The Roland System-100M was a

modular Broadly speaking, modularity is the degree to which a system's components may be separated and recombined, often with the benefit of flexibility and variety in use. The concept of modularity is used primarily to reduce complexity by breaking a s ...

analog

synthesizer A synthesizer (also spelled synthesiser) is an electronic musical instrument that generates audio signals. Synthesizers typically create sounds by generating waveforms through methods including subtractive synthesis, additive synthesis a ...

manufactured by the

Roland Corporation is a Japanese manufacturer of electronic musical instruments, electronic equipment, and software. It was founded by Ikutaro Kakehashi in Osaka on 18 April 1972. In 2005, its headquarters relocated to Hamamatsu in Shizuoka Prefecture. It has f ...

in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was the successor of the Roland System-100, a semi-modular keyboard. In the 1980s, shortly after its introduction, Richard Burgess of

Landscape A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...

called the 100M "one of the best synthesisers on the market, with so many control functions available independently, whereas most synths only have one or two LFOs to do all the modulating."

Ian Boddy Ian Boddy is a British electronic musician and composer. In the early 1980s Boddy began experimenting at an Arts Council-funded studio in Newcastle. This period resulted in 3 cassette releases on the Mirage label, which showcased Boddy's work w ...

considered the System 100M "an almost ideal introduction to the world of modular synthesis," and praised its oscillator sync sound, especially when

sampled Sample or samples may refer to: Base meaning * Sample (statistics), a subset of a population – complete data set * Sample (signal), a digital discrete sample of a continuous analog signal * Sample (material), a specimen or small quantity of so ...

to fake analog modular

polyphony Polyphony ( ) is a type of musical texture consisting of two or more simultaneous lines of independent melody, as opposed to a musical texture with just one voice, monophony, or a texture with one dominant melodic voice accompanied by chords, ...

. By the 1990s, although digital synthesizers were starting to replace analog ones, several prominent musicians still enthused about their 100Ms.

Jack Dangers Jack Dangers (born John Stephen Corrigan, 11 January 1965) is an English electronic musician, DJ, producer, and remixer best known for his work as the primary member of Meat Beat Manifesto. He lives in San Francisco. Career Prior to founding ...

Meat Beat Manifesto Meat Beat Manifesto, often shortened as Meat Beat, Manifesto or MBM, is an electronic music group originally consisting of Jack Dangers and Jonny Stephens that was formed in 1987 in Swindon, United Kingdom. The band, fronted by Dangers (the only ...

said "the best thing about it is that it's modular and it uses a patchbay, so you can send things back on themselves and get, like, analogue feedback, you really can... You can do cross-modulation, too. It's pretty good for external sound sources, as well." Chris Carter called it "as versatile, expandable, and affordable a system as you can get without going the DIY route."

Components

New Modules

2020 Clones

The original Roland schematics being fully available online, Behringer has planned respective released their own versions (either straight copies or adaptions) of the Roland 100M series of modules in Eurorack format. As of July 2020, the following modules are available for (pre-)ordering: * 110 VCO/VCF/VCA * 112 Dual VCO * 121 Dual VCF * 130 Dual VCA * 140 Dual Envelope/LFO * 150 Ring Mod/Noise/S&H/LFO * 172 Phase Shifter/Delay/LFO * 173 Quad Gate/Multiples * 182 Sequencer * 297 Dual Portamento/CV Utilities (combination of 132 Dual CV / Audio Mixers & Voltage Processors & 165 Dual Portamento Controller) * 305 EQ/Mixer/Output (combination of 131 Output Mixer / Tuning Oscillator / Headphone Amp & 174 Parametric EQ)

Notable users

* Aphex Twin * Ian Boddy * Chris Carter * Vince Clarke * The Human League * Landscape * Meat Beat Manifesto

References

musicradar.com
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/ref> gearnews.com
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External links

Vintage Synth Explorer - Roland System 100mM185 from RYK Modular
Modular synthesizers System-100M Analog synthesizers Polyphonic synthesizers {{Electronic-musical-instrument-stub