Monday, February 4, 2019

Roland "Keyboard Instruments" Catalog, 1976










Roland "Keyboard Instruments" 16 page colour catalog including SH-3A, SH-5, SH-1000 and SH-2000 synthesizers, RS-101 strings instrument, and EP-30, EP-20 and EP-10 combo pianos from December 1976.

Well... time for a bit of a break from the Akai MPC stuff. And I thought, since this year marks the 10-year anniversary of the blog (I know... right?!?!?) I wanted to post something special so I've dug into my archives.

A quick look online didn't bring up any good scans of the English version of the catalog (I did find scans of the Japanese version online), so I figured this was a good candidate.

I love Roland's catalogs from this time period - they did everything right. Always a nice cover image. And highlighting each keyboard's features are large photos turned into diagrams. Each page includes lots of white space and simple, readable fonts.

In particular, I'm really digging those two pages dedicated to the SH-5. It's one of the few synths still on my bucket list.

The synth itself has only popped up on the blog twice... once in a Roland retail price list, and the other is this memorable "Groupies aren't everything" advertisement from International Musician (right).

The other section of the catalog that really got my attention was the half page dedicated to Roland's keyboard accessories. I love vintage accessories and will often go out of my way to hunt them down. Cases, bags, pedals... all of 'em. And now I have my eye on two more - that KS-10 keyboard stand and carry bag.

Un-frickin'-believably... Roland has kept the KS-10 name alive in their KS-10x keyboard stand.  Seriously - over  40 years later!  You can find a better photo of the original KS-10 here. Dang... that's some sweet hardware, don't you think?!?!

I've got a few more catalogs to post... hopefully sooner rather than later. We'll see.

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