Land of the Rising Sound | A Roland Retrospective

[Music] the story of Roland is one of the most expansive tales found in the world of music technology under various guises and brands the list of products attributed to them is almost innumerable but it's not quantity alone that makes Roland so noteworthy it's a selection of iconic and enduring inventions found within their catalogue it's no exaggeration to say that entire genres of music would be totally different if it weren't for Roland and some wouldn't even exist at all this is Land of the Rising sound a role in retrospective [Music] [Music] story of Roland begins in Asarco Japan in 1930 with the birth of a couturier kakehashi his early life was no walk in the park as he was not only orphaned as a young child but also lived through World War two in the ensuing food shortages in his teenage years Kaka has she learned to repair clocks watches and radios invented into business for the first time at 20 years old Kaka she spent several years in hospital having contracted tuberculosis only surviving thanks to the trial of a new antibiotic the Roland story came perilously close to never having happened at all but fortunately for us kakashi was back on his feet in the mid 1950s still only in his twenties he set up shop selling and repairing electrical products these were familiar items such as clocks watches TVs and radios but kakashi had his eye on something else musical instruments by 1960 the business was growing and kakashi changed the name to pace electronic industries also known as a stone the first commercially released instrument they designed was the National SX 601 organ that was manufactured and distributed by technics also based in Osaka in 1964 they put out the first products under their own name the r-1 rhythm ace this machine could produce transistorized emulations of drum sounds by pressing buttons on the front panel but it had no method to sequence them into rhythms it hardly set the world alight but it got a stone started and of course this was the earliest ancestor of some rather famous inventions that were still a couple of decades away by 1967 ace had come up with a solution to arrange their drum sounds into patterns via a diode matrix and they incorporated 16 preset rhythms into the fr one rhythm ace the fr one was such a success that it was picked up by Hammond for use with their organs [Music] the close allegiance with Hammond deepened over the years with the joint venture Hammond International Japan being operated by a stone they also developed their own organs such as the top-three combo and the dual manual gt7 which went on to have a strong influence on Hammonds own x-5 by the early 70s a stone were turning over tens of millions each year selling an increasingly diverse range of products however Takahashi was unhappy with the shareholding an investment situation to the point that he quit his own company in 1972 a few weeks later he founded the roland corporation the first of a product they released was the TR 77 rhythm instrument this was the first time the TR moniker was used standing for transistor rhythm also known as the rhythm 77 the unit was largely a development of a stones earlier fr8 L rhythm ace in both appearance and functionality clearly designed for organist CTR 77 is flat with a music stand on top it offers various to beat and four beat patterns via the rotary switch on the right hand side of the instrument these can then be combined with either a Latin rhythm or a jazz rhythm but those banks cannot be mixed as the manual describes the Latin rhythms do not come out unless Latin is on this device is for prevention of mixture of jazz rhythms with Latin rhythms heaven forbid it has six individual balance levels master volume a tempo slider an up-tempo switch to jump instantly to double-time a fade switch and fade slider a metronome and an input for put switch control pretty comprehensive for 1972 to simply units the TR 55 and TR 33 were also released that year again marketed at Organists a year later Rowland put out their first synthesizer the SH 1000 this was also the first time the Sh abbreviation was used coming from the Japanese word synthesizer which no prizes for guessing means synthesizer as well as Roland's first synthesizer the SH 1000 holds the title of Japan's first mass-produced synthesizer it was an affordable and robust instrument with 10 preset sounds 3 wave shape options from its one oscillator 2 noise sources a resonant low-pass filter one envelope and two lfos that are set up to give you tremolo via the VCA vibrato via the VCO and growl while an envelope modifier the filter has also a glide switch important mento control not a bad start at all in fact it went on to appear in the music of blondie evangelist and the human lead to name just a few [Music] in the early days roland also put out their first compact effects box the af100 ebar fuzz which sounds so 70s I'm surprised it isn't wearing Flair's [Music] [Applause] talking of effects 1974 was also notable as Kaka Hoshi rebranded a second business he'd set up the previous year initially called the music electronics group it was retitled as boss it was a name that was to become synonymous with stompboxes more on that later in the same year roland released the world's first electronic piano with velocity or touch sensitivity the EP 30 I bet you didn't know that 1974 also saw the release of the re 201 space echo it was by no means the first tape delay devices this technology went back into the previous decades here's one of a stones earlier units the EC 10 from 1972 that was one of the forerunners of the space echo series with the same input configuration and mode selection dial [Music] in fact roland had themselves released to earlier space echoes that were actually the ground breakers but the re 201 went on to become arguably the most famous of all the tape delays it was used in recordings across such a broad range of music that there was enough demand to keep it in production for 16 years the space echo would record incoming audio onto a loop of magnetic tape held within a chamber users can view this in action thanks to his transparent plastic panel the 201 didn't employ the usual array of capstan style spindles and instead the tape would Bend and coil freely within the chamber and buy some wizardry of design it wouldn't get tangled this solution allowed for a much longer piece of tape than was previously achieved which simultaneously reduced the wear win win the loop ran across three playback heads and the tape speed could be altered to change the delay time it also had multiple inputs with balanced control