I've had two consistent complaints about most Roland equipment: a lack of convenient controls and an unnecessary amount of navigating through incomprehensible menus. But earlier this year, the company shipped the Aira Compact S-1 Tweak Synth. Its menu infuriated me, but it offered a good amount of handy controls. Then, not long after, Roland introduced the SH-4D, which not only had plenty of controls, buttons, and faders, but also a streamlined menu and display that didn't predate home computers. My biggest issue was the form factor; I really wanted it to be a dedicated synth with a keyboard, but it was more of a pseudo groovebox.
So when Roland announced the Gaia 2 (a long-awaited update to their 13-year-old virtual analog synth) I felt cautiously optimistic. The S-1 and SH-4D were signs that the company was heading in the right direction interface-wise, and they both sounded great. At first glance, the Gaia 2 seemed to be everything I was looking for in a Roland synthesizer: plenty of handy controls, a decent screen, a simplified menu, and a full-size 37-key keyboard. And yet, at the risk of sounding impossible to please, I walked away from the Gaia 2 a little unsatisfied.
All sounds except the drums come directly from the Gaia 2. The only additional processing is some EQ and compression.
Hardware
The most disappointing thing is the construction. Now, to be clear, the Gaia 2 doesn't look cheap, but I was expecting a little more from a $900 synthesizer. The top panel is metal, but the rest is plastic. The keyboard is excellent, but it lacks aftertouch. The knobs are mostly fine, but there are a few encoders that feel loose and move quite a bit. The detents on some are also weak, making it easy to miss the target. Additionally, the pitch and modulation wheels are strangely little. All of these things would be easily forgiven with a $600 synth, but at this price I was a little disappointed.
The Korg Minilogue XD, for example, only costs $650 and generally feels sturdier, even if the keyboard isn't as good. And Elektron's Digitakt and Digitone lack a keyboard, but feel nearly indestructible at $949 (and for just $50 more).
However, the controls are extensive. Roland hasn't solved all of his menu navigation problems, but Gaia 2 comes pretty close. There are more knobs and buttons than I care to count. Everything is organized logically, and while there are some toggle functions, many of the controls are single-purpose, allowing you to tweak almost anything with one hand while you play. This is becoming increasingly difficult to achieve, as customers expect more powerful synth engines with more modulation options, while at the same time wanting instruments to be compact.
The Gaia 2 isn't exactly small. At about 26 inches wide and 13 inches deep, it takes up a decent amount of desk space, but it's not burdensome. And it makes the most of its front panel, filling it with controls and a decent-sized screen.
It's inevitable that your eyes will be drawn to the “Motional” touchpad located just below. It's one of the highlights of the synth, and my only complaint is its placement. It's in the center, which makes sense if you use it to navigate menus with a cursor. But it's much faster to just use the knobs. The touchpad just doesn't feel natural for navigating the interface, and would be much less cumbersome to performance on the left side; There's certainly room for it along with the toy-sized tilt and modify wheels.
The Motional Pad is great, terrible name aside. At first it seems like a gimmick: a large X/Y touchpad, similar to the Korg Kaoss Pad, dedicated to modulation. But once you get past the initial strangeness (and the Roland factory heads that lean hard on its gimmicky side), it's hard not to see the value. It is used to control the waveform and phase modulation of oscillator one, but you can also assign almost any parameter you want to the X and Y axes and change them simply by dragging your finger.
What's more, you can record that movement, essentially giving you a complex third LFO. It records not only the shape of finger movements, but also the moment. So you could draw small circles slowly from the bottom left to the top right, to open the filter and increase the resonance before quickly zigzagging back to the beginning. Many of the factory presets treat this animated modulation sequence as a novelty, drawing in little people, leaves, and, of course, the Roland logo.
sound engine
Clearly this isn't a deal breaker, but it does speak to a broader issue I have with Gaia 2: many of the presets look like tech demos and I don't find them particularly usable. Now I can hear people up in arms. “Well, a real musician would be designing all of his own patches from scratch anyway!” you might be saying. I'm here to tell you to go kick rocks. There's no shame in playing presets, especially if you make music as a hobby. Additionally, factory presets should be a sample of what a synthesizer is capable of, not only technically but musically as well. And judging by that, Gaia 2 is firmly stuck in the early years.
