As the seasons are changing down here on earth, a new blanket of stars is appearing in the sky, and among those heavenly bodies is a zodiac of new synths, workstations, and grooveboxes from Roland.
Today, the electronic instrument titan is announcing eight new instruments in total: the JU-06A mini Juno, MC-101 and MC-707 grooveboxes, three new Fantoms, and two new Jupiter synths.
To give a taste of these new products, resident Reverb oscillator obsessive Justin Delay takes a first look at Roland's MC-101 Groovebox and Boutique JU-06A Synthesizer in our video above.
Built in the image of the 1996 MC-303, which streamlined the production capabilities and intuitive workflow of legends like the 808 and 909, the MC-101 is made for musicians of all levels to start making tracks in minutes.
This compact version offers four tracks ready for tweaking via onboard knobs, faders, and touch-sensitive pads, while Roland's hefty sound engine provides an impressive suite of loops, phrases, and effects. Want to keep your DAW in the mix? Get the USB connectivity going for a tactile command over your digital sets.
While the MC-101 will retail for $499.99, the MC-707 will be $999.99—and comes packed with enough features to make it worth the price of entry. As Roland states, it "offers everything needed to create a song or perform a live set without a computer." With eight tracks of recording and sequencing capabilities, it has double those of the MC-101, along with sounds from Roland's long line of historic drum machines, with 16 pads allowing you to play or sequence drums, basslines, or chords.
On the synth side of the rollout, the JU-06A offers a trifecta of some of the company's most popular '80s entries in the compact Boutique format. Building on the fan-favorite JU-06 sound module, this revamped model is crafted for "creative music makers who want the vintage JUNO sound at an accessible price."
The JU-06A combines elements of the JUNO 6, 60, and 106 into one sturdy box. At a street price of $399.99, this little beast packs the 106's flexible high-pass filter, the 60's envelope-controlled pulse-width modulation and arpeggiator, and two modes of iconic chorus. Top it off with an onboard sequencer, chord memory, and full-sized MIDI jacks for a module that deserves a spot on any stage.
The three new Fantom workstations are serious instruments—combining Roland's synth tech in all-in-one packages with full-featured keyboards, DAW integration, and interfaces that promise an easy way to access the vast amount of onboard instruments, patches, effects, editing, recording and playback capabilities, and more. The 88-key Fantom 8 will retail for $3,999.99, the 76-key Fantom 7 will be $3,599.99, and the 61-key Fantom 6 will be $3,299.99.
Rounding out the new releases is the new Jupiter series—the 61-key Jupiter-X and 37-note Jupiter-Xm. Both synths are built on a digital sound engine that has rich emulations of Roland's analog classics like the Jupiter-8, Juno-106, SH-101, XV-5080, JX-8P, RD pianos, and Roland's historic drum machines as well, like the TR-808, TR-909, and more.
According to Roland, the polyphony of Jupiter-X and Xm includes up to four synth parts and an additional fifth part for drums. With what the company is calling an AI-enhanced "I-Arpeggiator," you can create rhythms and phrases as you can with a normal arpeggiator, but also have it create complementary basslines and other patterns if you wish.
The larger of the two, the Jupiter-X, will sell for $2,499.99, while the smaller and battery-powered Jupiter-Xm will sell for $1,499.99.