It looks like Roland has quietly discontinued the SYSTEM-8, and one can only wonder if a successor will be coming soon.
The YouTube algorithm struck again. It suggested a nearly 10-year-old video about the Roland SYSTEM-8, which was brand new at the time. Indeed, that green thing. Crazy how fast 10 years have gone by!
I watched for a bit to get those AIRA vibes back. After I searched online for its current price. Interestingly, no shop lists the green polysynth from 2016. It looks like Roland has secretly discontinued the SYSTEM-8 without any announcement.
Has Roland discontinued the SYSTEM-8?
I searched for the SYSTEM-8 and checked the popular shops. Result: neither Thomann nor Musicstore.de in the EU, Andertons in the UK, nor Sweetwater or Perfect Circuit in the US list the synth anymore. Smaller shops that still list the product page say: out of stock
If you search a little deeper, you can find forum posts from almost a year ago where users say that the SYSTEM-8 is no longer available in any shop. This means shops haven’t received any units for a while.
These observations might lead one to conclude that Roland has discontinued the SYSTEM-8 almost 10 years after its announcement. However, on the official website, Roland lists the synth as a current product and makes no mention of its discontinuation.
Well, the SYSTEM-1, the all-time favorite synth for musicians with a fetish for the green color and bad keybeds, is also still listed on the site. But since the synth is no longer available, I assume it’s gone forever. Yes, from the shop shelves.
What Was The Roland SYSTEM-8?
On September 10, 2016, Roland unveiled the SYSTEM-8 with a very cinematic trailer. It didn’t become available until 2017.
The SYSTEM-8 was the flagship bi-timbral digital Synthesizer, featuring the first generation of ACB technology.
It featured a dedicated SYSTEM-8 sound engine, which was based on the SYSTEM-1 but further developed with more features, polyphony, and sound design options.
The core consisted of three multi-wave oscillators, where the third can be a sub-oscillator, a mixer, a filter with variants, three envelopes (pitch, filter, amp), and a single LFO with three modes. Plus, it had built-in effects, an arpeggiator, a sequencer, and more.
An engine that I have always liked very much, as it is very independent and different from the other Roland synths. Its USP for many was the PLUG OUT option that the SYSTEM-8 also featured.
It allowed specific plugins to be loaded into the hardware alongside the main engine. So, four “VSTs” in a box. In the S8, they premiered PLUG OUTS with full polyphony.
To date, there are nine different PLUG OUTS, and I don’t think that will change in the future: SYSTEM-1, SH-101, SH-2, Promars, System-100, Jupiter-8, Juno-60, Juno-106, and JX-3P.
Five of the nine add-ons were polyphonic. The other four, which premiered in the SYSTEM-1, remained monophonic. Many users requested that Roland’s developers implement this, but it never happened. A shame.
What’s Next? A SYSTEM-16?
On September 10, 2026, SYSTEM-8 will celebrate its 10th anniversary. Will Roland then let the cat out of the bag and reveal a SYSTEM-16? It’s possible, says my crystal ball.
Looking at the circumstances, a SYSTEM-16 could be the successor or something completely different. The SYSTEM-8 belongs to the past, that’s sure, but ACB technology isn’t. It continues and is better than before. The latest generation of ACB is already used in the current Fantom EX.
Internally, Roland uses custom proprietary BMC chips, which are system-on-chips that provide the power required by the ACB technology. The SYSTEM-8 from 2016 used three BMC chips, although the circuit board had room for more, according to technicians.
This extra power led to the Fantom and now the Fantom EX, each receiving four BMC chips and additional chips for other tasks. A possible SYSTEM-16 would need at least this amount to have more power than the S8.
Doubling the polyphony from 8 to 16 would make sense as well and would be a must. Then you’d have full 8-note polyphony on all sides for bi-timbral sounds.
More synthesis would be very welcome, like more oscillator shaping options, modulation, and effects.
The PLUG OUT technology should remain, only with more models and polyphony, especially for the SYSTEM-1 PLUG OUTs. It’s possible: look at the SH-101 ACB in the Fantom EX; it’s polyphonic.
Hardware-wise, I’d prefer less or no more AIRA green, less plastic, an aftertouch-capable keyboard, polyphonic aftertouch even better, and the same hands-on user interface. One can still dream, right?
Whether Roland will announce the SYSTEM-16 in September is pure speculation at this point. However, it would make sense because it will be 10 years since the introduction of the S8. Plus, the unofficial discontinuation is true.
We’ll see. And for now, enough from the crystal ball newsroom.
More information here: Roland
Clever design on a new version would be a controller with DSP card slots to become a full blown synth, so those who are happy with running the models in their computers, can then buy a great dedicated controller for this, and for those who need plug out capability, cards can be added for this.
I worked at a PMT store in the UK for over 10 years, and I can’t remember the last time we sold a S8. Gigging keyboard players bought workstations which had every familiar sound baked into a preset. The market in our town for something limited but creative, and not authentic analogue, was zero people. It does pain me to say that as an ex-Roland dealer, but that was the fact.
i am wondering, that they were available for so Long. thought they are gone for s Long Time. i wanted the se02 and also find Out it was discontonued last year…
They can’t.
It’s a product that would make consumers self-sufficient, but Roland needs them hooked on the Roland Cloud.
The way capitalism works now is that every company needs to be locked into a cancerous growth cycle. You can’t just sit at a certain stock price and make everyone happen. You have to be malignantly expanding.
I didn’t like the green and didn’t like the lack of pitch and mod on the System 1! That green burnt my eyes. How did it get past testing…..I suppose it was distinctive and being bold is good but it was a bit much IMO
Both the system-8 and the tb-3 had a very high quality sound to them, but their MIDI implementation is amongst the weirdest I’ve ever met. Roland obviously did not intend its SysEx to be used by the ‘regular’ users, and it took me quite some work to make a useable MIDI controller. The TB-3 is internally completely programmable and offers much more than meets the eye. Also the System-8 patches can be requested as SysEx data onto a MIDI controller and controlled from there, but I couldn’t figure out all 100% of its parameters. Still enough though to discover how patches were made without the need of any Roland Cloud subcription.
I thought this iconically awful machine had already been deleted. It has been a joke in the synth world since years.
Only among beginners. Seasoned players know that Roland’s ACB-synthesis ranks among the most convincing recreations of the manufacturer’s classic analog synths and appreciate being able to take these sounds with them on stage or into the studio in a lightweight and compact format. Until the release of the Zen series—which, in the opinion of many, cannot match it sonically—the System-8 was unrivaled in this regard.
lol, sure. Now let’s hear about the Digitone Keys and how good that was.
Love my System 8, and have been playing synths since the mid 80’s. Sits in my studio alongside, a Jupiter 4 and many others 🙂
You are absolutely correct.
No-one did care about these meme of a synth. The last thing people want from Roland is yet another *insert fancy modeling term here* based synth! Roland has been going a bit down the shitter as of late.