Roland has awards and products at NAMM 2016

January 2016 – Roland Corporation usually has one of the most highly anticipated product rollout and announcement events at the Winter NAMM show each year. This year was no exception with many new products under both the BOSS and Roland brands. The new product announcements were joined this year with some recognition awards for those in the Roland community.

Roland System-500 Modular Analog Synthesizer System

On the product side there were significant additions to the Roland synthesizer family including the SYSTEM-500 complete modular analog synthesizer. The SYSTEM-500 Complete Set fits in the Eurorack format, has a custom case with top-quality patch cables and includes: the 512 module with two voltage controlled oscillators featuring saw, sine and square waves; the 521 module with two voltage controlled filters featuring selectable high-pass filters; the 530 module with two voltage controlled amplifiers, each featuring multiple CV inputs; the 540 module with two ADSR envelopes and invertible LFO; and the 572 module with classic phase shifter, delay, gate delay and LFO. Paying tribute to the classic SYSTEM-700 and SYSTEM-100M, the SYSTEM-500 Complete Set is made with top-quality components and extreme attention to detail and was designed and built in the U.S. It was created to deliver the classic character and playability of a vintage Roland modular synth systems of the 70’s & 80’s but with the advantages of a modern instrument and components.

Roland 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner – Jeff \

For the first time Roland awarded the Roland Lifetime Achievement Award to two groundbreaking, long time Roland partners. The first was Grammy Award winning and TEC Award Hall of Fame Recipient Jeff “Skunk” Baxter. In addition to his unique participation and contribution to the music industry, he has been a strong advocate and development partner with Roland on the digital guitars, samplers and foot pedal boxes for over 4 decades.

Roland 2016 Lifetime Achievement Award Winner – Jimmy Jam & Ryan Lewis

The second Roland Lifetime Achievement Award recipients were the duo of Jimmy Jam and Terry Lewis. The Grammy award winning musicians, producers and sound designers were early adopters of the TR-808 Drum machine and its use in the pop and R&B music industry since the late 1970’s. Their use of the Roland tools both on stage and in studio were responsible for more Billboard #1 hits than from any other producer to date. They have not only used the products, but worked closely with Roland over the past 4 decades to develop new equipment and capabilities to insure that the creative musical ideas are never constrained by the equipment, but supported by it to make the sounds come to life for others to share.

Roland Digital Piano Design Winner 2016 – Facet Grand Piano

Finally, Roland introduced the finalist and winner of their Digital Piano Design Contest. This international competition was created to promote creativity and expression to the world of instrument making. The competition was to design a new platform for a performance oriented concert piano around the electronic core of the Roland Digital Piano. The winner of the grand prize was from By Jong Chan Kim from the USA with a design called the Facet Grand Piano. Other finalists included designs from Italy, Romania, USA, Poland and Japan. There were a total of 128 designs submitted for the competition. Images of the designs from the finalists can be seen at : http://www.roland.com/promos/piano_design_awards/winners/