Roland Gaia 2 Advanced Synthesizer

I spent about 10 minutes with this synth before I decided I’m going to return it.
Just a thin, tinny sound that absoultely underwhelms- especially for the price!!! I have a dozen software plug-ins for $5 that sound better.
It reminds me of the Casio VZ series.

The Gaia2 does a lot of interesting things. I think it is kind of a sleeper synth going into 2025. There are two lfos, each with 4 assignable slots. Most of those assignments are items on the left and right hand side of the synth, there are some exceptions to this. The center motion pads X and Y axis are both assignable as well, so it’s a customizable third LFO, essentially. Again, some things you can’t modulate with it, but a lot of things you can, and it is very easy to do. Much easier than on the Hydra Synth, or MicroFreak. I wish every knob was modulateable, but it’s pretty fullsum. I could niggle about things I wish it did (Like After Touch, or multi timbrality) but that would be to miss all that it can do, which is a lot. I don’t think you’d need much more in a synth, more keys maybe. The effects are quite good, especially when you use the shift button and get into the parameters. You can really beef up the tones with the FX. At first I really didn’t understand what all the parameters in the effects did, but as you get into it, you’ll figure that out. Reverb is pretty good. You can tweak a few of the different reverbs to get a pretty good result. I don’t think the reverb is great, but it is certainly good. And perhaps, in time, I will discover some new approach that helps to like them more.

I’ve owned the g2 since it came out. My biggest issue was the over all sound character out of the box.
I think a must do is to simply turn on the compressor template number 1 in the master control section. I can’t tell you all that it does, but the over all sound of this synth changes from kind of a punch to your ears to really sweet sounding machine. Without compressor 1 on I don’t enjoy the way this synth sounds. With it on, I can make patch after patch for hours pretty much every day. So that is big.

The keyboard feels pretty good. I don’t notice any bugs in the software. The menus are pretty simple, and the overall learning curve is pretty manageable. I’d love to see more creators discover this synth so that more content showing off it’s true ability would be available. I’m in my 50″s and have bought and sold a bunch of synths of the years. I have a Pro3, I’ve had op-1s, Fantoms, Junos, Hydra, etc. This is a nice synth, an amazing first synth, and, I think, veteran players will find a pretty solid box if they can get past the idea that this is simply a “beginner synth.” I think it is quite a bit more than that.

Llego en tiempo y forma muy bien protegido, excelente sintetizador si te gusta lo analógico y digital excelente producto de la marca 😎👍🏻

The Roland Gaia 2 is a welcome addition to the family of Roland synths. It sounds very modern and to my ears is literally always better sounding in its rich unison mode. The setup of one wavetable oscillator with two standard virtual analog oscillators is a novel design but propels creative thinking. It’s almost always useful to use the unison mode over subtle detuning of the oscillators instead creating intervals & injecting high or low harmonics over the principal tone. I like the sound of the synth so much that I consistently forgot to program the tone knob but to my ears it doesn’t make as much of a sonic impact as on all the Roland Cloud Plug Out synths I’ve programmed. This thing sounds modern & great at so many settings. Definitely using the P-mod & S-mod settings is almost always a must when using the wavetable oscillator & don’t forget to select the S-mod tables as these all impact the harmonics with a lot of variation. The synth is laid out very intuitively & although the synth is boasted as knob per function it is not. The menus for making fine adjustments or accessing other parameters are well laid out & only have one sublayer for each section. The filters are all quite pleasing & have their strengths for different applications. The drive circuit is really crucial in this synth & I especially enjoyed setting my drive by cranking the resonance & bringing in the drive to tame the resonance. The effects are pretty great but I opted to literally always program a notch filter in the multi effect slot as to be a second filter since notching sounds is so incredibly important. It is a miss that the chorus insert isn’t switchable to a phaser or flanger but it delivers more consistency & with the unison mode the chorus isn’t always necessary. The reverb options are a nice inclusion but almost always require lower wet & time levels. This causes sounds to sound big without sounding wet & reverby. The LFOs aren’t as fast as I’m used to but all this does is prevent from making more aggressive analog FM type sounds. Having four destinations for each LFO is excellent & the necessity to do each oscillator’s pitch mod independently results in more thoughtful programming. Being able to select destinations for each LFO modulation slot right from the control panel is a dream & I hope other synth manufacturers follow suit. I’ve overlooked the x-y pad programming opting to leave it at its default cutoff & resonance modulation routings. I wouldn’t use this myself & would probably always prefer to control in real time with the knobs. The keys feel very natural for synth action. Velocity responds as expected & the limitation of modifying cutoff resonance & pitch envelope amount along with the default of volume with velocity is actually a strength. Definitely rolling off your attacks & decays for envelopes sounds best on this synth. While it’s nearly always important on any synth to have a somewhat soft attack & decay on an amp envelope to prevent unpleasant clicks except when using a gate to access an envelope for additional modulation, this synth actually sounds best when using even subtle settings of filter attack even when you would assume you don’t need it. With the mod envelope you don’t need the attack when doing pitch sweeps but with modifying things such as the wavetable position it helps too. The sequencer is great with various timing subdivisions & up to 64 steps. My ONLY complaint is the lack of a tap tempo function. I think this should probably be an inclusion of every synth with a sequencer. I would call this synth’s sound in my applications unison smear. The Gaia 2 is charming & modern and while it has a sound that won’t be right for all applications it will definitely compliment a track in so many ways when choosing the perfect sound.