Naomi found one of these in a cupboard at her school. Apparently, they wanted to throw it out and she wanted a keyboard, so she claimed it. Now, I’m of the opinion that (a) it’s probably useless as a general purpose keyboard being, as it is, a “strings” synthesizer (it has a ‘brass’ setting, too, but it all sounds pretty much the same), (b) it’s probably quite rare (a dig around on eBay revealed only one of them, and google is very sparse on details) and (c) it’s a valuable part of synthesizer history as it basically defined the Roland sound for the next 15 years, and so therefore obviously I should get to look after it, love it, cherish it and maybe just occasionally turn it on, press a key and go “ooooooh”. She, however, doesn’t quite see it like this. She actually wants to play it. It’s sacrilege, I tell you. Sacrilege.
In all seiousness, though, if anyone knows if this thing really is worth anything, I’d love to know: I feel like it ought to be, but I can’t confirm it.
I’ll give you a fiver and a KitKat Chunky, but one of the horrible Turkish Delight ones, for it.
<A HRef=’http://www.soundonsound.com/sos/Jul02/articles/retrozone0702.asp’>This article says quite a lot more about where the RS-101 fits into synth heritage: it seems it’s notable as the first of its kind in a few narrow respects, but its successor RS-202 is the model that features in heaps of recordings.
So if you found someone desperate for it, maybe you’d get a couple of hundred pounds, tops, for it.
What I really want is a Moog Taurus, but so does everyone else and they therefore cost over a grand second-hand.