Now that world has gotten out of the “groove” of mid to late 90’s grooveboxes the Groovesynth has to be looked at from a the context of what it is and always was: a programmable S&S keyboard albeit with internal waveforms that belied its early 90s S&S heritage. In that context its still a fine synth, overall. The quality of the internal samples is typical 16 bit 44.1 for the time it was manufactured but the fact that it was designed for the dance rance echnoglowstick crowd means that its chock full of synth waveform samples as opposed to a bunch of acoustic waveforms that won’t fool anyone with a discerning ear for acoustic music. Although Roland did provide more than a few acoustic waveforms one would be missing the point entirely by purchasing it for those – they can be found elsewhere if you must.

The Groovesynth’s strong points are all those synth waveforms that went sorely missing in S&S keyboards for so long prior to the aforementioned glowstick crowd influencing (for the better) popular synth design. All those various incarnations of saw, triangle, and square waves make this a synth (again, in the S&S vein) that sounds like a synth not a bassoon. Its easy to program due to the many knobs that, despite their serving several functions apiece, work well due to the clearly designed front panel that makes changing their functions dead easy. For programming its great. No, I mean it, really, really great. That’s the good news.

Now for the bad news. All those knobs make you want to seriously tweak them in real time, don’t they? They sure made me reach for them to start going all fuzzy. My foot on the sustain pedal, one hand on the freq knob, and the other on the rez gave me a nice warm vibraty feeling all through me guttiwuts as I attempted a slow infinitely evolving sweep that would last and last and… Sanity unfortunately prevailed due to very audible filter stepping that was immediately apparent. Unusable in that regard I would find out that first day that the stepping was only apparent when using the knobs in real time so programmed filter sweeps are fine albeit pretty standard ADSR stuff. Were it not for GC’s 30 day return policy I would have boxed it up and returned it straight away. The following 30 days allowed me to get over my disappointment and appreciate the Groovesynth for what it was and is (see the good news above).

In 1998, after years of slogging through layer upon layer of menu pages and the small to tiny LCD screens of a good many S&& synths that relied heavily (too heavily in my mind) on acoustic waveforms the Groovesynth was a refreshing change to me. In addition to the aforementioned very cool synthy waveforms there some compelling percussion and drum samples to add to my rig’s palette. I was finding myself going to the Groovsynth to fill in gaps – when I felt something needed just a little help, sometimes only for a bar or two, a finishing touch, but making all the difference and doing so quickly. After a few weeks I realized I would still go to my SQ80, Sequential Multitrak, X5DR, and my beloved K2000VP for analog filter authenticity or overt complexity but the Groovesynth endeared itself to me over those thirty days of easily programmed bread and butter bleeps, blips, belches, burps, squelches and screams. Its been an endearing relationship ever since. Its not the brightest or the best but it is what it is and sometime that’s all you need.

If you’re in Atlanta, GA or have enough bandwidth to stream live audio feeds check out WREK at 91.1 FM or www.wrek.org/wreknet.shtml and make a request for “Optofonik”. You will hear what happens when you let go of the "groove" and embrace the "synth".