Roland AIRA Compact S-1 Tweak Synth

Never would I have expected to pay 175 euros and discover such a potential work horse. I expected it to be a simple tool I may be able to get a few samples out of but it's way more than that.

Okay so that's the intro done now to review.
I have spend a few days working hard to understand everything about the machine and as a product Roland have hit the nail on the head. Within a few hours you have learnt all of the basic properties of the machine. For a beginner this is exactly how it should be but as someone who's been buying keyboards for over 30 years I was concerned that this might be the point at which I return it, so I hit the manual (yeah the first few hours are pretty much manual free).

I found a whole new treasure trove of sonic happiness under the hood.
Note Probability, a Chorus effect that's actually not bad and on top of the Delay and reverb that are easily accessible on the front panel, arpeggio, an oscillator editor and some crazy motion thing that's actually pretty good.

I did discover a bit of noise on the headphones but through the USB I had a very clean and perfectly usable signal, for recording (some have said the opposite so I just wanted to add my experience).

I can also carry it around in my pocket and whip it out and play while the kids are arguing so that's also a bonus and the thing is rechargeable so I can survive 4.5 hours of agreements now.

I used the SH101 many many years ago and this not only brought back the nostalgia and simplicity of the classic (and it sounds so similar it's outstanding) but it added a sophisticated addition depth of fun and new possibilities.

A few years ago I bought a TR-8 and swore to never buy a Roland machine again but kudos to Roland for turning my frown upside down.

Get one, its a great way to break away from the DAW

After the synth got announced, it was an immediate buy for me! I've been hesitating at the time over several different models of other brands.
Every function ticks the box for a small, portable synth to play around with. I am using it as a companion to my Blackbox and it just makes total sense.
The hidden functions are still something i'm getting used to and FX controls are quite basic, but considering form factor and what you get as a synth it's just some whining of a modern producer. Can't imagine, how much space would it take to host something like this in the 80s

The Roland AIRA Compact S-1 Tweak Synth is dangerously good to have within arm’s reach.

I’ve got it parked next to my monitor, hooked up to an Ableton Move, and it’s basically a productivity hazard. You sit down to work, tweak one knob “just for a second,” and suddenly you’re 20 minutes deep into a sequence that has no business going that hard.

Is it deep? Yeah.
Is it distracting? Also yeah.
Is it worth it? Completely.

It’s the perfect “I’ll just mess around for a minute” machine that never stays a minute.