a built in spring reverb an EQ and it could even self oscillate the sounds it creates are still so popular that it's been cloned emulated in software and even reissued as a digital effects pedal back to synths the SH 1000 had been followed by the pressure-sensitive and preset based SH 2000 and the excellent SH 3 and 3a the next in line was the SH 5 a powerful duel oscillating monitor the SH 5 combine to multimode filters with flexible routing and deeper features such as stereo panning and ring modulation [Music] back to boss they'd wasted no time in getting great effects units into production and in 1976 they put out this classic the boss ce-1 chorus ensemble this unit was analog chorus and vibrato device it had been built upon the technology already developed by Roland for use in their popular jazz chorus guitar amplifiers but the key to its success was the stereo output that was a hit with guitarists and keyboard players alike who wanted to create a wide sound a high seller at the time they continued to be in demand over 40 years later 1976 also saw the release of more sophisticated synthesizers with the introduction of the system 100 this was designed around several different modules there was the 101 synthesizer the 102 expander 103 mixer 104 sequencer and 109 speakers it was used by the BBC Radio phonic workshop and tangerine dream and then later by artists like a fix twin and orbital as the potential to delve deeper into the system was obviously appealing to more experimental musicians and the music you're hearing at the moment was created entirely on a system 100 [Music] Rowlands first fully modular synthesizer the system 700 was also released in 1976 this was and still is a very high-end instrument that competed with Mogan Arps modular systems of the same era the original list price was 2.6 5 million yen adjusted for inflation and converted thus around 35,000 pounds or $45,000 in today's money the system 700 is therefore certainly the highest spec instrument roland ever produced not for the faint-hearted the system comes to the main console and controller keyboard and then up to five additional blocks that can be added to extend functionality through a total of 47 modules the main console has three oscillators two filters - amplifiers - LFOs - envelopes ring mod sampling hole phase shifter voltage processor envelope follower integrator a mixer multi jack spring reverb voltage controlled panning and stereo V uses it's also normal - meaning that a basic signal path can be set up without the need for any patch cables select your wave shapes assign a filter amplifier envelope pan the VCA outputs dial in spring reverb to taste and even the most basic sound is [Music] enough to make a Spartan flinch but of course you can then dig in and plunge down the modular rabbit hole within the main console and the additional blocks these systems are obviously highly specialists and we're incredibly fortunate to have one to demonstrate including one main console and two additional blocks giving us multi jacks analog switching stereo delay stereo phase shifting a third VC a frequency to voltage conversion a second envelope follower gate generation multimode filters in a mixer to appreciate the system properly listen on monitors or headphones and in stereo [Music] [Applause] [Music] 'cimmanon I have to see a favor [Music] [Music] [Music] at the other end of the spectrum in 1976 Roland per-hour a string and brass synthesizer their second in fact even though it got there first the earlier RS 101 wasn't much of a success the second time lucky the RS 202 was a different story it was fully polyphonic and had two string sounds and one brass sound that could be combined there were two interesting features that were introduced on the RS 202 that will become staples of the roland family since sound one was a delay feature for the vibrato that could be manually set and the other was the ensemble effect building upon their now vast experience with chorus units more on that later the RS 202 was a popular choice for disco string sounds [Music] looking for the next natural progression in music technology Roland collaborated with Ibanez in 1977 to produce a guitar synth system with the gr 500 and gs500 components the latter being a modified guitar and the former being the synth module [Music] wait [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Applause] used by Alex Lifeson of Rush tangerine dream Pat Metheny and Genesis the guitar synth was designed around a 24-pin multi-core connection that allowed the player to perform straight guitar sounds poly ensemble synth sounds bass synth sounds melodic synth sounds and interface with an external roland synth these sources can be amalgamated into whatever combination was required the player could also assign certain sounds to certain strings and send different signals to three discrete outputs or a global mix so it was a fascinating prospect to those who could get their hands on it and remember this was a good half decade before MIDI on a related note rolling with deep into micro processor controlled sequencing even as long ago as 1977 that year in collaboration with composer and inventor Ralph Dyck they introduced the MC 8 micro composer which is revolutionary at the time the unit had eight cv and gate outputs meaning that it could handle polyphonic parts or be hooked up to multiple modules of a synthesizer that could be managed by a control voltage or gate such as a filter or envelope it could also store sequences of over 5,000 notes although all this data had to be tapped in manually by hand and the volatile memory meant that your hard work was wiped every time you turn the unit off the solution was back up to a cassette drive amongst others the mc8 was used by the yellow magic orchestra and also by martin russian on the human league's dare album the next stop on our Roland tour is 1978 and what a place to stop a collection of rhythm machines have been put out by roland by this point but their 1978 offering proved to be an enduring one with the release of the CR 78 dubbed Compu rhythms the 78 was the first to use a microprocessor to manage its rhythms it had 34 presets the heart back to the earlier organ errors of ChaCha's and bosses but these could be combined and varied thanks to some extended controls it also have four slots for custom rhythms making it semi programmable these rhythms had to be manually tapped in via the ws1 programming switch a bit clunky but it worked the CR 78 went on to appear in Blondie's atomic Phil Collins in the air tonight bizarre jizz fade to gray and John Fox's underpass to name but a few [Music] also