V-Accordion

We’ll admit it – this video of the V-Accordion Festival sort of freaked us out with its frightening majesty.

The technology behind Roland’s V-Accordion line, though, is pretty interesting – combining everything you know and love about accordions (Italian restaurants) with a slice of MIDI-controlled synth action. It does orchestral sounds, physical behavior modeling and has MIDI out for controlling Live, your bent Casio or whatever freaky gear you get your synth on with.

Anyway – Roland has announced an accordion contest, with the grand prize being a trip to Rome to jam with the V-Accordion babes at the V-Accordion festival.

Note: they actually make no mention of V-Accordion babes in the contest rules, but if you play the accordion, you can dream.

We haven’t served up any videos that give you nightmares since – oh….yesterday – so today we thought we’d share this video from the Roland V-Accordion Festival Final Competition, held in Rome.

Enjoy the frightening majesty of dancing techno V-Accordionists….. Read more…

This is a demo of the Roland FR-1 V-Accordion at NAMM 09.

Check this previous post for details/specs on the Roland FR-1 V-Accordian.

via RolandChannel

2009 NAMM Show: Roland introduced the FR-1 V-Accordion, the latest addition to its V-Accordion line. The FR-1 puts digital modeling technology in a traditional accordion design.

The FR-1 is lightweight, with a compact frame that weighs only twelve pounds. With the FR-1, players can simulate up to seven different distinct accordions, access four different organ presets with rotary effect, and play along with a variety of beats by adding drum sounds to the bass and chord buttons.

With the included earphones and five hours of estimated battery time, players can practice the FR-1 anywhere, anytime. Plug directly into an external sound source like the MOBILE CUBE Battery Powered Stereo Amplifier or R-09HR Digital Recorder, or use the headphone output for silent practice.

With six different inlay sheets, owners can customize the appearance of the FR-1 to suit their own personal style. Players can even create their own custom design inlays using their computer and printer.

The new FR-1 V-Accordion will be available in both piano (FR-1) and button (FR-1b) types.

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 most synthgasmic gear:

Future Retro XS Semi-modular Analog Synthesizer

We saw the XS in a sort of beta state last year, but this year the Future Retro XS is ready to play.

The XS is a semi-modular synth, with internally normalized routing. Plug it into a MIDI controller and it’s ready to play. Put in a patch cord, though, and you can do some mad science.

Designer Jered Flickinger (interview link) says the XS is designed to be used as either a rackmount or desktop instrument, and its compact size makes it an ideal modular synth for musicians on the go. Read more…