A New Products special on the latest from Japan

A veritable herd of new goodies from Roland UK presented at a recent press and dealer launch in London's Caernarvon Hotel. No fewer than 25 lines were featured, ranging from batteries for the TR606 at 80p for two to the long-awaited programmable polyphonic guitar synthesizer and custom controller at around £1800. MIDI was strongly featured on many designs and the impressive stage setup sprouted DIN-DIN connector leads from all corners, often with astonishing results. Let's keep the best bits for later however, and look at the new items one at a time.

Roland seem to have decided neither to phase out the DCB system found on the Junos and Jupiter 8 nor to offer a MIDI retrofit in its place. Instead they've developed the MD8 MIDI-DCB Interface (£265) which allows owners of the aforementioned keyboards to work with all MIDI-equipped units. Also available will be the MM4 (MIDI Through Box) at £49 which buffers a MIDI input and re-transmits it for use by up to four other instruments, for the benefit of those with only MIDI In and Out to their names. Even without either of these little boxes, Juno/Jupiter owners now have access to a neat little sequencer in the form of the JSQ-60 Digital Keyboard Recorder, virtually the JX-3P's sequencer removed and packaged for DCB output. At £250 it offers 2,500 notes storage, real or step time programming, up to three overdubs polyphonically, sync to rhythm machines, dump to cassette, metronome, storage of patch shifts, capacity indication and so on. If you want to use it with non-DCB synths you need an MD-8, which tends to put a damper on the festivities a bit.

The MSQ-700 is a much larger sequencer or Digital Keyboard Recorder which has MIDI and DCB outputs and can store up to 6,500 notes (with dynamics, patch shifts, hold, bender and rhythm pattern information) in up to eight tracks which can be individually recorded, replayed, merged and edited. Information can be dumped to cassette and there are sync outputs to rhythm machines; price is £850 and the system can be seen perhaps as a more accessible form of the MC4 concept.

Briefly on pedals and suchlike — two mini-mixers, the BX-400 at £80 (four into one with level switching and gain pots) and the BX-600 at £135 (six into two with gain, volume, pan and effect send with stereo return and outputs) — both ideal for keyboards. Also the HM-2 Heavy Metal pedal with Level, Distortion and two Colour Mix controls for all manner of Eddie Van Halen sounds at £49, and the Boss Hand Clapper and Percussion Synthesizer at £63 each. These two units can stand alone or be triggered from the pulse outputs of a Drumatix, for instance, which while it has some new friends hasn't been superceded.

The new friends on the percussion line are the Dr Rhythm Graphic at £135 and the TR-909 at £999. The former has an LCD display, chaining and a handclap in addition to the popular DR-55 spec, and should be a big seller. The latter is the long-awaited Digital Drum Machine, although it turns out that only the cymbal sounds are sampled, the rest being analogue sounds created to match a computer's wave-storage picture of the originals. The 909 offers dynamic response which even works through the MIDI link (thus the strange experience of hearing a drum solo played on-the bottom eight notes of a Contemporary Piano's keyboard), tuning, decay length control, shuffle ('human feel' if you like), flams, 96 memories and a capacity of 1792 bars. An external cartridge under development will allow loading through the MIDI of complete sets of new sounds.

This rumoured cartridge system will also work with the star of the show, the GR700 guitar synth. Compatible with existing guitar controllers, it offers a space-age touch-panel design and a selection of polyphonic presets similar to those in the JX-3P. The difference is that the sounds are touch-responsive and several string modes are available. These include string selection, sync bend of the 2 VCOs per string, cross modulation, guitar sound mix, chromatic glide and programmable sensitivity. The unit is MIDI-equipped and compatible with the PG-200 programmer familiar from the JX-3P, although the existing preset sounds are quite stunning, everything from a keyclick Hammond organ to brass, strings, clavinet and white noise.

The new guitar is most unusual, with an additional bracing neck to emphasise fundamental notes rather than harmonics and a drastically cut down body. The electronics are the same as the existing guitar controllers but it's now possible to have the special circuits needed installed in your favourite guitar by a limited number of appointed agents.

Still on the guitar front, a selection of new amps — the Spirit 25A with reverb, the Spirit 10A, and the BN60 and 100 with active EQ for bass. Another amp for the home keyboard/contemporary piano market is the HK20 giving 20W and a smart wood finish, at a cost of £115.

Stocking fillers include a carrying case for the JX-3P (£90), soft cases for the MC-202 and SH-101 (£18 and £27) and, of course, those batteries! That isn't the end of the story though, because there are a lot more goodies to come. One of these goes under the name of TR707 (so the days of the Drumatix may be numbered after all) and the DR110 Delay is expected to be a big seller, featuring as it does a trigger socket to synchronise 'sampled' sounds to a drum machine. The Roland amp line will improve constantly as the speakers and cabinets begin manufacture in the UK with Japanese electronics, and computer peripherals will be a growth area.

A modular synthesizer system will offer a choice of keyboards, each MIDI-equipped and ranging from basic plastic-keyed models to a touch-responsive wooden weighted model already in prototype form (MK-1000). The modules will be 19" rack-mounting and already include MK1 (with the voicings of an HP400 piano modified for professional use) and MK3 (with JX-3P voicings modified for touch sensitivity). MIDI-computer interfaces will appear to help this system control up to 16 modules, and the remaining questions is — what is the MK2? Amidst this embarrassment of new toys, the popular suggestion is that Roland might at last be going into sound sampling in a big way — maybe we'll find out at the Frankfurt Music Show in February.