Roland System-100M

The Roland System-100M was a modular analog synthesizer manufactured by the Roland Corporation in the late 1970s and early 1980s. It was the successor of the Roland System-100, a semi-modular keyboard.

In the 1980s, shortly after its introduction, Richard Burgess of Landscape called the 100M "one of the best synthesisers on the market, with so many control functions available independently, whereas most synths only have one or two LFOs to do all the modulating." Ian Boddy considered the System 100M "an almost ideal introduction to the world of modular synthesis," and praised its oscillator sync sound, especially when sampled to achieve polyphony.

By the 1990s, although digital synthesizers were starting to replace analog ones, several prominent musicians still enthused about their 100Ms. Jack Dangers of Meat Beat Manifesto said "the best thing about it is that it's modular and it uses a patchbay, so you can send things back on themselves and get, like, analogue feedback, you really can... You can do cross-modulation, too. It's pretty good for external sound sources, as well." Chris Carter called it "as versatile, expandable, and affordable a system as you can get without going the DIY route" in 1995.

Hardware re-issues and recreations


In 2020, Behringer announced a series of Eurorack format modular synthesizer modules based on the original Roland System-100M modules:
 * 110 VCO/VCF/VCA
 * 112 Dual VCO
 * 121 Dual VCF
 * 130 Dual VCA
 * 140 Dual Envelope/LFO
 * 150 Ring Mod/Noise/S&H/LFO
 * 172 Phase Shifter/Delay/LFO
 * 173 Quad Gate/Multiples
 * 182 Sequencer
 * 297 Dual Portamento/CV Utilities (combination of 132 Dual CV / Audio Mixers & Voltage Processors & 165 Dual Portamento Controller)
 * 305 EQ/Mixer/Output (combination of 131 Output Mixer / Tuning Oscillator / Headphone Amp & 174 Parametric EQ)

Notable users

 * Aphex Twin
 * Ian Boddy
 * Vince Clarke
 * The Human League
 * Landscape
 * Meat Beat Manifesto
 * Public Image Ltd
 * Throbbing Gristle