making an appearance in 1978 was the Jupiter for this beautiful synth offered for voice polyphony with one oscillator per voice or monophonic sounds with all four oscillators stacked together they had preset sounds via the buttons below the keyboard including one called the force house seventies is that and eight slots for your own patches as a name compute onyx suggests the synth used a microprocessor to store digital equivalents of the control voltage values in memory via ad 2d a conversions something EU systems and sequential circuits have pioneered with the Prophet 5 earlier the same year the Jupiter 4 had an arpeggiated that made an appearance in duran duran's hit REO a few years later and it was also used by Spandau Ballet Simple Minds Gary Numan and the Human League talking of the Human League a monophonic version of the Jupiter 4 dubbed the Pro Mars was also released in 1978 and this very unit used to belong to a mr. Martin where meaning that it was quite possibly used on human league recordings Roland's SH series was still going strong and in 1978 they released the latest two incarnations firstly the SH 7 which was the jewel oscillator synth that could produce two voice polyphony making it juhi phonic it had two envelopes one claw Keable LFO oscillator sync sample and hold ring mod and flexible modulation and connectivity like the SH 3 and 3a before it the SH 7 has an interesting division of these one square waves are split out and then divided down meaning that you can combine different octaves together this makes up vco1 a and then you still have the other waveforms available to you on VCO 1 B combine that with the second VCO a noise source and ring mod or an external signal in the mixer section and you can overload it in a lovely analogue way pre-filter this makes the s h7 quite different from the earlier sh5 and in fact from any of the other role and since since like the sh v the sh seven is very rare nowadays and was one of the last green-faced roland products [Music] the other Sh series synth from 1978 was the sh one which was starting to look less like the earlier SH synths and more like a famous model that was going to appear in a few years time although its sound is very reminiscent of the SH seven this incarnation was the first to include a divided down sub oscillator and proved popular with musicians selling well as we're fortunate enough to have four of these 1978 Rowland's in the same place at the same time it's only one thing for it [Music] [Music] [Music] string machines were going strong and rollin released the latest incarnation the RS 505 para phonic it had separate synth brass and string sounds and use divided down technology to achieve full polyphony para phonic means that these sound passes through a single filter and VCA [Music] continuing on from 1976 is semi modular system 100 and fully modular monster the system 700 rollin released the system 100 M three years later in 1979 there are a couple of dozen different modules available that can be arranged into custom setups in various rack sizes the system could be sequenced or played using a controller keyboard and manually or externally gated unlike the system 700 the 100 M is not normal than so to get any sound out of it you have to patch in a desired signal path in this example system we have a pretty classic setup the dual VCO warm on to module the dual VCF one to one module the dual VCA 130 module the jewel envelope and LFO 140 module and finally the 150 module that gives you ring modulation sample-and-hold to noise sources and a second LFO the several in and outs on each module but the multiple jacks at the bottom of the system mean that signals can be split further or combined and split this means that the number of possible patches is huge but it's within a synthesis actually pretty compact and relatively simple is it next to a korg ms-20 from only a year earlier as a size reference but of course if you're more experienced cases of system 100ms could be chained together as was done in a laboratory film composer hand zimmer armed with patch cables you can dig in and start building bass sounds lead sounds effects textures percussion and drums as all now attempt to do by creating a track using only the system 100m [Music] boss also ventured into drum machines in 1979 with the launch of the dr 55 the first of the dr. rhythm series it's worth noting as it was one of the earliest affordable programmable drum machines and whilst it was basic it was used by the next wave of musicians such as The Cure Depeche Mode soft-sell and Thomas Dolby 1979 also saw another iconic instrument unleashed into the wild as the VP 3:30 the coda was released although it wasn't by any means the first for coder ever made and not even the first for coda Rowland had made it combines string and voice sections with the vocoder signal vibrato pitch shift and some further simple but effective sculpting controls as a result the VP 330 became a studio staple and is still being emulated and cloned to this very day [Music] [Music] and that brings us to 1980 the dawn of a new decade and fittingly right at the inception came arguably the most famous drum machine of all time the tr-808 a fully programmable all analog powerhouse with some of the most instantly recognizable in ubiquitous tones of the last 40 years the 808 was initially a relative flop although it appeared in important songs such as Marvin Gaye sexual healing and soul sonic force planet Rock the 808 s charge was quickly blunted by the almost simultaneous release of the linn lm-1 the first drum machine to feature digital samples of real drums which i've already covered in another video linked in the description as the story goes the 808 was discontinued after a short run due to poor sales and wound up in pawn shops selling for under $100 it then found its way into the hands of young musicians who were strapped for cash and they began experimenting with it its sound became intrinsic to several emerging music scenes most notably hip hop and the 808 went from zero to hero over the coming years and 40 years later you'll have to have several grand in your pocket if you want to get your hands on an original unit the tr-808 synthesizes every one of its sounds within circuitry for example that famous cowbell is - pulse waves tuned at an irregular interval that passed through two VCAs that are shaped by an envelope these are combined and runs through a bandpass filter and onto an amplifier to give you every time a trigger comes in this is true of every sound within the 808 there's no digital audio no samples just clever synthesis and the overall effect well [Music] as if Roland hadn't made enough iconic instruments by this point they rolled out three more in 1981 first up was the Jupiter 8 now Hallowed is one of the Holy Grails and synthesis the Jupiter eight was a major player in the story of truly polyphonic synthesizers and their impact on popular music based around classic subtractive synthesis the design combine newer inventions such as patch storage varying keyboard modes and a DCB interface to sync it with other roland products it was an analogue dream with digital control and just check out that design iconic is no overstatement the Jupiter 8 was used by a who's who of 80s artists including Toto Duran Duran Prince Howard Jones Frankie Goes to Hollywood rush Huey Lewis and the news to posh mode Stevie Wonder Tears for Fears Vince Clarke Queen and many many more there were in fact two models the earlier jp-8 that had some reliability issues and the later jp-8 a from 1982 onwards that had the initial issues ironed out the Jupiter in this video is a jp-8 a [Music] amazingly was still not done with 1981 as that year roland also put out two little silver boxes one of which would go on to become one of the most influential instruments in electronic music history I'm of course talking about the TR 606 dramatics and the tb-303 baseline the latter of which is our icon in Waiting the story of how that occurred wouldn't happen for several years as we'll see the intention of the 606 and 303 was as programmable drum and bass guitar units to accompany loaned keyboard players and guitarists and the initial adverts and descriptions in the manual reinforce that this was clearly the concept which means this and unless your kit from Napoleon Dynamite is easy to see why this didn't catch on the 606 ounds nothing like real drums in the 303 sounds nothing like a bass guitar to make matters worse the 303 was kind of baffling to program with pitches and note values having to be tapped in a step at a time and bars of music and chained together in patterns via rotary switches [Music] even more confusing was the fact that only a Japanese manual was initially available and when an English manual did emerge it was over 90 pages long the 303 and 606 were a flop with sample based instruments and drum machines with more intuitive programming hitting the market shortly after that actually could reproduce the sounds of bass guitars and drums these silver boxes were weak competitors and were discontinued within two years but we'll pick this story back up a little later seeing the need for affordable polyphonic synthesizers roland released the juno six in early 1982 as the name suggests it had six voice polyphony but with just one oscillator per voice it was hardly gonna sound massive aware of this roland employed two tricks the old divided down sub oscillator and their legendary chorus which had two settings or three settings if you gem both buttons on at the same time listen to the difference those two elements make [Applause] [Music] the architecture of the Juno 6 is simple square wave and sawtooth wave can be mixed with the sub oscillator it has pulse width modulation one envelope one LFO a resonant low-pass filter a separate high-pass filter a very useful arpeggiator that can be clocked via triggers from a sequencer or drum machine it doesn't make hundreds of sounds but the limited sounds it can make just sound great and the Juno has remained a popular instrument to this very day as it's a real team player I've invited some friends over to join the Juno in demonstrating this one of which is another classic Roland from 1982 that we'll get onto in a moment [Music] [Music] what are the inventions that came with the Juno six was the digitally controlled oscillator or DCO that replaced the usual voltage controlled oscillator or VCO a DCO is an analog oscillator that is controlled by a digital circuit to ensure its tuning remains stable given the inherent wonkiness of pure analog synths in they're temperamental nature when it came to heat cold humidity lunar cycles and stiff breezes performers it had more than their fair share of looking like a bit of a div on stage when the sound coming out of their instrument wasn't what it was supposed to be a synth that had near bulletproof tuning was a godsend a mine is still perfectly in tune 37 years later the Juno 6 was quickly superseded by the Juno 60 which added patched memory and DCP connectivity it also had a switchable high-pass filter rather than a continuous one as alluded to earlier 1982 also saw the release of another enduring roland product the sh-101 between the sh one and the sh-101 there had been the popular SH 9 and SH 2 models if those were distinctly 70s in their looks and sound this little monophonic syntheses it's lightweight comes in light grey bright blue or cherry red and has a keytar Griffon strap attachment as the original print ad suggests this synth is all about having fun the architecture is based on a single VCO which mixes square wave sawtooth wave and sub oscillator as per the Juno it has one LFO with four shapes one envelope pulse width modulation a resonant low-pass filter portamento and arpeggiator a digitally managed 100 step sequencer some performance sliders and that's about it for the combination of controls and their ranges mean that it can create a surprising number of usable sounds and the connectivity of a trigger for the arpeggiator sequencer or sample and hold with CV and gate in and out means that users could either integrate it into bigger systems or just fire it up and start having instant fund [Music] the 101 has become collectible nowadays with prices regularly drifting towards 1,000 pounds which is a pretty insane price for a single oscillator mono synth but its sound and character have endured probably because it just works and you could be up and running in seconds it's been emulated in software reissued in boutique form by roland and a clone is even due to come out this year it looks like the sound of the 101 will be with us for some time yet the sunset on 1982 and 1983 saw the introduction of a universal protocol in the form of MIDI I've spoken about this in the profit film so I won't go over it for a second time other than to say that a couturier kakehashi would join Dave Smith in collecting a technical Grammy 30 years later for its creation and when MIDI was first demonstrated to the world it was done by connecting together a sequential circuits profit 600 and a roland jupiter 6 the jupiter 6 was therefore the first role an instrument with MIDI and only the second instrument ever to come with it installed as standard [Music] [Music] the third