The Future Redefined - Roland's biggest product launch

New Products From Roland?

Something is brewing - Roland are about to unleash a whole load of new products, but what will they be? From the little info we have been given, it seems there is a whole raft of new stuff on the way. Roland are promising 'The Future - Redefined' so what could this mean?

Well... they are revealing all on 9th Sept and they are calling this #909 day, so what could that indicate, I wonder?! Roland already have a 808/909 drum machine within the Aira range, but perhaps they have another retro drum unit on the way?

There are five new synth products according to their teaser page - http://tfr.roland.com/eu/products, but no other clues however. We reckon there will be additions to Aira, amongst other things - although these come under Roland's 'Dance/DJ' category, so what are these 5 new synths? We will just have to wait and see!

There are four new amplifiers coming, but for what? We know Roland do guitar amps and drum amps, are they going to expand these, or move into different areas? Again - no real clues from Roland. Our guess... an update to the Roland Cubes, but we could be very wrong!

Ten new drum/percussion products have been hinted at. That's quite a lot, so we're thinking that some of these are perhaps add-ons or upgrades to existing V-Drum kits, but that's not particularly exciting. We are hoping to see at least one new full electronic drum kit.

The piano & keyboards category has six new products, but really these could be anything, it's anyones guess. Roland make some of the best pianos around and these spread from really quite affordable to very expensive, so do they need more pianos? Maybe they will update some of their current line-up, or perhaps introduce a new range. We're struggling here!

There are to be two new products in the Effects category. Their sister company BOSS do guitar effects, so it could be that. Our best guess, however... more vocal effects, perhaps?

The Dance/DJ category promises three new products. Aira sits in this category, so we are going to stick our neck out and say a new Aira-something-or-other. There were rumours of a 'bigger' System-1, now that would be nice!

Intriguingly, there are two products being announced that fall under a 'new category'. As Roland have products in many categories already it shouldn't be too hard to work out what these might be. Will we have to eat those words? Probably! Roland do synths, pianos, drum machines, effects, v-drums, percussion, amplifiers, audio interfaces, MIDI controllers, portable recorders, headphones and mixers - so what don't they do? Microphones - but that's not very 'Roland', so neck on the line here... DJ controllers....we shall see!

All will be revealed on 9th September with a series of streaming broadcasts from Roland, but in the mean time we will keep you in the loop as and when we hear anything.

Of course, if you have any ideas about what Roland are up to, then feel free to add a comment below!