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Accordion

Roland's $3,000 virtual accordion

Does your mastery of the accordion already have groupies beating a path to your polka nights? Then turn back now, lest you glimpse the power of the most futuristic, and dynamic accordion ever made: the Roland FR-2.

Roland's FR-2 V-Accordion is no mere squeezebox. Announced at January's NAMM expo, the FR-2 charts out the future of the already thrilling world of accordion performance. It has eight virtual accordion sound presets, MIDI input/output, AA-battery power, high-resolution bellows pressure sensors, chorus and reverb sound effects, an integrated digital metronome, and pad triggers for sampled percussion (cowbell not included).

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Tiny speaker plays accordion

After some frighteningly ugly false starts, it's a relief to see that electronics manufacturers are starting to come up with plug-in speakers that don't look like laboratory mistakes. The latest success, at least from an aesthetic perspective, tries to mimic the acoustic principles of full-blown speakers on a diminutive scale.

Like the "PodXtreme" featured awhile back, the "X-Mini Pocket Accordion" from XMI literally compresses a built-in bass into a Lilliputian form that Mobile Magazine describes as a little bigger than a golf ball. But unlike its predecessor, the X-Mini actually looks like a finished … Read more