Roland Sold!

brooster · Post by **brooster** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 6:07 pm

http://www.roland.com/ir/pdf/2014/20140715.pdf

BasariStudios · Post by **BasariStudios** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 7:33 pm

Who's next?

Bachus · Post by **Bachus** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:12 pm

BasariStudios wrote:Who's next?

Who is the buyer, thats the question..

Post by **Sharp** » Wed Jul 16, 2014 8:29 pm

Bachus wrote:
BasariStudios wrote:Who's next?
Who is the buyer, thats the question..

This is probably just the deal going through for what was posted on the forum a few weeks back.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/taiyo-pac ... 00931.html

Good for them too. Best of luck for the future Roland.

Regards
Sharp.

Joe Gerardi · Post by **Joe Gerardi** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 10:36 am

Bachus wrote:
BasariStudios wrote:Who's next?
Who is the buyer, thats the question..

The owner is the current President, and he's buying it to take it private again. That's a good thing: when it's the Board that decides what's to be made - based on the bottom line - the music suffers. Roland's founder - Ikutaro Kakehashi - was only interested in the product, and hopefully, Roland will get back to that level.

The new stuff sounds pretty good, but is built poorly. "Professional," or "Performance" keyboards that lack aftertouch, keybeds getting cheaper and cheaper, feeling atrocious to play and "clacking," things that the musician - not just a "player" - needs to practice his craft, all need to go away, and some level of professionalism needs come back to the fold.

Good luck to them.

..Joe

Jan1 · Post by **Jan1** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 10:50 am

'He (Jyunichi Miki, president of Roland Corporation) attributed stagnant sales of Roland digital musical instruments to changing consumer tastes for inexpensive products.'

It's a clear indication that Roland's president aims to focus on increasing Roland's presence in the low budget segment.
I think it's a wise move which Roland should have made years ago. I just hope it does not come at the expense of the total exclusion of high end instruments.

Yet I also hope that Roland's president realizes that it is not just the economic malaise which is responsible for the decline in sales of the more expensive instruments. The lack of response to their own customer base, lack of direct communication, strange design choices, unwillingness to release updates to improve the flow of their instruments, these are just a few of the other aspects which Roland should take a close look at.

Anyway, AIRA is a promising new beginning, and I wish Roland nothing but the best.
The company has a rich legacy of past synths and technologies which they could use in their favor. But they HAVE to learn to be more responsive and open to what their customers request, and critically evaluate their choice of design for an instrument.

NuSkoolTone · Post by **NuSkoolTone** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 6:40 pm

Good news. Roland hasn't been interesting in a LOOOONG time!

Timo · Post by **Timo** » Thu Jul 17, 2014 7:41 pm

Joe Gerardi wrote:The new stuff sounds pretty good, but is built poorly. "Professional," or "Performance" keyboards that lack aftertouch, keybeds getting cheaper and cheaper, feeling atrocious to play and "clacking," things that the musician - not just a "player" - needs to practice his craft, all need to go away, and some level of professionalism needs come back to the fold.

To be fair, Korg are unfortunately just as bad in that regard. Radias KB had no aftertouch and neither did the King Korg. Shameful omissions for £1000+ boards. No aftertouch on Krome, Kross either, even on MIDI performance controller keyboards like Tactile.

Joe Gerardi · Post by **Joe Gerardi** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 2:39 pm

No argument there, but Roland didn't put aftertouch on a $2,000.00 synth, the Jupiter-50. It's why I walked away from it when it's idea really appealed to me. When - in the 1990's - a $1,000.00 keyboard like the DX11 or the Kawai K4 (not to mention the K1 and K1 II) could have aftertouch, to then omit it on current products at twice that price is just spitting in the eye of musicians. Hell, even E-Mu's Longboard series from 4-5 years ago had aftertouch, and they were $500.00 synths.

..Joe

Bertotti · Post by **Bertotti** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 3:03 pm

Aftertouch, poly after touch, release velocity are all things I would love to see on a controller with great action but every company seems to just want to target a certain market and anyone wanting a more complete or luxury board is SOL.

twstone1983 · Post by **twstone1983** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 4:42 pm

Both my N364 (which was around $1200 brand new in 1997 when it released) and TR88 ( around $1400 brand new when released in 2006) have Aftertouch. I was a bit surprised to find when the M50 was released in 2008 as the TR replacement, it lacked A/T. I guess Korg felt that having the touchscreen was a better trade off. They continued this frame of thought with the Krome. Doesn't surprise me the Kross lacks it as it is Korg's sub $1000 entry level board. I just think its terrible that now days, you have to buy the $3000+ flagship to get this feature.

kenackr · Post by **kenackr** » Fri Jul 18, 2014 5:20 pm

Unfortunately, it's a function of market contraction in almost all economies around the globe. Cars get smaller with smaller engines, cereal boxes get less cereal in them and the effect is a little worse for marketplaces that cater to "non essential goods" like musical instruments.

We're still not out of the economic funk even though we've had some better news every so often lately. The US is just beginning to see better job growth, but the ripple down effect will probably take a few more years for the global economy to claw it's way back to where it was before the bottom fell out. We still have about 12 million people unemployed that were employed previously.

Asena · Post by **Asena** » Sat Jul 19, 2014 12:42 am

OLD STORY!