Roland

Japanese music gear titan Roland is celebrating 50 years in business this year, and has combined the timeless beauty of wood with cutting-edge digital technology for its latest party piece – the 50th Anniversary Concept Model Piano.

Last year, Roland rebranded its capable long-running combo amp for street musicians with the Boss logo. Now the companies continues the Boss Cube line with a pair of practice amps – one for guitarists and the other for bass players.

Roland has announced the Juno-X programmable polyphonic synthesizer, which combines the power of the company's Zen-Core synth engine with authentic recreations of the legacy Juno-60 and Juno-106 models for three powerful synthesizers in one.

Best known for its boxy effects pedals for guitar and bass, Boss also makes amplifiers, wireless systems, rhythm machines, and a bunch of accessories. And now the company has made its own guitar, which comes with a built-in synth and Bluetooth.

A new version of Roland's hugely popular portable combo amp first introduced in 2007 has been announced. The Cube Street II now wears a Boss logo on the grille, comes with twice the output oomph and has had a few pounds shaved off its weight.

Roland has unveiled a new digital wind instrument called the Areophone Pro that's destined for the hands of professional players, and is said to put entire brass and woodwind sections at a player's disposal.

Roland has been pounding out electronic drums for decades, most recently going for a traditional kit look and feel. The latest V-Drums release is claimed to offer "the finest electronic drumming experience in its class."

If you haven't seen the choreographed Japanese drumming known as Taiko, then you're missing out. It's loud, dynamic and fast-paced fun. Roland is looking to capture some of that traditional fire and bring it to modern percussionists with the Taiko-1.

Roland has been in the electronic drum business for a good many years, and most kits released have had a skeletal look compared to their traditional counterparts. Now the company has launched a line of V-Drums that rock a classic acoustic kit vibe.

Roland has spent decades making professional-grade digital musical instruments, and put a call out to designers to envision an ambitious digital grand piano. Here it is – the GPX-F1 designed by Jong Chan Kim.

Roland's Aerophone mini digital wind instrument makes learning easy by eliminating complicated fingerings and difficult breathing control.

​Amazon's Alexa voice assistant has made its way into many gadgets since it launched with the Echo smart speaker in 2014. Now music gear firm Roland has created its first Alexa Skill and loaded it into the Go:Piano so that players can chat as they play.​