jupiter synth to be put out is distinct in the same way that the first two were it has six voice polyphony with two oscillators per voice but the lfos and envelopes are digitally generated as was the evolution of the technology at the time they are split in unison modes and the waveforms could be selected individually or combined on both sets of oscillators rather than being switchable as Omni jupiter-8 it also has oscillator sync cross mod and an arpeggiator as did its older sibling the jupiter six was widely used by recording artists in the 80s but continued to get used well into the next decade via artists such as orbital Moby The Chemical Brothers and Gulf wrap the Jupiter 6 was paired with the release of the Jay x 3p the three fees being programmable polyphonic and preset the 3p is slightly curious and that it has holes to connect to stand for the player's sheet music on its own the programming has to be done through menu diving in a single slider but the saving grace of the 3p was the release of the PG 200 controller that Clips magnetically to the instrument this gives a switch or potentiometer for each parameter and reinstates the hands-on analogue experience the GX 3 P is actually a dual oscillator simple with two deseos per voice allowing for oscillator sync and cross mod it has the classic rollin chorus midi a 100 step polyphonic sequencer and digitally generated LFO and envelope sections it's similar to the Junos but not exactly the same and it's somewhat more complex architecture allows for some simple but slightly more interesting sounds to be programmed [Music] [Music] 1983 was also the year that the Yamaha dx7 drops and of course that was seen as the sound of the future and it dominated the following years with sales in the hundreds of thousands so the J x3p was never going to be able to compete was discontinued by 1985 however it's since had a resurgence and is a great workhorse synth has even been reissued in boutique form by roland in recent years and the first sequence are equipped with MIDI yep it was roland the msq 700 also included DCB and didn't sync for their earlier 80s gear it was also in this year that roland put out a groundbreaking module the CMU 800 our comp usek you know the one right of course you don't you've never heard of it but it's worth mentioning as it was the first ever sound module with multi tumbler voicing through independent lead based polyphonic and drum sections it had to be controlled by a computer such as an Apple 2 or Commodore 64 but this is arguably the earliest example of the kind of sound modules that would succumb dominant in the decades to follow but probably the most familiar release of 1983 was this box [Music] designed by today Okamoto who had also worked on the 303 and 808 the tr-909 was a hybrid of analog drum sounds and digital samples of high hats and cymbals it also had MIDI and a more advanced sequence of them its predecessors unlike the flabby and snappy tones of the 808 the 909 was aggressive and punchy which lent itself to music genres that again didn't exist yet familiar story unfolded as the 909 was a commercial failure was discontinued after a short production run fledgling producers picked up cheap secondhand units and by the late 80s and into the 90s the 909 was everywhere an integral part of techno and house the 909 crossed over into the mainstream was widely used in chart music even cropping up in Madonna's vogue Technotronic pump up the jam and add amps conceals killer lay down a fall to the floor kick some offbeat hats with the slight shuffle claps and rolling snares and it's a very familiar sound by 1984 the impact of the Yamaha dx7 was starting to hit home and several manufacturers were fighting a losing battle over the next three years a number of big names either close their doors were bought and absorbed or were reshuffled into a different form however roland survived this difficult time for a number of reasons firstly diversity a look through old roland catalog shows from selling guitar pedals effects units amps PA systems and karaoke systems microphones organs electric pianos sequences guitar synths programmers and even a digital score plotter rollin win no one-trick pony with broad ranges of day-to-day instruments sold to average consumers this underpinned their high-end products that were targeted at professionals as such they were better placed to absorb the impact of a changing synthesizer market secondly they've consistently had enough successful products within their synth and drum machine lines to mean that they didn't find themselves in a position of unrecoverable investment as some others did and thirdly coca has his shrewd business head cannot be overlooked who made key decisions investments acquisitions and structural changes that meant that roland weathered the storms talking of diversity let's check back in with boss and see what they've been up to since the sea in the late 70s they rolled out some groundbreaking compact stompboxes this began with a now dubbed traffic light trio of the sp1 spectrum pH one phaser and od1 overdrive guitarist had never seen anything like it and in fact the ot1 was the first pedal to even use the term overdrive players now had a rich and controllable distortion in a small box under their feet this led to the kind of pedal board setups that we now take for granted that were not commonplace at the time realizing the potential of the ot1 Jeff Beck adopted it early on and run it through his tube amp to get extra sustain and a thicker tone Prince's pedal collection was also dominated by these distinctive primary colored effects pedals by the mid 80s boss stompboxes with the staples of pedal boards across the world there were distortions flanges delays Tremeloes auto wires choruses eq's and many many more again there were some happy accidents such as the heavy-metal hm2 pedal the sounded laughably larger-than-life when its 4 parameters were cranked to the max nicknamed the buzzsaw this effect went on to be the guitar tone of certain corners of the death metal scene particularly in Sweden as well as their iconic analog pedals boss also laid claim to the first digital delay pedal first digital reverb pedal and first chromatic tuner still in 1984 Roland put out the TR 707 rhythm composer that was entirely sample-based whilst the 707 is quite vanilla drum sounds that can't be tuned or edited it's carved out of place in a lot of people's hearts due to the music it was subsequently Houston and it's intuitive sequencer its clicky and bright sounds whether by accident or design were also a great complement to Roland since they could be easily connected