Roland "Eschew mediocrity" ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1979

Roland JP-4, MP-600 and RS-505 (and family) "Eschew mediocrity" two-page full colour advertisement from pages 42 and 43 in the April 1979 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

Eschew? Gazoontite.

That has to be one of the best ad-titles I've come across in a long time. Someone needs to get that tatoo'd to their ass. And make it about the same size as the ad-title in this two-page, one-time-only centrefold ad that popped up in the April 1979 issue of CK.

This advertisement features three of Roland's "newest line of Professional Keyboards", but it's really about the promotion of the "FREE-Deluxe, full-color 58-page Roland Catalog of the largest, most diversified line of electronic music equipment in the world". A catalog you can get for a mere dollar (shipping and handling charges  :)

As a centrefold should, this ad's focus is on that one big lovely photo of the three featured keyboards. There is some good detail to be found.

One of the most interesting details I found was the green colour framing around most of the controls of the RS-505. My recollection told me that these were gray, not green, and I was excited that this photo may contain a prototype. Like the grey colour found on the photo of the RS-505 on Vintage Synth Explorer.It makes me wonder if that colouring changed on other Roland synths during their life spans.

This was actually the first ad to feature the RS-505, but the keyboard itself seems to have been around a lot longer than when it first appeared in advertisements.

For example, it showed up in the December 1978 Spec Sheet section of Contemporary Keyboard. It's not the best Spec Sheet I've seen, but it includes the basics as well as the coveted retail price. Not gonna argue with that:

"Roland Paraphonic-505. The RS-505 Paraphonic keyboard has a splittable 61-note keyboard with three voicing possibilities - a string synthesizer section, a lead synthesizer and a bass synthesizer are included int he unit. A number of different settings are available on the string section, a 24dB-per-octage filter is supplied on the lead synthesizer, and the bass synthesizer has two 16' settings and one 8' setting. There is also an independent three-state ensemble mode for creating effects ranging from flanging to chorusing. Re-tail price is under $1800.00. Roland Corp, U.S., 2401 Saybrook Ave., Los Angeles, CA 90040."

But that's not even the earliest sighting of the RS-505 this side of the pond. It actually appeared even earlier in the What's New section of the Summer '78 issue of Synapse Magazine. And it contains something REALLY weird about another synthesizer featured in this advertisement. Read it right to the end:

"...Roland Corp US, 2401 Saybrook, LA, CA 90040, has released several new synthesizers recently. The SH-7 is a duo-phonic keyboard instrument with dual sample and hold, so that both notes will hold pitch after the keys have been replaced. The $1,895 unit features a 24dB fVCF with external signal envelope follower, and a "bender" that can control VCO, VCF, and VCA. The RS-505 "is a paraphonic ensemble, a strings and synthesizer combination," with a tag of $1,895. The PO-44 Space Bird is a "four-voice polyphonic synthesizer with a computer memory," listing for $2,695. No further information has been furnished on these instruments yet. Roland has also announced plans to introduce additional guitar synthesizer models later on this year..."

Did you catch it? The PO-44 SPACE BIRD. When I had first read that name, I could only assume that Synapse was referring to the Jupiter-4 - it was the only 4-voice Roland released soon after. Could you imagine if the Jupiter-4 has been named the SPACE BIRD?!?!? Pure awesomeness. I can only assume a Rave band of the same name would have sprung up in the late 80s or early 90s. Oh - and dibs on the domain name!

I had no idea. But apparently Simon James and Matt Ford of TheSimonSounds twitter account did back in 2011. Gah.Was I the only one that didn't know this?!?!

I used to want Roland to reissue the TB303 or SH101 as part of the new craze to build on old brands - like the new Korg MS-20 or even Novation's just announced Bass Station II. But now I just want Roland to create a 4-voice polyphonic analogue synthesizer called the Space Bird.

Pleeeeeeeeeese Roland!

Roland JP-4 synthesizer "Introducing the new standard..." ad, Contemporary Keyboard 1978

Roland JP-4 synthesizer "Introducing the new standard..." full-page black and white advertisement from page 55 in the November 1978 issue of Contemporary Keyboard.

I picked this advertisement for one big reason in particular. I'll let you listen for yourself.

Yup. The arpeggiator. I ***love*** arpeggiators. ***LOVE*** them.

In particular that riff from Duran Duran's Rio!

And now, every time I hear that arpeggiator I get a little weepy.

Let me tell you a little story.

I live in Canada. The middle of Canada. And around this time of year it begins to get cold. Right now we are hitting 0 degrees Celsius at night. The garden is done and squirrels are getting drunk on fermented crab-apples that have fallen off the trees. They are brave little suckers when they're bagged.

