Fueled by a deep love of pop music and experience building interactive art installations, Dolly Spectra is rewriting the rules of live performance. Armed in full-body motion-capture gear, she turns her body into an instrument and controls elaborate audiovisuals with her movements. Read how the artist hacked her way to livestreaming and in-person performance innovation and curated a tight-knit community on the cutting edge of technology.      A Glam Foundation   What’s your musical background?    I grew up singing and performing in Virginia and moved to ..read more

Throughout Roland’s 50 years, the company has consistently pushed the boundaries of what a musical instrument can be. This ethos is part of designing the future, one of the company’s slogans and an apt one for the 50th Anniversary Concept Piano, an instrument that strides boldly into the future while respecting the piano’s traditional foundations. Complete with drone speakers and global connectivity, it’s a marvel to behold and hear—for many reasons. Dual Concepts: The Jewel and the Jewel Box Concept instruments are often audacious. Like Athena springing from the head of Zeus, they e ..read more

BRIDGE CAST is a dedicated audio mixer for gamers, marking Roland’s first foray into the gaming industry. It’s a desktop hub packed with powerful features like dual sound mixes, vocal transformer effects, personalization options, music playback, sound effects, and support for a broadcast-grade mic and headphones. It’s a unique product for Roland, and so is its story. Meet the team that brought BRIDGE CAST from concept to fruition. A Youth Gamer Grows Up The development of BRIDGE CAST was spearheaded by the efforts of Hirotaka Koga, a Roland employee from the Mechanism Development Department ..read more

Roland Cloud is a relatively new platform, but music instructors around the world have already taken notice. It offers powerful opportunities for students looking to master music production, beat making, sound design, synthesis, and audio. Today, the cost-effective subscription model offers access to incredibly realistic ACB replicas. It’s also packed with a continually expanding sound library.   Back in the day, learning how to operate any synthesizer or drum machine required commitment. Musicians often had no choice but to invest in their favorite tools. For many, owning a  ..read more

Based in London, Yuri Suzuki is a Japanese artist, designer, and musician. His experience as a creator spans a diverse range of projects and collaborators. He’s worked at companies from Teenage Engineering to Disney, and developed instruments for everyone from Jeff Mills to will.i.am. We spoke to Suzuki about bringing 808303.studio to life, his love for acid house and techno through Roland gear, and musical life during quarantine.     Ototo and Furniture Music While living in his hometown of Tokyo, Suzuki worked with the acclaimed art unit Maywa Denk ..read more

Collab is a fresh iOS app just released in the US from NPE (New Product Experimentation) at Facebook. It brings together creators and fans to create, watch, and mix and match original videos, starting with music. The impetus behind Collab is to help users feel closer together, even though we are all apart. We spoke with product manager Brittany Mennuti about creating Collab, how it works, and where it’s going. Getting Started Collab feels like the tool we need right now. How did the idea first come about? Late in 2019, my team set out on a mission to make creative collaboration, particularly ..read more

Matt Workman, the creative powerhouse behind Cine Tracer, has something up his sleeve. Drummer XR is the name of Workman’s new tech project, and it’s already garnering tons of buzz. The concept blends crisp drumming, green screen work, and Workman’s 3D world-building chops. At the heart of Drummer XR is the creator’s in-the-pocket playing on a Roland VAD503 kit. One attention-getting clip features Workman in a Minecraft setting using swords for sticks. Indeed, Drummer XR seems poised for the same kind of influence as the Cine Tracer. We spoke with Workman about his gr ..read more

Christopher Kah started out like any other self-taught producer 15 years ago. Today, he is a respected performer known for his intricate take on techno. With his latest installation, ECHO, Kah is raising the bar for 3D audio. Christopher explains how he found new meaning in sound through the process of playing Roland instruments through 32 speakers. Instinct and Symbiosis Your music is an ideal fit for a 3D audio experience. What’s the inspiration behind the minimal but complex way you play with rhythm and sound design on stage? It’s very instinctive. I get into the machine, explore its po ..read more

Some of us developed our musical palette around a milk crate full of vinyl. Others, a stack of cassette tapes or a stuffed binder of CDs. For years, receiving physical copies of classics from keen-eared relatives and friends was how we gained exposure to new influences. As we came into our own, maybe we heard something on the radio that grabbed our attention. Then we dropped a little money for the whole album, hoping that it held up beyond that hot new single. In 2020, the game has changed completely. These days, we pay for participation, not property, and we’re swimming in recommendation ..read more

The intersection of music and technology is a space for happy accidents. From Bowie and Eno throwing away synthesizer manuals to the advent of DJs scratching records, the misuse of machinery results in groundbreaking sounds. In that spirit, we bring you this short list of music tech Rear of SP-404 (photo courtesy of Wikimedia Commons) SP-404 The centerpiece here and most contemporary of the bunch is Roland’s SP-404. The sampling workstation came after the popular SP-303. Though utilized by heavy hitters like Radiohead, Grimes, and Beck, the 404’s richest legacy is in the Los Angeles-center ..read more