The One Ring Theme on Roland RS-202 stringer

video upload by MIDERA

"Some friends are swapping gear and using my place to swap as neither live near each other... so right now I'm sitting with a Roland RS-202 for a bit (don't worry, I was allowed to test it out and provide feedback).

As you may know - I also have a Yamaha SK30 that I can't seem to bring myself to part with. And of course I figured why not see how they compare. Once they were next to each other, I could really tell where they differed. I would say the Roland RS-202 is 'silky' and has a very pleasing sound to it. The Yamaha SK30 is a bit harsher I guess. But they're very very different in almost every other way.

The RS-202 has basically no controls except 'tone', a few switches for brass or string sounds, vibrato, and sustain. It does have a wonderful sounding ensemble effect with two settings.

The SK30 has an envelope for the shared single filter on the polysynth, an organ section, tremolo and ensemble effects (they don't sound as good as the RS-202 ensemble), a fairly complex and robust routing system, detuning, and my personal favorite, the solo section which is a really nice sounding single VCO monosynth.

Also, the SK30 is like 3X bigger than the RS-202. I really dislike how large the SK30 is.

Well, here's all I could think to write, and it's not even mine. It's from the Lord of the Rings... but I'm guessing you knew that.

I used the Strymon Volante pedal and Eventide Blackhole VST."