together the 707 must have initially been considered a professional piece of kit because the original receipt came with mine and it shows the owner paying $4.99 in 1986 adjusted for inflation that's around 1,300 pounds in today's money but shortly after stateside at least the 707 was being sold for peanuts along with its later percussion companion the seven to seven more on this later whilst we're in 1984 it's worth noting that Roland were to release the first ever purpose-built MIDI controller keyboards in that year with the MK B 1000 and mkb 384 also saw the successor to the Juno 60 with the launch of the Juno 106 it went on to be one of the best-selling synths of all time widely used it's still sought-after today and has cropped up more recently in the music of Daft Punk tame impala Bruno Mars and chromeo like the six and sixty before it the 106 is a simple synth that just sounds good it has the familiar architecture of the earlier Juno's but with the 106 came midi 128 memory slots polyphonic portamento and two polyphonic modes the lustre of which holds some notes of a chord over to help achieve a natural overlap the 106 is famous for its voice cards failing but modern remakes have allowed these sins to keep going well into the 21st century with plug-in emulations boutique and plug out versions prices of the original instruments have been drifting higher and higher towards silly doom not bad for a budget synth that's now 35 years old [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] eighty-four also saw the release of the jx8 P which succeeded the 3p the influence of the dx7 upon the AP is marked with its membrane switches and under the bonnet controls although the 8p is an analog digital hybrid and not an FM synthesizer [Music] perhaps overlooked the 8p nonetheless is a solid poly synth and wasn't the end of the series as the super Jax or J x10 followed it [Music] [Applause] if you remember watching a band in 1985 you quite possibly recognize this box that started cropping up on the side of drum kits that year this velocity-sensitive MIDI device could trigger a choice of electronic drum sounds to complement the real ones and it was of course the creation of roland the octopod itself provided the triggers but the sounds were generated by the ddr 30 sound module that hosted a range of kits so 80 sounding that you can smell the hairspray Wow bet Phil Collins loved this oh look he did a year later it's also worth noting that roller made innovations with digital piano technology in 1986 when they pioneered structured adaptive synthesis for use in the Rd 1000 in a nutshell that range of the instrument was broken into 30 zones that were individually treated to match the complex tonal behavior of the equivalent part of an acoustic piano combined with velocity sensitivity the result was a far more realistic sound than had been achieved before that date whilst maintaining the dimensions and weight of an instrument that was practical to carry around on tour or that could sit in a home or studio the Rd 1000 became the go-to instrument for Elton John amongst others but before we go forward to the Rowland story we have to go backwards those 303 s and drum machines that have been picked up by young musicians came to the fore in 1987 what exactly happened isn't as clear-cut as wheat perhaps liked it to be the 303 it's seemingly died a premature death that's not entirely true as it did crop up in some charting records such as rip it up by orange juice jam on it by nucleus in the heat of the night by imagination and baseline by mantronix curiously Bollywood composer churan Jeet Singh had hooked up an 808 303 in Jupiter 8 for his 1982 album ten rockers to a disco beat that had more than a passing resemblance to music that didn't officially exist for several years stateside mid 80s records such as washing machine by mr. fingers and Adonis know way back predate what is considered to be the inception of acid and yet their sound is very reminiscent of the then undefined genre it's perhaps more of a convergent discovery than is reported but certainly a definitive moment was futures acid tracks from 1987 that is widely credited as the inception of acid house the genre most synonymous with the tb-303 as mentioned earlier the baseline was complex to program and sounded nothing like the bass guitar it was supposed to emulate this was perfect for Chicago artists such as future who had no intention of using it that way instead they took a one-bar loop and used the 303 six rotary dials to tweak and evolve the repeating pattern over 12 minutes into a trippy mesmerizing and serendipitous sound that has since become immortal combined with the TR 707 and 727 which were also tweaked and mixed in real-time the sound is about minimal composition and maximum tonal variation on a 303 that means everything from swatching tones exaggerated slides throaty groans whistling resonance rumbling pulses and everywhere in between [Music] demo tapes got into the right hands in DJ Ron Hardy producer Marshall Jefferson and labeled tracks records were all integral in pushing forthe future and a wave of other artists who adopted this exciting new sound that now had an official name combined with the growing rave and drug culture on the other side of the pond 303 laced music exploded there too by the UK's second summer of love in 1988 it was hard to avoid hearing that distinctive squelch UK band demob even landed in number three hit with the track we call it a seed and the pivotal role at the 303 can be seen in Europe with song and album titles such as hard floors TB resuscitation with songs such as lost in the silver box and TB stroker in fact even Fatboy Slim's first single was titled everybody needs a 303 raves and warehouse parties sprung up throughout the UK but with notable hubs in the north of England and around London fearing a loss of control radio warmer pressure to play some restrictions on songs with references to acid the tabloids are emblazoned with histrionics new laws are brought in and police presence in raids started becoming commonplace no other mono synth can boast such a reaction to its sound chasing more extreme tones produces experimented with running the 303 through distortion pedals and having the modded the most common mods being the borg mod and the Devilfish mod a 303 could be heard pushed hard in just wing seminal track by state of consciousness from 1995 the demand for 303 s rose but the supply was obviously limited as production it ceased years earlier prices began to climb in have reached well over at grammed 30 years later clones and emulations began cropping up and even