It all started in 1985 with the Akai S612, which was the first in a series of relatively affordable samplers designed in a 19-inch studio-rack format. It could hold only a single sample at a time, which was loaded into memory via a separate disk drive utilizing 2.8-inch Quick Disks. It featured an analog filter - a farewell goodbye to the analog era, a characteristic which would rocket launch its price 30 years later. Being half-computer itself, the S612 paved the way for dozens of successors that invaded the market so quickly that the rackmount sampler concept became inextricably linked to Akai to this day, even though Akai does not exist anymore as that '80s company and has not created any new rackmount sampler since the Z-series of 2002. Why, would you ask? Well, "because of computers" would be a generic answer. But let's better dive into the history and see how Akai progressed and which models were produced.

Roland has two new products to offer – V-Combo top-quality keyboards. V-Combo VR-730 is a portable 73-key instrument with the onboard classic sounding organs and electric pianos including a selection from RD-2000 Stage Piano. As well as V-Combo VR-09-B it will provide you with the three sections of crucial tones for your performance comprising the Roland’s best of organs, acoustic/electric pianos and synth engines.

Christmas and New Year are coming, shops are anxious to sell their goods, consumers expect gifts and freebies. There’s one very generous shop in Brooklyn which offers goods for such prices that you’ll find yourself happy and canny for sure even if you go through all the costly customs and delivery procedures. You’ll never catch them quietly rising prices in order to surprise you with a phony “sale” a few months later. They offer real deals you won’t be able to resist.

When companies equip their cult instruments with a professional keyboard and at least the basic controller set featuring their brand parameters they can easily entice any modular system die-hard fan as well as any touring musician. They don’t aim at the target audience they literally shoot each and every one who’s ever been into professional music. We’ll review the coolest stage synthesizers which used to shake the market and keep on doing it right now - Roland Jupiter-80, Radikal Technologies Accelerator, Access Virus Total Integration 2, Clavia Nord Stage 2EX, Kurzweil PC3A and even that marvelous beast John Bowen Synth Design Solaris!

“The Future. Redefined.” online-festival brought to us interesting new products made by Roland Corporation, as we expected. Roland System-8 for sure seems the most attractive one to keyboardists – it’s a synthesizer with uploadable libraries and based on the same architecture as that System-1 featured though it offers a full-sized keyboard, much more control elements on the front panel surface and the main peculiarity – it’s already equipped with Roland Jupiter-8 and Roland Juno-106 models emulation.