MATRIXSYNTH: Jordon Rudess Demos the Roland VP-550


Monday, November 20, 2006

Jordon Rudess Demos the Roland VP-550

Title link takes you to a few videos of Jordon Rudess demoing the Roland VP-550.

via synthesizer-magazin.

11 comments:

  1. Typical cheesy consumer-grade thin-can Roland. Jordan successfully showed off all the strengths and weaknesses of this product, and unfortunately, the greatest strength was its ability to somehow talk The Jordan Rudess into helping them market it.

    I thought he was a Korg guy. Heh.

    Remember when Korg and Roland were kinda like Apple and IBM? Maybe that was just limited to me (Juno-106) and my friend Jerry (Korg DS-8000) in 1984. Good old days.

    Obviously I'm not a Roland fan any more, but I still love my old Juno.

    I shall ramble here no more. As usual, I have no point to make.

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  2. I thought those were fun. Sounds like a great vocodithingamagiger.

    How old is Jordan now? His beard is all white.

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  3. So it's like the same Roland with cheesy sounds and a (ooooh) sequencer that I was awed by in the local music store in 1989, but with a vocoder?

    I mean, pretty decent vocoder sound and all, and the optical theremin-y control seems fun in a novel way, but come on Roland... is this all you've come up with over all these years?

    I swear to god I'm watching Vacation right now, and the corny incidental music sounds not too different. For real.

    And seriously... those drum sounds?? One could make cooler beats on a (insert old school drum machine or Casio here).

    Whatever, it's not like I was sitting on the edge of my seat waiting to see what Roland came up with next. Sorry, I don't mean to be a hater - just not my cup of tea. It does look like 'The Jordan' is enjoying himself. :)

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  4. Well, upon further research, it doesn't even seem to actually include the sequencer/drum sounds. I'll just slowly back out of the room...

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  5. Peter Gabriel will no doubt want his goatee back.

    ReplyDelete
  6. watched some of the videos... looks like something Art of Noise would have enjoyed about 20 years ago... beyond the vocoder, the synth sound itself is that sort of low-impact 80s pastel after-school special kind of shit

    these days tho - im sure some people would still want one... but not me

    undercover scientist?? wow - he needs to be fined or something for that one

    dont they want 2K$ for this fuckin thing?? unbelievable

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  7. We actually have one at the studio. Aside from being one of the most intelligible vocoder sounds I've heard, it's great for classical choir swells & such. I'm sure the VP-330 was trying to be a one-man band as well, but a couple of its features have stood the test of time (and it's the best sounding string machine ever made). The VP-550 is definitely in the same category. There are a couple things it does that definitely take the expression thing one step further. I'd put it in the secret weapon category. Just don't hit any buttons that say "strings" or "scat."

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  8. The first video on the Roland video page could convince anyone to buy one.

    http://www.rolandus.com/products/productdetails.aspx?ObjectId=771

    TJR's video's made it sound like shit.

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  9. The sweet chariot thing on the roland site is fucking amazing. On the other hand, if you don't have a choir you have no right to, um, a choir.



    imho

    ReplyDelete

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