A keytar (or a over-the-shoulder synthesizer) is a synthesizer that is played standing, hanging it up like a guitar, which makes it possible to move around the stage without being tied to the instrument rack. They were especially popular in the 80's and were used by musicians of various genres (from disco to metal), and now one of the leading companies producers of synthesizers and musical equipment Roland decided to try to give them a second life.

Roland AX-Edge is a digital synthesizer with a 49-key semi-weighted, pressure-sensitive keyboard with an aftertouch function. Naturally, as a synthesizer intended for performances, it has a bright modern design and, in addition to the two colors to choose from, has the ability to change the so-called. "Blades", so that the musician, if desired, can create his own unique looking instrument.

Also an important feature of this synth is the ergonomically arranged neck, where there are tools for modifying the sound during the performance.

The fretboard includes a modulation panel, a pressure sensitive pitch control bar, buttons for selecting a play mode (unison, portamento, hold), two wheels, one of which can be assigned, and buttons for switching presets and switching octaves.

As for the most important part of the synthesizer, namely the sound engine, its capabilities include:

• 256 voices of polyphony, dynamically allocated;
• 4-part multitimbrality + part allocated to vocoder;
• the ability to connect a microphone and use the instrument as a vocoder, mixing the vocals to the other 4 parts;
• more than 500 presets and the ability to store 256 user presets and as many individual tones;
• a powerful effects processor that includes 79 types of multi-effects for individual parts and whole presets, an equalizer that can be applied to both a single part and the entire signal, 6 reverb types, 8 chorus types and a compressor;
• arpeggiator.

Presets and tones can be very accurately adjusted using a mobile application on iOS / Android, in addition, you can send MIDI using the built-in Bluetooth 4.1. The instrument as a whole offers quite a lot of different switching capabilities: the rear panel features MIDI I/O, headphone and line out, USB (with MIDI support), a microphone input, a pedal connector and a power connector. The synthesizer can also, of course, be powered from 8 AA rechargeable batteries, which should provide approximately 4 hours of AX-Edge operation.

The exact release date as well as the cost has not yet been announced, but presumably this instrument will cost $ 1000.