Boss SX-700 (c. 1996)
Almost nothing about the Boss SX-700 survives beyond its period press. No confirmed production dates, original price or service documentation have made it into the archive. The 1996-97 issues of Sound on Sound show a serious single-rackspace studio effects processor. It has 30 effects (reverb, delay, chorus, flanger, and more), with up to five usable at once. The headline extras are a four-voice intelligent pitch shifter and three-dimensional panning built on Roland's RSS technology.
Boss's own promotional copy, printed in Sound on Sound (July 1996, p.109), promised studio-quality signal-to-noise. The magazine's October 1996 review (Sound on Sound, October 1996, p.63) went further. It found the SX-700 immediate and easy to use, yet deep enough to keep a MIDI programmer busy for months. The reviewer rated its sound well above anything Boss had released before and called it one of the sweetest-sounding processors around. The same issue (Sound on Sound, October 1996, p.62) described the semi-intelligent harmoniser. You tell it the key, major and minor scales are supported as standard, and a user scale can be programmed for more adventurous work.
The only real criticism in that review was the lack of digital I/O. With digital connectors, the writer said, it would have been a dream for Pro Tools, ADAT, and Yamaha ProMix 01 users. A dealer advertisement in Sound on Sound (January 1997, p.126) listed 20Hz - 20kHz bandwidth, instantaneous program change, easy editing, and true stereo operation.
Known specs as reported at the time:
- Single-rackspace unit
- 30 effects, up to five simultaneously
- Four-voice intelligent pitch shifter
- Three-dimensional panning via Roland RSS
- 20Hz–20kHz bandwidth
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