Roland announces A-01 MIDI controller and SYSTEM-500 synth

Roland fans are in for a double treat as the company's officially unveiled a set of new products ahead of NAMM.

One of them is the SYSTEM-500 set-up, a Eurorack modular synth system, that we reported on last November. Now, Roland details the piece of kit as having "the classic character and playability of a vintage Roland modular synth, with all the advantages of a modern instrument."

The SYSTEM-500 contains the 512, 521, 530, 540 and 572 modules with a price yet to be confirmed.

Another announcement is of a new MIDI controller, the bluetooth-enabled, wireless A-01, which is said to be the same size as Roland's Boutique synths and works as an 8-bit synth.

Compatible with the Roland K-25m mini-keyboard, Synthopia says it can be used to control both analog and modular equipment and former Roland engineer Akira Matsui was the man behind it.

He said: "One day I wondered what it would be like to make a synth with an 8-bit CPU. The idea was to see how far I could go with the limited resources of an 8-bit CPU and 8 KB of memory.

"The first thing I programmed was the oscillator, and somewhat surprisingly, it ended up being something that you could play decent scales on without using a lot of resources.

"I then programmed all of the analog synth elements. The filter, followed by amp, and then LFO and I was able to pack all of them in quite nicely. In the remaining space, I programmed a step sequencer, and the finished result was the 8-Bit CPU Synth."

Watch introduction videos for SYSTEM-500 and A-01 below.

Dave Turner is Mixmag's Digital News Editor, follow him on Twitter here