Ultimately, this is what made me feel cold about the Gaia 2: it sounds dated. The original Gaia was a strictly virtual analog affair. Its successor kept the same three-oscillator structure, but swapped a wavetable engine for one of them (the other two remain virtual analog). There are many excellent, modern-sounding synthesizers that use wavetables, but Gaia 2 specializes in a particular brand of Roland cheese. It's perfect for a turn-of-the-century cyber thriller, and while some people will love it, others won't.
The two virtual analog oscillators sound clinical and lack oomph in the lower registers. The filter is extremely versatile with three different slope options (-12 dB/Oct, -18 dB/Oct or -24 dB/Oct) for each of its three modes (low pass, band pass and high pass) and an option of variator. It may sound a little weak, but it's useful.
I wish I could say I'm more in love with the sound engine, because otherwise this is probably the nicest modern Roland synth I've ever used. The Gaia 2 strikes a near-perfect balance between complexity and accessibility. The three oscillators, multi-mode filter, dual LFOs, Motional Pad, and rich effects section offer plenty of depth, but are incredibly easy to adjust. Everything is clearly labeled and all the most essential parameters have direct hands-on controls. Even most things that require switching functions or some menus are quite intuitive. It's legitimately fun to code. The Gaia 2 would be an excellent instrument for learning synthesis if it weren't so expensive.
Applying the LFO to any parameter is as simple as holding down a button and turning the knob of whatever you want to modulate. And there's even a step mode where you can design a custom 16-step wave. The Motional Pad and excellent sequencer are very easy to use. And having faders instead of knobs for the two envelopes (amp and filter) is a nice touch. There's no modulation matrix and you can't reroute the envelopes, but I didn't mind that much. I rarely encountered a situation where In fact I wanted to do something by designing a patch, but I couldn't. It's a simple synth with enough depth to keep even seasoned players turning the knobs for hours.
Model extensions
Once you get bored of Gaia's core engine, you can load up Model Expansions to add emulations of classic Roland synths like the Jupiter-8 or Juno-106. It even comes with a SH-101 emulation pre-installed. Honestly, that sounds better than the default virtual analog engine.
Of course, model expansions don't come cheap: $149. And loading them into Gaia is, shall we say, aggravating. You have two options: You can buy an optional $100 Wireless USB Adapter and send them from your phone. Or you can copy files to a USB key and then manually upload them from there. (You know, like it's 2001). This is one of the few places where Roland remains stubbornly archaic. Although the Gaia 2 has a USB-C port capable of transmitting audio and MIDI (and power), it cannot connect to the Roland Cloud Manager app to load Model Expansions.
Effects
However, the bright spot of the sound engine is definitely the effects. There are seven reverb and delay options, three great-sounding chorus types, and 53 other effects including compressors, bit crushers, lo-fi, and scatter. The new bright reverb algorithm, in particular, is gorgeous. There's almost as much room for sound design in the effects section alone as there is in the rest of the synth. This is also your best option for adding some character to main oscillators, which often sound cold.
Wrap
Ultimately, what makes Gaia disappointing is that it does a lot of things right, but it doesn't land quite right. It's extremely fun to program patches, but I just didn't click with the results. It expertly combines accessibility with depth, but it's too expensive to recommend to a beginner. And it finally offers the practical controls that people have been asking for, but the quality of the encoders, pots and buttons leaves a lot to be desired. I wanted to like Gaia 2, and I'm sure there will be a lot of people who will, but it's just not for me.
This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/roland-gaia-2-review-roland-finally-delivers-the-hands-on-synthesizer-weve-been-begging-for-150058035.html ?src=rss
