Focus On: Roland Corporation

Roland has existed in various forms since 1960 and is today one of the world's leading musical instrument manufacturers with headquarters in Japan and factories in Japan, the US, Italy and Taiwan. Roland utilises a number of brand names, with each brand focussing on a particular category of musician, the Roland brand covers a wide range of products including synthesizers, digital pianos, electronic drum systems, dance/DJ gear, guitar synthesizers, amplifiers, and recording products.

Roland's sister brand - Boss is primarily used for products geared towards guitar players and musicians and their product range includes guitar pedals, effects units, rhythm and accompaniment machines, and portable recording equipment. A more recent further acquisition by Roland is a high tech company - EDIROL, Edirol's product portfolio includes computer-based audio recording (Cakewalk) and video presentation products. The company specialises in making USB and FireWire audio interfaces, field audio recorders and active monitor speakers for recording musicians and audio engineers.

Roland Differentiators

Roland are primarily acknowledged as being one of the best designers and manufacturers of electronic synthesizers in the world - although some of their classic product releases have been products other than synthesizers. However Roland first started to turn industry heads with the release of their first synthesizer in 1973 - the Roland SH-1000, other milestone products released by Roland during the 1970's were the Roland RE-201 Space Echo Tape Delay effects processor (1973) followed in 1975 by the Roland Jazz Chorus Guitar Amplifier - a model still revered to this day.

The 1980's saw more classic instrument release from Roland starting with the Roland Jupiter 8 in 1981 - an 8-voice programmable analog synthesizer, and soon thereafter by the Roland TR-808, one of the first popular programmable drum machines. Various drum machines and synthesizers followed during the 1980's including the JX-3P which was the first electronic keyboard to have on-board MIDI capabilities. A particularly well received product at this time was the GR505 Guitar synthesizer that consisted of a specially designed guitar pick-up along with a synthesizer processing floor box fitted with various foot controls.

However many classic hit records of the 1980's will have used perhaps one of Roland's most popular synthesizers - the Roland D-50 Roland's first all-Digital synthesizer implementing its Linear Arithmetic synthesis.

The 1990's heralded further innovative products from Roland including the SC-55 Sound Canvas - the first General MIDI sound module, Roland JV-1080 64 voice synthesizer module - this module was used on more commercially released recordings than any other module in history. 1997 was a historic year for Roland as it was in this year that they first launched the Roland V-Drums as the world's first digital drums incorporating silent mesh drum heads that realistically reproduce both the natural feel and sound of an acoustic drum.

Roland Today

The new millennium brought additional new and exciting products from Roland including several new flavours of
V-Drums, Virtual Synths such as the Roland V-Synth GT, the
Fantom range of Music Workstations along with the addition
in 2008 of the Fantom G range which is a feature packed
music workstation keyboard that also includes a 128
track sequencer, multiple digital effects and
24 track digital audio recording section allowing
the user to produce a finished, mastered
product on a single workstation keyboard.