Bjooks Announces New Book, ‘Inspire the Music – 50 Years of Roland History’

At Knobcon 2022, publisher Bjooks has announced a new book in their line of visual guides to electronic music gear, Inspire The Music: 50 Years Of Roland History.

In 400 photo-packed pages, the book tells the history of Roland and its most iconic gear.

Through research and interviews with Roland’s designers, the book teslls the stories behind gear like the Jupiter-8, the Space Echo, the Octapad, the Loop Station, the inspiration and promise of MIDI, the genre-defining TR-808, TR-909, TB-303 and more.

The book also features a wide variety of musicians that have used Roland gear, including legendary hitmakers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis (Janet Jackson, Mariah Carey, Usher, and more), Butch Vig, Clive Deamer (Radiohead), DJ Jazzy Jeff, DJ Pierre (Phuture), Don Lewis (the man who inspired MIDI), The Egyptian Lover, Howard Jones, Jean-Michel Jarre, Johnny Marr (The Smiths), Guy Fletcher (Dire Straits), Nick Rhodes (Duran Duran), Omar Hakim (Weather Report, David Bowie, Madonna), Orbital, Peaches, Rachel Z (Peter Gabriel), Richie Hawtin, Roger Taylor (Duran Duran), Sister Bliss (Faithless), Culture Club producer Steve Levine, Steve Stevens (Billy Idol), Swizz Beatz, Tadao Kikumoto (inventor of the TR-808), Thomas Dolby, and many others.

Inspire The Music also tells the stories of some Roland products that didn’t work out, including the studio that needed a stylus, a keyboard that made noise whenever you moved your head, surround sound that didn’t surround, and more.

Features:

  • 60+ feature articles covering 50 years of music tech history
  • 90+ interviews and stories with artists and engineers
  • Hundreds of instruments with detailed insights
  • Foreword by legendary hitmakers Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis
  • 400 colorful pages printed on high-quality certified-ecofriendly paper
  • Hardcover format (9.8″ x 9.8″ / 25 x 25 cm)

Pricing and Availability

Inspire The Music is available to preorder for $67 USD and is expected to ship in late September, 2022.

10 thoughts on “Bjooks Announces New Book, ‘Inspire the Music – 50 Years of Roland History’

    1. ime, real product decisions are generally between marketing and engineering. board is responsible for overall company finance, business operations, and strategy.

      if they are at Roland, that’s pretty messed up. lol.

    2. You don’t understand Roland. They did 22 billion Yen in business last quarter alone, about $154 million US. Their net profit for the quarter was over 2 billion, and the company pays a dividend of 3.75%.

      The global market for analog reproductions of old instruments is tiny, with relatively high R&D costs. It makes far more sense for a large company to model old gear in software, especially given the capabilities of modern processors.

      Selling analog copies of the 101, 303, 606, 808 and 909 works for Music Tribe because they had no existing foothold in the industry. They’re leveraging the fame of Roland’s classic products to build goodwill that simply wouldn’t be there if they had rolled out a lineup of original instruments.

      But for a company of Roland’s size? It doesn’t make sense to try to appease a small group of neurodiverse synth hoarders like us. Even if Roland did release reproductions of their classics, we’d complain that they are too expensive or that the filter isn’t creamy enough and the oscillators aren’t round enough. It’s a no-win game.

  1. “The global market for analog reproductions of old instruments is tiny, with relatively high R&D costs. It makes far more sense for a large company to model old gear in software, especially given the capabilities of modern processors.“

    Bingo!

      1. The analogue synth market is indeed a tiny niche. The real money is in guitars, keyboards, electronic pianos, acoustic instruments, and audio gear such as mixers, microphones and speakers. Roland, Yamaha and Behringer are not synth companies, they are highly diversified and make most of their money with other types of products. That does not mean they don’t care about their synth departments, but they are certainly not the main priority.

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