Anyways, last Sunday morning I decided it was finally time to turn on the furnace. After a couple of minutes, the familiar warmth that usually begins to slowly permiate my house was... well... it wasn't. No heat!

Huh.

So I ventured down into my basement and took the cover off the furnace. I could feel the vibration of the furnace fan, but I swear I couldn't feel air flow. So, without thinking my next action through to its possible logical conclusions, I stuck my left index finger into the fan motor.

Hey neat - blood!

Lots of it.

Wait... that's MY blood.

That's when I realized the fan took off the end of my finger. Not a lot of it. But enough that the nurse at Urgent Care would later describe it as a "gaping hole". A "gaping hole" deep enough that the doctor was concerned about bone infection. 

It was a stupid thing to do. And I felt pretty foolish. 

But those good peeps at the hospital fixed me up and sent me home in under two hours. Who says Canada's health care system sucks?*

*Not me.

And I gotta say, the nurse that first bandaged me up was super nice about it. She calmed me down and was very understanding and kind about the whole thing.  All I could think about was how she probably had a shitty week of no sleep and here I was taking time out of her busy schedule to attend to the result of my extreme stupidity when I'm sure she had a lot of other things to do.

Nurses are good people. Okay, she may have been kinda hot too. Just sayin'...

Anyways, it took a few days before I finally man-up'd and posted a photo on Facebook for my friends. Mostly because when I went back yesterday night for a check-up, the nurse did an awesome job of creating a harness-like system to keep everything in place.

I also posted it to get some group sympathy. And it worked.

But one commenter in particular said something that struck a chord (pun intended):

"EEEK! Your arpeggio finger!"

LOL!

Roland "You simply don't outgrow the best" family ad, 1978

Roland "You simply don't outgrow the best" full page black and white family advertisement including the MC-8 MicroComposer, and SH-7 and JP-4 synthesizers from page 5 in the July 1978 issue of Contemporary Keyboard Magazine.

 Like I was saying at the end of my last blog post on the introductory MC-8 advertisement, with all of Roland's diverse products it must sometimes just cheaper to throw them altogether into one large ad. And today's advertisement is the one I would have linked to, rather than this 1983 Roland ad. But I hadn't posted this ad yet. So, here it is now.  :)

I love family ads. I used to call them 'orgy' ads, but I was uncomfortable with the term. Plus, I really don't think the instruments were doing too much of the nasty (hmmm - maybe someone should start a "synthesizers humping" blog.

Better go register that domain right now... nah. Too lazy.

Anyways, where was I... oh yeah... orgy.  "Family" just has a better ring to it.

So many of the synth greats came out with family ads - here's just a few to remind you of some.

Granted, this Roland ad may not have had the luxury or even availability of a good Photoshop production artist. Or, what looks like a lack of any type of artist for that matter. Its hard to believe this ad and that earlier MC-8 advertisement came from the same company.

But, no matter, this ad still holds a place in my heart because of its ad-copy.

For one, unlike most Roland ads you come across today, the company is still climbing its way to the top of the synthesizer pile. No, its not at the bottom. But its not at the top either:

"We know these things because the greatest performers in the business are switching to Roland."

Did you catch that word: "Switching".

You don't hear that word come from a company like Coke. You heard it from Pepsi - the underdog at the time of the Pepsi Challenge.

Second, Roland, along with many other manufacturers, were just at the start of the digital revolution. A revolution was that was ramping up quick. And their customers were  already getting caught up in that digital revolution in other parts of their lives - data and word processing. And, just like in that MC-8 ad that came out earlier, Roland throws out their magical term "music processing":

"They're thinking in terms of systems... modules... interfacing... music processing... a whole new world of electronic music". 

It's watching companies like Roland evolve (Oberheim's words), merging the new world with the old world, that really turns my crank. Don't get me wrong, I love my fully analog Moog Modular. Wouldn't trade it for the world. But the most fun I have with gear is when I'm interfacing my Roland TB-303 and TR-808 with other DIN Sync and MIDI gear using tools like the Roland MPU-101. 

In fact, when I think of Roland, I think of "interfacing" more than "music processing" - like most people that got caught up in the 101/202/303/808/909 phenomenon.

All these years later, how could Roland have known that "interfacing" old Roland gear with new Roland gear would still be just as important to so many people?  :D

Roland family of products, Contemporary Keyboard 1978

Roland orgy - SH-7, JP-4, MC-4, System 100, System 500, and more on page 15 of Contemporary Keyboard September 1978.