Roland Announce New Gear…

…and the rest of us roll over and go back to sleep.

As has become customary every September, Roland announced a new batch of products this morning to rapturous yawning and disinterest.

Is that harsh of me? I think not, and here’s why. Roland are, or maybe were, one of, if not, THE greatest innovators and manufacturers of electronic instruments and tools. But somewhere in the early 1990s, they went to sleep and have been in a daze ever since. Our studios and/or wish lists were full of Roland products until this point and then they just got, dare I say it, lazy.

Despite a cacophony from the masses, they have repeatedly managed to listen to us and subsequently deliver the exact opposite. The community has been screaming for them to make new SH-101s, TB-303s, TR-808s and 909s, Jupiters, Junos and so on. Now, I completely understand a company whose ethic is to innovate and move forward, pushing new boundaries, but I also know that in order to do that, you need cash in the bank and credibility amongst your customer base.

Robert De Niro does a handful of really awful movies or TV commercials simply to put cash in the bank so that he can do what he really loves, which is be involved with indie movie projects. We all know he is probably one of the greatest actors of all time, but we do so love him in Meet the Fockers, or that cute Hyundai ad on TV. We don’t hate him for making that stuff because he continues to innovate and create so brilliantly elsewhere.

And so it should be with Roland. We know how great they are, and have been. And we know they could still be that great, but they flat out refuse to indulge us with what we want. Repeatedly. And people wonder why the likes of Uli Behringer are doing so well! He is giving us those things we want. Unapologetically, he is sailing as close to the legal winds as possible, pushing the boundaries of what is right and what people want and, quite literally, selling a metric fuckton of equipment as a result. This income is then allowing him to recruit top designers, create a manufacturing plant that can meet the huge demand and pave the way for some real innovation and originality, all of which will be devoured by gear-heads who know that despite the bad press, Behringer stuff is pretty great, very well built and reasonably well supported.

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And yet today, under a limp fanfare and flaccid banner, Roland announce a new workstation, two new “grooveboxes” and a couple of modelled Jupiter units that STILL feature zero analog sound circuitry. Did the Jupiter 80 not tell them strongly enough that simply sticking a bunch of modelling chips in a black case with orange buttons, aluminium cheeks and throwing a Jupiter sticker on the top does not equate to success?

The most interesting thing I can find in that mediocre announcement is the updated Boutique JU-06, now called the JU-06A. It features a Juno 60 model now, on top of the existing Juno 106, and they have updated the design to resemble the originals much more. Probably the most interesting thing from my point of view is the removal of those awful ribbon-based pitch bend and modulation controllers. Awful, AWFUL things. Gone. Huzzah!

But, and this is a BIG but… THERE ARE STILL ONLY 4 VOICES!!!

I mean, seriously? Is this a strict limitation of the ACB Modelling that Roland use? One of my biggest beefs with the JP-08 was that it had 4 voices when the original had 8. Had they called it a JP-04, I’d have been a tad less peeved. The Juno family, by their numerical definitions (6, 60, 106, HS-60, etc.), were 6 voice and yet Roland can’t seem to even honour that rather key element of the recreation! And some people seem to be fine with this! Maybe this explains why Roland made such a big deal about their SH-101 clone, the SH-01A, being 4 voice, despite the original being monophonic.

The Jupiter X and Xm seem to be replacements for the System 8 and System 1 synths although I can’t, as yet, find any confirmation that they will support Roland’s Plug-Out architecture. The trailer video is pretty uninspiring and uninformative…

As for the MC-101 and MC-707… do we really need stuff like this anymore?

Nope. No thanks.

And I shan’t even bother with the new Fantom series of workstations as I really do need to stay awake today.

There once was a time when the announcement of a new Roland synth garnered the attention and plaudits of the community just like Ashum Sound Machines did the other day with the announcement of their new wavetable synth, the Hydrasynth which, by all accounts and having listened to a wealth of demos, sounds fucking amazing!! And it has Poly-aftertouch, which has been on many people’s wish-lists since forever…

And with Modal Electronics scheduled to announce their new wavetable synth, ARGON8, at KnobCon this weekend, it seems that Roland, yet again, find themselves out of touch and behind the curve.

My first synth was a Roland. I suspect that many other people of my age can say that too. I aspired to their designs, their sounds and their UI/UX, but I have to agree with my good friend Nigel Bates who, during a phone call yesterday, categorically told me that after the D-50, in his very humble opinion, Roland ceased to be innovators and mould-breakers. That about sums it up for me.

Roland clearly want to do everything on their terms. It is almost as if someone high up at Roland is saying, “Hey, you know what? Maybe we should listen to our customers now? But if we do what they want, it’ll make us look weak and subservient, so here’s what we’ll do. We’ll give them most of what they’ve been crying out for, for the last 30 odd years, but to make it look like we’re doing this completely on OUR terms, let’s not quite give them everything. Let’s hold back on certain features and tell them that’s what WE want to do because we can’t be seen to buckle to consumer pressure.”

It sounds crazy, but if you have a better explanation as to why Roland, this once giant of the industry, is completely screwing its own legacy as well as what remains of its loyal fan base, feel free to drop it in the comments section.

All that remains for me to say is…