Roland have since released a boutique version as well as products clearly inspired by the original but the bass that launched a thousand trips wasn't the only significant Rowland thing that happened in 1987 as they released an instrument based around an entirely different concept altogether the d50 this instrument employed la synthesis which stands for linear arithmetic this was Roland's answer to the dx7 but it was a very different concept of the lattice FM architecture two sound generators were employed PCM samples and digital synthesis either of these could be selected at the front end of a conventional oscillator filter an amp signal path called a partial to partials and a common block that contained control parameters together with EQ and effects could then be used with a ring modulator if desired within seven structures to create a tone to tones upper and lower could be combined in various solo split and layer configurations to create a patch the PCM sounds could be used for the attack transients but they could be looped and used for sustained sounds to two PCMs could also be combined within a tone and two tones combined this new approach meant that the d50 had the means to produce sounds that had never been heard before [Music] [Music] with the addition of the PG 1000 controller the d50 reintroduced a hands-on experience that mirrored the older analog workflow this is probably the biggest barrier to users of the Yamaha dx7 and part of the reason why it's presets was so overused the d50 elbowed the dx7 from its perch after a dominant run of four years and it was discontinued the following year there's some great videos on the roland channel where eric person who was chief sound designer at the time and Adrian Scott talked about some memorable presets they created for the d50 such as soundtrack digital native dance and Fantasia and to add some further nuggets to that the preset afterthought was used with the opening of michael jackson's man in the mirror and Enya's multi-platinum watermark album is practically a demo for the d50 in places particularly the pizza gogo patch that's all over Orinoco flow the d50 was a commercial success and an engineering success picking up a Tech Award for outstanding technical achievement in 1988 it's gone on to be celebrated through reissue in booty performance software and clones of its presets crop up in other instruments however competition was always fierce in the korg m1 that was released in 1988 went on to outsell both the yamaha dx7 and roland d50 rollin could see that digital was the future and responded by investing in new concepts workstations and samplers made up a big part of this in Roland's experiments with this technology was already well underway as they've previously released the s-series models but it's worth noting the w-30 workstation from 1989 as electronic music pioneer Liam Howlett was a heavy user of it and it featured centrally in the prodigies early music is a short video on YouTube of Liam's very own w-30 and accompanying sound discs being played and of course it's synonymous with the rave sound of the late 80s and early 90s as demonstrated by paolo here [Music] jumping forward two years to 1991 rollin were against smart enough to combine the latest digital sound production techniques with analog s control this time through the JD 800 marrying the evolving concept of PCM waveforms and digital synthesis with resonant multimode filters contouring from three envelopes to lfos multi timbre ality and effects the JD 800 was accessible as it was flexible it had 24 note polyphony but this dropped by six every time a sound was layered on the flipside even the effects could be applied separately to each layer so the textures it could produce were a worthwhile payoff [Music] [Music] the 90s were a prolific period for Roland as they rolled out the first MIDI drum system and also general MIDI that meant there was a template for how sounds were mapped across all MIDI devices which was tied into the release of the first sound canvas module the SC 55 this range went on to be a big seller for Roland but they also put out several others at the time one such series being the JV range that began with the JV 80 released in 1992 the JV 80 was entirely digital and had 28 voice polyphony with up to four tones per voice they had expansion slot cards if the users wished to load in further sound banks it was followed by several other JB since most notably the JV 1080 in 1994 which is a big success being used by artists such as Ronnie sighs faithless hard floor and Apollo 440 it had a whopping 448 waveforms insert effects 64 note polyphony and again slots for expansion cards it sold well enough to keep it in production for seven years a peculiar creation from 1996 is worth mentioning which is the boss VT one voice transformer this easy-to-use vocoder and harmonizer allowed pitch informants shifting within a compact box with an affordable price tag this is pitch pick up yes hey hey hey hey one two one two one two formant silent loss larger coolers let's go Smurfs with some reverb yes stop the rock can't stop the racket can't stop the rock dance that same year roland became the first japanese music company to receive the international iso 9002 certificate for quality assurance the v-series was also a big part of the 90s there was the vg8 guitar processor that used Roland's Kazem technology to model a range of acoustic and electric guitars pickups and amplifiers all with the push of a pedal whilst this is commonplace now the vg8 was the first of its kind and there was of course the v-drums in 1997 there were two innovations that came with this firstly the mesh drum heads that meant an electronic drum kit finally had the response of a real drum skin secondly the T d-10 sound module that used Roland's aforementioned cousin technology to give the player 600 kits to choose from and the ability to tweak and customize those kits to their liking and on a personal note I remember the parents of several of my drummer friends rejoicing at the invention of a playable drum kit with a volume dial 1997 also saw the introduction of another memorable roland synth the JP 8000 this was their first entirely virtual analog synth without reliance upon any PCM samples it had multimode filters effects and arpeggiator and knobs and sliders on the front panel for real-time parameter changes cleverly what was called the motion control feature meant that movement of the knobs and sliders could be recorded into memory to capture a performance it also had real-time phrase sequencing meaning your sequences could be assigned to keys for triggering the JP 