Roland pulls their finger out and registers the design and layout of the iconic TR-808 and TB-303 as trademarks in Germany. How will this affect Behringer and other clone manufacturers?
With little fanfare the Vocoder VC340 creeps onto their webpage but without a price, videos and no shops seem to have a listing yet - but it's officially released! Update: Price $599 available in March
Store up to 6400 patches in 100 banks on these new Hcard memory cartridges for the Yamaha DX7, DX7-II and Roland D-50. They come complete with the factory library and many more sounds.
Uli Behringer updates us on their plans for Eurorack domination that includes 40 modules over the next two years and that their first prototype is ready to go. You're going to be able to afford this.
Dtronics map the guts out of Roland Linear Arithmetic synthesizers and route them to 56 knobs of programming bliss on the DT-01 programmer.
DSP Synthesizers move into analog modelling with their DR55 Drum Module clone of the Roland Dr Rhythm. 4 sounds, 4 triggers, 4 accents and two controls each for a bit of virtual analog rhythmic healing.
Roland has decided to keep 909 Day for celebrating the TR-909 and instead are going to release 3 new "drum and synthesizer" products on the 13th September instead. What could they be?
Using Virtual Analog Technology DSP Synths has recreated the Roland TR-909 as the R909 Plugin Synthesizer on a USB stick. Plug it into any device and you have 909 sounds ready to go.
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A video on Facebook suggests that Roland are about to announce their third virtual Plug-Out recreate of a classic synthesizer for the System-8 on 808 Day. Firm favourite is the JX3P - what do you think?
Tracktion Corporation has released Retromod LEAD, 106 and FAT, some meticulously sampled instruments based upon 6 Clavia Nord instruments, a handful of Roland Junos and a big bunch of more modern Moogs.
It's for real this time, Puma is releasing not one but two styles of TR-808 inspired trainers on 808 day in a couple of weeks. The RS-100 joins the RS-0 as the £100 footwear of choice for any drum machine fan.
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Roland has added two FM variations to the oscillators on the System-8 featuring 2 operator and 5 operator waveforms. It also gets filters from the Jupiter-8 and Juno-106 amongst other bits and bobs.
Got a Roland Super JX synthesizer or rack-mounted MKS-70 knocking around that you've never been able to program? The MPG-70 can help you with that giving full hardware control over every parameter.
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Now with 6 classic virtually modelled analog Roland TR-606 style drum sounds the R606 MKII packs some classic vibes into a space saving 4hp Eurorack module.
The strangely named Gilbert is a homage to the best era of Roland synths. Featuring technology from the SH-101, SH-09 and MC-202. It will be available in two weeks as a kit so you can build yourself a classic.
Users of the Roland/Studio Electronics SE-02 will be pleased to hear that there's a software SE-02 Editor to access all the expanded parameters, manage user banks, blend patches and randomise everything.
