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The 2008 NAMM Show wasn’t a great year for new synth and electronic music gear……but it was a good year.
We’ve already mentioned tons of great new gear that we saw at NAMM in the last couple of weeks, but, following in the footsteps of last year’s modular analog synthgasm, here are our picks for 2008’s [...]

Winter NAMM Show Update: Roland intro’d the ARX-01 and ARX-02 expansion boards for the new Fantom-G series. Each ARX board is a synth in itself.
The ARX-01 Drums Expansion Board offers complete control of the elements of each drum, such as shell depth and muffling. Once each drum is crafted, you can further refine it with [...]

This is sort of stupidtacular - Roland has introduced the C-30 Digital Harpsichord. It’s also a sign that the technology is getting cheap and good enough to be irrelevant for a lot of types of instruments, so packaging starts making more of a difference.
Description:
Roland’s “click action” F-scale keyboard provides an authentic harpsichord feel, while two [...]

NAMM Update: Roland introduced it new V-Drums V-Tour Series TD-9S/TD-9SX.
They should give Roland some sort of record for having the worst name ever for a piece of cool gear.
I’m not sure if it’s the V-Tour part - which makes it sort of sound like you’d use these to play drums in Second Life, or if [...]

NAMM Update: Roland announced what they call the most powerful and luxurious live workstation in Roland history.
Luxuriate in the details!
The Fantom-G offers an advanced sound engine, the ARX SuperNATURAL expansion bay, a large color LCD, a new audio/MIDI recorder, 88-note Ivory Feel weighted keys (Fantom-G8), 76-note keys (Fantom-G7), and 61-note keys (Fantom-G6).
The Fantom-G’s sound engine [...]

Tired of Lady of Spain?
Next time you see an accordian player, they’re likely to be plaing Lucky Man, or even some hip-hop.
Roland has announced the FR-2 series V-Accordions. These instruments offer Roland’s Physical Behavior Modeling technology, providing true tone and characteristics of the world’s best accordions, but they are significantly lighter.
They also offer drum [...]

2008 NAMM Show: Roland announced the new E-09W interactive arranger.
The popular E-09 boasts 870 sounds, 70 drum kits, interactive music style including Western, Middle Eastern and Asian, and, 47 Multi-FX, 64-voice polyphony and more.
Roland equipped the board with a built-in 16-track recorder for capturing and developing musical idea.An Easy Mode provides quick, friendly operation while [...]

2008 NAMM Show: Roland anounced the new CD-2e SD/CD recorder.
With high-performance stereo-speaker, stereo mic, and CD-R/RW drive built-in, the CD-2e offers out-of-the-box recording capability. Weighing in at less than 3 lbs (less than most laptops), measuring 2 inches thick, and having the ability to run on six AA batteries, the CD-2e is an extremely portable [...]

Roland has announced that it has reached an agreement to acquire a major share of Cakewalk, a leading developer of products for music creation and recording.
Roland and Cakewalk have been partners since 1995, and have cooperated closely on numerous business projects and complimentary product lines.
In 2003, Roland augmented its strategic partnership with Cakewalk by becoming [...]

Goldbaby has released a new drum sample library, Tape909, that includes 1446 samples taken from a mint 909 recorded into an Ampex 351 1/2″ valve 2 track tape machine.
That’s right. Digital run through analog and then resampled.  Ready for you to add your tape simulation hiss and noise!
Formats: Refill / Battery / Guru / iDrum [...]

Roland has announced that it’s shipping the new EDIROL M-16DX Digital Mixer.
The M-16DX is a new-generation mixer comprising two modules: the Mix Controller for your desktop, and the I/O Module, which can be mounted in a rack. Together, these two components provide a wide assortment of connection and processing features, while leaving your desktop uncluttered. [...]

Sinevibes has announced that their complete line of products for Roland V-Synth series is now fully compatible with the new V-Synth GT. This allows all GT owners to supercharge their synthesizers with new sound materials and greatly improve their knowledge of the internal sound building technologies.
V-Synth GT compatible products are:

V-Motions: 96 highly-inspiring patches including motion [...]

Summer NAMM: Roland introduced a new desktop hardware synth today, the SonicCell. According to Roland, the SonicCell puts the power and legendary sound quality of a Roland hardware synthesizer on your desktop. According to us, it’s the most hideously ugly synth we’ve seen in a long time.
Here’s the details…..

Summer NAMM Show: The Roland RE-201 Space Echo has been reborn as the BOSS RE-20 Twin Pedal. According to BOSS, they’ve recreated every sonic detail and nuance of the original, providing users the warm, unpredictable and highly tweakable retro sounds of the RE-201.
Description:
The original Roland RE-201, commonly known as the Space Echo, was an analog [...]

Roland has expanded its SP Sampler lineup with the new flagship SP-555 Sampling Workstation. The SP-555 comes with 16 velocity sensitive pads, 37 Fantom-quality effects, a new LOOP CAPTURE function, beefed up internal sample memory, and computer integration with USB MIDI/AUDIO connectivity.