Alex Ball

The Roland RS-09 - Forgettable Turkey or Forgotten Gem? (2019x31)

Air date: Dec 05, 2019

The Roland Organ/Strings 09 (RS-09) was released in 1978 and then updated in 1980 or 1981. It's a divide-down, paraphonic poly with sounds grouped into Organ I and II (with octave divider sliders) and Strings 8' and 4'. There's a basic low-pass filter, an LFO (with delay, rate and depth), stereo ensemble with two speeds, envelope release control (with two modes) and a separate attack control on the strings only. You can use the audio and gate out to run the RS-09 through another synth's filter with control of the filter envelope and you can also run external audio through the RS-09 to add stereo ensemble to it.