It may appear arduous to consider, however till now Roland hasn’t had a real competitor to Korg’s seemingly ubiquitous Volca line. Sure, the Boutique vary is transportable and battery powered, however they’re additionally twice the worth of a Volca. And that’s with out the keyboard accent. Now, although, the corporate lastly appears to be taking the entry stage critically with the Aira Compact sequence.

These new $199 devices borrow tech from their massive siblings within the Aira line, just like the VT-4 Voice Transformer and the TR-8 Rhythm Performer. The T-8 is a drum machine that makes use of Roland’s Analog Circuit Behavior (ACB) to recreate sounds from the 808 and 909, and the J-6 Chord Synth does the identical, however for the Juno-6. While there’s definitely nothing incorrect with having extra transportable funds synths and drum machines, it’s the E-4 Voice Tweaker that actually stands out. It brings pitch correction, a harmonizer, vocoding, plus pitch and formant shifting and a looper to the world of cell music {hardware}.

Before we get too far into specifics, although, let’s go over what all three have in widespread. They’re all fairly tiny, for one. While they’re solely barely smaller than a Volca, the cumulative impact is clear. On the again are ⅛” MIDI out and in jacks, in addition to a USB-C port that’s used for charging the interior lithium ion battery, however can even deal with MIDI and audio over USB. Across the highest are ⅛” sync out and in jacks, in addition to combine out and in jacks, which let you daisy-chain a number of units collectively.

The capacity to attach all three Aira Compacts, with out the necessity for an exterior mixer, is undeniably large. When you’re making an attempt to craft a transportable music making setup the much less gear and cables, the higher.

T-8

The T-8 is certainly essentially the most easy of the three, and possibly essentially the most instantly usable. While it has extra superior options, anybody who’s ever used a step sequencer earlier than ought to instantly be capable of begin placing collectively primary beats. While I assume I ought to be grateful that you just get 32 steps as an alternative of a measly 16, it doesn’t really feel like it might pressure the {hardware} terribly to go for a full 4 bars.

Thankfully, there are some instruments at your disposal to change issues up. There is a fill mode, plus step looping for creating instantaneous customized fills by simply holding down just a few buttons. There’s additionally per-step and grasp chance choices for introducing a contact of unpredictability, plus substeps, ship results, accent and velocity parameters. In some methods, it’s a extra succesful sequencer than you’d discover on a Volca Beats. That mentioned, Korg has automation within the type of Motion Sequencing, which the Aira Compacts lack.