And, you know, on the one hand, they're synths running literally on toys, and on the other hand... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q1Dogq8g35c or https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2ixQvm7t_F0 .
Funny think about the TB-303. I found one in a pawn shop while I was in college in College Station. They had a TR-606/TB-303 for 60 dollars. I was just beginning to get into my gear head phase and remember reading on one of the early internet music sites what an important piece of gear it was. Thinking its too good to be true, I took an extra 386 PC I had laying around and offered it in trade(I was broke and didnt have 60 bucks). They accepted, and I took home these 2 boxes. This was around 1997 I believe. Wish I'd have kept them, but I ended up profiting pretty nicely from them.
The SE-02 is all right but let's see what happens when Behringer introduces its Moog clone for $300! http://www.factmag.com/2017/06/28/behringer-d-synth-pre-orde...
The 303 sound was first emulated in 1996 and later by plenty of soft synths. By the time Roland re released it was mostly a novelty to have an original machine.
It reminds me of Nintendo's failure to capitalize on ROMs and the persistent popularity of both NES and SNES for two decades ...and when they finally did they still managed to mess it up.
However, a big part of it was due to their lead engineer Tetsuya Takahashi - a true creative genius - who just left. It remains to be seen how good their product line can remain without him because he really was a unique hybrid engineer/product designer.
1-http://www.factmag.com/2017/02/17/tatsuya-takahashi-leaving-...
Entry level but also unique! I recently got a Volca FM and I absolutely love it. The alternatives were either vintage or insanely expensive. This was cheap enough for an impulse buy.
On the Analog synthesizer front, they are IMO the leader in democratizing analog synths and creating recreations of previously unavailable synthesizers. Arp Odyssey, MS-20 reissue, ms-20 KITS! They are also creating many new and well received analogs or digital analog hybrids with the Minilog, monolog and King Korg. The volca series is also great entry level gear. Im a huge fan of what Korg is doing and I have the Odyssey desktop module. In many ways its better than searching out a nice example of an original Arp. For the most part, they've compared pretty favorably to the originals and have the benefit of USB and midi. I have been able to create a spot on recreation of Herbie Hancock's "chameleon" bassline with it.
Contrast this with Roland. They have also recently been trying to recreate their past(again) but digitally(only). From an outsiders perspective it looks like they have lost their analog expertise to attrition or retirement, as they have only released two analog synthesizers in recent times in the SE-01 boutique module and the JDxi hybrid synth. The rest of their repro gear is digitally modelled. I dont think there is anything wrong with that, and I do own some of it (TR-8 and JP-08) but my take is that they are riding on past success more than pushing the technology forward.
As for this app, it certainly isnt anything I would use or want, but I think its great they are pushing rhythm and music to a large audience. No reason to hate on them for that...