Founded in 1972 by Mr. Ikutaro Kakehashi, the Roland Corporation probably has the largest range of electronic musical instruments of any manufacturer. Alongside digital pianos Roland produce electronic drums, keyboards, organs, synths, home recording equipment and software as well as a huge range of amps, effects pedals and other guitar related products marketed under the BOSS brand. Roland also own the Rodgers Instruments Corporation, an American manufacturer of electronic classical organs.
Over the years Roland has introduced some groundbreaking products including the world’s first touch sensitive electronic piano, the EP-30 in 1974. With the introduction of digital technology in the 1980’s, Roland developed its digital piano range and introduced the first HP series models along with the RD series of stage pianos. These early digital models used Roland’s SA (Structured Adaptive Synthesis) technology to reproduce the sound of an acoustic piano at a reasonable price.
As technology became more advanced and cheaper Roland switched to PCM (Pulse Code Modulation) sampling and over the years has continued to improve the sound. This culminated in 2009 with the launch of the V-Piano which uses computer modeling to reproduce the sound of acoustic pianos, rather than sample based technology.