. Communication via email was also no problem.
So sad to say this. The pharmacy sonic has always been one of my favorite synths makers. The synths are so cute.
Really sad to see this level of bullying. I ordered at least a handful of times from the seller and yes it took a while and times because of Covid and big orders. But I would often get discounts and had a great time building the synths. NOT A ScaM – just love.
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