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August 9, 2005 The Morrison Digital Trumpet (MDT) is a new brass-style MIDI wind controller invented and designed by international virtuoso musician James Morrison and musician/inventor, Steve Marshall. Using entirely digital technology, there are many new and important capabilities of the Morrison Digital Trumpet beyond the normal wind instrument. One of the most compelling new capabilities is that the MDT can offer the sound of an entire horn or string section from one person – because it interfaces with MIDI it can effectively “play” any instrument. The MDT is also easier to play as there is no embouchure to be maintained in order to produce a professional quality tone - some people find they simply do not have the time to maintain their "chops" on an acoustic instrument and an MDT is more in tune with their lifestyle. Finally, apart from an infinite array of adjustments and capabilities not found on your standard trumpet, the US$1995 (or 1300 Euro) MDT glows and comes with genuine “Show Business Appeal!” Read More
May 6, 2005 If you’ve always hankered to learn to play the guitar, there’s a new product from Yamaha that looks ideal for removing all the obstacles – it’s a digital teaching guitar with guide lights so you can learn how to play just by following the lights. The good news is it’s from Yamaha, the very same company that developed the piano teaching methodology that revived the world piano industry, so it ain’t just a toy. Further incentive is that because the whole thing is digital, it comes with a bunch of built-in songs and riffs and from the moment you begin playing you can play along with the whole band which is also built-in and thanks to guitar-modelling technologies, the EZ-EG ("easy electric guitar") will also reproduce nine realistic guitar sounds, eight bass guitar sounds and the timbres of a banjo, piano and the traditional Japanese shamisen through its built-in speaker. Read More
February 7, 2005 The steady march of digital technology continues to sweep all before it and the smallest member of the free-reed musical instrument family, the accordion, looks set to be next with the release this week of the Roland FR-5 and FR-7 V-Accordions. Based on Roland's proprietary Physical Behavior Modeling (PBM) technology, these lightweight, reedless digital accordions put dozens of ultra-realistic instruments at the player's fingertips and take one of the original musical instruments into the digital age. Read More
