Synth minimalism maximized.
The closed beta of a (very) long secret work in progress has been started.
Unlike on the screenshot – this is a picture of the alpha version – the synth will be named SH-116 OMNI and is a 16 channel multi timbre polyphonic unison monster thingy, something that would not even be possible with 16 single items of a real SH-101 legend ( these are late 80’s, very popular monophonic, one-oscillator synthesizers from Roland Corporation – regularly sold for thousand++ dollars even today on the second hand market. The original is neither polyphonic nor multi timbre nor unison capable ).
With the start of the beta phase, we redesigned the vector based user interface completely to become a real 3D interface.
With using Apples SceneKit or maybe RealityKit the UI will be presented in a controllable 3D environment. Previous UIs did react somehow sluggish because of using loads of stitched image resources.
I’d like to participate in the beta for SH-116.
Can design a batch of presets if desired.
Thanks for your time and consideration!
I edited the email. The right one is below
I‘ll put you into the next beta release cycle.
Same. Tried using Test Flight, but link is dead.
Long time sh-101 fan, would love to get a mobile digital version, same for presets.
Egoskeet@gmail.com
Disregard, link is working. I look fwd to providing you with useful feedback and overall impressions. Love the Sh101, has t been a proper emu yet, imo. Let’s see what Jax says about that….
The beta probably will become public very soon.
We are currently implementing a completely new UI framework, replacing the old one (first image), which was hybride vector image based.
The new user interface will be based on a real 3D environment (dark picture above). The special Roland bend has inspired us, because it must move in multiple directions, which is just not possible with stitched static images.
Also the casting of 3D shadows required allot of stitched image resources and was leading to bad performance with a sluggish UI response and high CPU hit just for the UI updating. ^^
So the new UI will be built completely on performant Apples 3D environment technology (featuring Metal shader frameworks under the hood) and also is prepared for the spatial space on the Apple Vision Pro this way.
Really loads of work currently.
First: The current beta of this project (JAX SH-116 Omni) is a closed beta. We decided so, because our latest betas were just ignored and this is always allot of work for preparation – finally resulting in nothing…
Second: This is NOT an emulation of the Roland SH-101. If you want an emulation, please try the Roland Cloud emulation. They say it would be an emulation of the original, based on circuit modeling.
SH-116 Omni got somehow the DNA of the SH-101. This means it uses same basic concept of sound architecture and generation – but also quite not (!?).
It does neither emulate the oscillators nor the filters nor does it emulate the limitations of the legend. So patches cannot be shared at all with the original. Some parameters are implemented differently (i.e. being bi-directional) for allowing more variety in sound generation.
Remember: The SH-101 was a strictly monophonic synth with a fixed velocity. JAX SH-116 Omni is everything but that. It is polyphonic, multi-timbre and additionally independent of polyphony unisono capable (up to 8 polyphonic super oscillators per voice). It also has a drum channel and it features trigger based transposable step sequencers / arpeggiators.
So the JAX SH-116 Omni is a completely new concept of analog synthesizer workstation, able to play back standard MIDI files created for it.