From digital keyboards and percussion to guitar and recording gear, Roland unveiled a plethora of new releases at the Winter NAMM show. Three innovative keyboards really stood out: the V-Combo VR-09 organ, the BK-3 backing keyboard, and the RD-64 digital stage piano. The 61-key VR-09 was a real show stealer, featuring a hit list of Roland’s top organ, piano, and synth sounds, as well as highly responsive keys.
Musical Assistants, captivating rhythms, and over 850 instrument sounds all add up to make the Roland BK-3 an exceptional backing keyboard. In the studio, the BK-3’s simple recorder also serves as an excellent songwriting tool, and impressive onboard effects let you add polish to your sound. With 64 Ivory Feel-G keys and SuperNATURAL piano sound, Roland’s lightweight, highly portable RD-64 is a great choice for any working musician.
On the digital percussion side, Roland showcased two cool new products: the TD-4KP V-Drums kit and the BT-1 bar trigger pad. The TD-4KP takes the time-tested TD-4 drum controller and marries it to a compact and collapsible V-Drums kit. Setting up and packing up take only seconds, and when it’s all folded together, you can easily carry your entire drum kit in one hand. As with the TD-4KP, the beauty of the BT-1 bar trigger pad lies in its compact simplicity. This ergonomically designed drum trigger attaches to the rim of your drum or a typical drum stand, making it easy to add extra percussion triggers to your V-Drums or to create a hybrid drum kit.
Guitarists also had plenty of reasons to get excited about the new gear from Roland. First, there was the red-hot American-made G-5A VG Stratocaster, a Fender Strat loaded with Roland’s finest COSM modeling technology. For those of you rocking a guitar with GK technology onboard, you’ll definitely want to look at the GR-D distortion and the GR-S space effects pedals. Both of these novel pedals use the GK pickup’s split-string output to create highly detailed and dimensional effects. BOSS also has three extremely cool stompboxes featuring their new Multi-Dimensional Processing you’ll want to check out. Then there’s the sweet little 2.1 stereo practice amp from Roland, the CUBE Lite, which any guitarist can enjoy.
Last but not least, there’s the new recording gear from Roland. The clear star of the show was the Studio Capture. This 16-channel interface packs 12 VS preamps plus Auto Input Level Adjustment, which provides the perfect gain setting for any source, with just the push of a button. Call your Sales Engineer to get the latest on all the new gear from Roland.