8000 is probably most famous for introducing the world to the supersoul waveform this is a freerunning oscillator that combines seven detuned sawtooth waves together a sound that will become integral to trance hardcore drum and bass and techno [Music] [Music] in the latter part of the decade roland introduced the v8 80 which was a portable and affordable mini recording studio in watt and box capable of high-quality digital recording they also released the world's first USB audio interface the you a 100 way back in 1998 I bet you didn't know that [Music] and so to the new millennium and the number of products rollin were putting out by this point is quite staggering way too many to even begin to cover there were now eight companies under the rollin umbrella employing thousands of people around the world the Catterick akahoshi was in his 70s and taking more of an advisory role but still very much part of the journey he started the best part of 50 years earlier of which the roland corporation had made up to 30 of those years right from the off roland were at it again with the vp 9000 very phrase processor dubbed as elastic audio it would analyze a waveform and encode controller data to frequency pitch dynamics and timing there were then three algorithms available to manipulate those components dependent upon whether they were monophonic polyphonic or rhythmic roll this allowed for things that were incredibly difficult up until this point to be accessed in a straightforward manner for example samples could be replayed at different pitches but crucially remain at the same speed or you could take a groove that was recorded straight and make it swung changes to the hosts tempo would be tracked in real time Morland we take this for granted nowadays but things were very different even 20 years ago your sounds can be stored on zip disks remember them it was used by artists such as Fat Boy slim and Daft Punk in fact the robot voice affected produce was heavily used by the latter on their discovery album [Music] maybe 9,000 [Music] Rolland BP 9,000 however despite all this the VP 9000 wasn't actually much of a success at the time perhaps because people didn't know what to make of it or perhaps the emergence of computer software that could do a similar things shortly after meant that it was made a bit redundant but the technology within it was far from dead as we'll see some standout instruments from the early 2000s with a phantom series VP Series vs series rebates and recent series the latter of which introduced the earlier very phrase technology into a synth that allowed for the user to manipulate the pitch time and Foreman of the 300 PCM waveforms on board the instrument user samples can also be loaded into create unique sounds and it could also produce waveforms through analog modeling to combine with the samples if you wanted to go even further external audio could be run into the V synth for manipulation the US or temperate Buddhist ETSU lilies you are Vermont or Azerrad 40 Emma please [Music] mm finally saw new Jupiter models with the release of the Jupiter 80 in Jupiter 50 [Applause] although these instruments of worlds away from the original creations that bore the same name the Jupiter 80 for example uses Roland's digital sound generations supernatural technology which models the characteristics of a broad range of different instruments that you may wish to emulate so there is effectively a suite of different sound engines to accompany associated instruments it also builds sounds from three layers labeled town live set and registration the Jupiter 80 is no reworking of a Jupiter 8 at 6 or 4 it's entirely different in keeping with Roland's philosophy of always moving forward [Music] although for the nostalgic amongst us emulations of Roland's heritage instruments were made available as a free download pack called since legends vol 1 the TR moniker also returned with the TRA in 2014 that made up part of Roland's IRA series aimed at modern electronic musicians and performers this range also included the tb-3 touch bass line and VT 3 vocoder in 2014 roland introduced plug out since that allowed sound sets to be loaded onto and hosted by the synth this means that you can effectively transform your synth into a different one internally as and when you see fit the aforementioned IRA units and plug out since also introduced Roland's analog circuit behavior or ACB technology that was the latest iteration of their emulations of analog circuitry that they first developed way back in the 80s as mentioned before roland did for once make a concerted nod to their past with the introduction of boutique versions of the 808 909 303 JX 3 p vp 330 sh-101 judah 106 Jupiter a and D 50 again utilizing their ACB technology up to the present day roland continued to be a market leader offering a broad range of analog virtual analog and digital instruments with the kind of seamless connectivity in control you'd expect of 21st century hardware but the quality of sound that roland have always been famous for [Music] [Applause] [Applause] [Music] [Music] but before all of this in 2013 i Catterick akahoshi finally left roland but not to retire no he founded the electronics company a TV technology and perhaps fittingly his final project was the a-frame which was an electronic percussion instrument on April 1st 2017 aged 87 mr. Kay left this world behind his is a remarkable tale as we've seen an orphan who started a small shop repairing watches then grew it to a global tech giant that had a profound effect on the course of popular music the world over with an outpouring of tributes that the news of his passing and such a deep legacy his influence will no doubt continue to be felt for the considerable future [Music] [Music] [Music]

Channel: Alex Ball

Views: 796,490

Rating: 4.9594407 out of 5

Keywords: Roland, Synthesizer, Retrospective, Music, Electronic, History, Documentary, Drum Machine, Technology

Id: JcbpRMZIQ8g

Length: 72min 0sec (4320 seconds)

Published: Thu Apr 04 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/mishaimpossible]

10/10 absolutely would recommend. Amateur documentary that was made better than many professional ones.

[u/Strongocho]

I watched this today and it was a really well made documentary.

[u/tehreal]

Same guy has a DSI/Prophet video too. It's also good.

[u/Berg73]

This is a great documentary. I enjoyed learning about the history of one of my favorite synth manufacturers.

[u/halftrek]

This has been in my YT recommendations for ages. Good to know it's worth watching!

[u/embri0n]

Watched this last month or so. Was blown away. Its amazing. A must!!!