Roland System 100 brochure

Roland System 100 brochure

Ages ago I’d read that there were originally going to be more modules in the original Roland System 100 series, but nothing further was released (probably in Gordon Reid’s excellent History of Roland)

I hadn’t seen anything more about this until I spotted this brochure on eBay (long gone now) for the original units, with the following:

Also planned for the near future are: Audio Delay unit, Stereo Phaser, VCO bank, and other units.

…so maybe, 105 Audio Delay, 106 Stereo Phaser and 107 VCO Bank?

I could imagine the delay and the phaser being similar circuits to the equivalents in the 700, but I can’t think how they would have been designed to stack up on the System 100 – the top of the 102 isn’t particularly deep. Maybe this was part of the reasoning that led them to design the 100m?

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2 comments

  1. 14th November 2017VINCENT says:

    Ha! I always wondered why there was a 104 and a 109 modules but nothing between!

    I’m glad to see that you haven’t left your blog! Your posts are always really interesting and they helped me a lot to understand how the System 100 is working under the hood! Also I’m so fascinated with your knowledges (your patience and sometimes your jokes too!) and your results with all your clones!

    And please post something about the S/H of the System 100! haha! Cause mine is broken! 🙁 (unfortunately I can’t figure out where the problem is)

    Anyways, keep it up! Please! Your blog is awesome!

  2. 14th November 2017ua726 says:

    aw, thanks mum!

    Thanks for the encouragement, I don’t know what I’m doing really 🙂

    I built the S&H from the 102 up on stripboard a while back, but never quite got round to writing it up. The 3 pole 5 way switch is uncommon, and probably put me off a bit. The one I managed to find was huge and incredibly stiff. When I finally get round to panelling up my boards (after this monstrous 100M project) I’d probably go with a 2 pole 5 way switch, and have another switch for whatever the other pole was (possibly clock, I think).

    Anyway, all I can suggest for your 102 is to see if you can follow the input signal through. If you have a flashing light for sample time then that would suggest the clock is working – if not, then suspect the sample time pot and then possibly IC401 and surrounding on OP-29. If that’s ok, then I’d check the signal path from just after the switch at point 18 on board VCO-5 and on through there. The opamp at the centre of the LFO stopped working on mine recently, so I’d probably give the CA1458 at IC201 a hard stare. Also I’d just be sure to check and see that the clock is making it back from OP-29 to the S&H by checking for a negative-going blip on point 23.

    Hope you get it sorted. It’s not that complicated, it’s just that the way that it’s split across the two boards is slightly annoying.

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