Roland Set To Release Mega Workstation At NAMM?
According to online chatter in several Roland-oriented forums including Roland Clan, it appears that Roland is readying a new, powerful Fantom workstation for debut at NAMM this week. The new keyboard will reportedly be positioned as a workstation “category-killer,” and is said to raise the bar above the current crop of Korg and Yamaha products.
No word yet on actual specs, but if Roland was going to debut a new workstation to not only compete with the Triton’s and Motifs out there, they’ve got to take a fresh look at the user interface and workflow, not just one-up their competitors on number of tracks and storage. And then there’s the constant pressure of pricing. Roland, like many other large manufacturers, has demonstrated in the past that sometimes they over-value some of their gear, with the old-school mentality of being able to reduce the price later on, if they don’t hit their targets. However, the fire-sale perception only hurts their chances of success, and with just a massive amount of incredible new bits of kit coming out these days, you often don’t get a second or third chance to make an impact in the marketplace, just look at the V-Synth.
