NAMM 2008: Hot New Products, Part 2

NAMM 2008: Hot New Products, Part 2

23 January, 2008 | 12.20PM

• Written by: francispreve
• Filed under: Music News: namm 2008

This time, we’ll take a look at the product highlights from two legends: Roland and Access.

In addition, we’ve got the scoop on another “waiting list” synth, the Waldorf Blofeld.

Read on for the details.

Roland

The buzz in the Roland pavilion (not booth — pavilion) is all about the new Fantom-G8.

Based on the Fantom workstation line, the G8 includes a massive 8.5” color LCD screen that displays sound information with amazing rotating 3D animations.

You can even add a mouse to the synth, which is a first for a Roland workstation.

(And in 2008, it’s about time.)

How does it sound?

For do-it-all workstation synths, it’s quite capable. For everything from sampled acoustic material to densely layered synth pads, the Fantom’s got it.

Also introduced at NAMM are two expansion cards for the G8: ARX-01 Acoustic Drums and ARX-02 Electric Piano.

These upgrades are fully modeled instruments with way more flexibility than a simple sampled version.

The only downside is the fact that workstation synths, by their very nature, have to be everything to everyone, so the G8 doesn’t have the unique character that a Virus, Nord Lead or Prophet oozes.

But if you’re in the market for a workstation device, the Fantom is definitely worth a look.

Waldorf

Whoa. Waldorf [main image] is back in a huge way.

Their latest product, Blofeld, just started shipping this month and I took it for a quick test drive on the show floor.

Let’s start with the important stuff.

It sounds incredible.

This tiny little desktop synth is based on the classic PPG wavetable technology and has a crisp, complex sound that can be at times crystalline and at others fat and juicy.

In addition to classic bread and butter textures, it also excels at percolating tech riffs and miniscule minimal noises.

What’s more, you can program it from either the front panel knobs or via a software interface that makes everything easy to read and access.

And it’s pretty. Very, very pretty.

For a street price of around $700 US, they’re gonna sell a bunch.

Access

Trance fans are going to completely lose it over the new Virus TI Snow.

Like the Waldorf Blofeld, the TI Snow is an impossibly small book-sized synth, but with the Access sound that dominates the trance scene.

In addition, it also features software integration with a variety of sequencing platforms.

In terms of features, the only real difference between the Snow and a full TI version is the number of voices and multi-timbral parts, which are roughly half of the Virus TI.

Sonically, it’s identical.

Add a MacBook, sequencing software and you can have a complete trance production studio in your backpack.

MSRP $1350 US

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