If you read Rich Tozzoli’s review piece in June about our annual St. John recording retreat, you’re already familiar with his proposition that the smaller and more fully featured a piece of gear is, the more likely it’s going to be included in your carry-on. The SE-02 was the perfect candidate for our trip!
Analog is the big factor here. It was the only analog synth I was able to bring to St. John, and what a pleasant and powerful difference it made to our tracks. Big, ballsy bass; subtle, smooth or cutting melody/lead lines; and guttural sound effects were where this synth truly shined.
Laid out much like a Minimoog, with extras like pulse width modulation, dedicated LFO with additional waveforms such as S&H with MIDI sync and mixable X-mod capabilities, along with the built-in analog tape-style delay effect, it’s very easy to love.
Doubling as a tactile surface controller for Omnisphere 2.6 (with its hardware synth integration) and other synths that accept MIDI CC data, we used it on just about everything. Unlike a true Minimoog’s 3rd OSC, the SE-02’s 3rd OSC does not go low frequency enough as a modulating LFO. I hope to see a firmware update to allow the 3rd OSC to go ultra low.
All in all, a huge winner. The Roland/Studio Electronics collaboration was an island favorite.
Roland • www.roland.com