If a musician purchased a new keyboard from Roland in the early 1980s, chances are it was a Roland RS-09. The analog string and organ synth was the company’s best selling keyboard for several years, a companion to the (now better known) organ-only SA-09. “String machines” like these are limited by modern synth standards but are known for the fullness of their sound, often paired with reverb pedals or Roland’s own Space Echo tape delay units.
Dublin-based studio AudioThing is the latest company to fall in love with the RS-09’s quirky sound palette and try to recreate those analog strings in emulation. Their plugin is called the RES-09, and it’s intended to faithfully render the RS-09’s sounds and build upon it with several enhancements that weren’t available in 1978 and a few that are still only possible in software. AudioThing’s RES-09 allows users to tweak or fine-tune each of its 12 oscillators and add four effects which match and build upon the aftermarket additions that owners of the original RS-09 would often use: Tape Echo, Spring Reverb, Overdrive (a kind of distortion based upon classic guitar pedals) and Phaser (phase shifter).
The keyboard face plate also maintains some fidelity to the original RS-09 while adding another row between the keys and organ/string controls, with the introduction of velocity and bias knobs, a tone slider, vibrato, envelope, ensemble and volume controls.
AudioThing’s RES-09 is available now as a VST, VST3, AU, AAX and CLAP plugins or a standalone app for macOS, Windows and Linux and as AUv3 and standalone apps for iOS.
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