Plus, a first look at some of the latest innovations from Roland, BOSS, and DW at the 2025 NAMM Show
The NAMM Show: the musical instruments and equipment industry’s Lollapalooza. Nowhere in the world, at no other time of year, can you find such ado about GEAR. The hustle and bustle of it all is at once intoxicating and overwhelming. And on the inaugural Thursday morning of the show, there is perhaps no more exciting place to be than the Roland Corporation’s base camp on the second floor of the Anaheim Convention Center.
Amid the stirring keyboard demonstrations, pitter-patter of electric drumkits, and otherworldly sounds of their latest guitar effects, there is a palpable buzz in the room. Sure, it’s day one of the NAMM show. And sure, we’re surrounded by all of the most cutting-edge tech in the industry. But there’s another current that’s energizing this crowd—stronger even than G.A.S. power—and that’s Star Power.
Because this crowd, which closes in tighter and tighter around the stage as the clock nears 11, is gathered here to bear witness to the presentation of Roland’s Lifetime Achievement Awards to two bona fide superstars and icons in their respective fields: keyboardist Patrice Rushen and percussionist Sheila E.
Patrice Rushen Receives Roland’s Lifetime Achievement Award
Roland Global Head of Artist Relations Jamie Franklin kicks things off with a glowing introduction for Rushen: “Patrice’s impact extends far beyond her own discography. As a trailblazer for women in music, she has broken barriers and championed diversity within the industry. Her dedication to mentoring emerging artists has helped cultivate the next generation of musicians, ensuring that her legacy continues to evolve.”
If you don’t know her by name, you definitely know (and love) her music. (“Forget Me Nots,” anyone?) Rushen’s contributions to the fields of pop and jazz music speak for themselves—her talents as a composer and a player have distinguished her over the nearly half-century span of her career—and it’s not every day that a black female jazz instrumentalist scores a Billboard Hot 100 Hit (as “Forget Me Nots” did upon its release in 1983).
But, as Franklin intimates, Rushen’s not here today just for the impact of her recorded output. That’s because Rushen, herself the recipient of an Honorary Ph.D from Berklee School of Music, is committed to passing the gift of music on to the succeeding generations of fledgling artists. As a professor at USC’s Thornton School of Music, she shares her wealth of knowledge with classes full of very lucky young players—and she credits her success in part to Roland’s collaborative, hands-on approach to developing products with its artists’ needs in mind.
“I’m very grateful to Roland to have the kind of relationship that allows for what we do as musicians,” Rushen gushed in her acceptance speech Thursday morning. “To have a say-so in the way that we are allowed to help influence the way that instruments are made—and that they listen.”
American Songwriter with Patrice Rushen
American Songwriter: Tell me about your collaboration with Roland.
Patrice Rushen: I’m a college professor, and in the music department we teach popular music. So we have—not only keyboard players, and bass players, and guitar players, and drummers—but also songwriters and kids who want to be producers and things like this. And I was looking, for the school, for a line of instruments that, anybody who was maybe not a keyboard player and did not necessarily have a background with any relative to synthesizers, could immediately get to it and play it. That made sense. So that they could come up with sounds and things that they had in their head that they could more easily find. And I looked at a lot of different keyboards and the Roland line is the one that stood out. So that’s how our relationship started. And from doing that I became more involved with them in terms of my own personal setup and what I would like to use, and it’s been just a beautiful relationship—the idea of being able to talk to them, (get) their response, it’s been good.
AS: What are some of your favorite features on the new V-STAGE line?
PR: I think the biggest thing that I can say about it is its immediacy. You look at it and it makes sense to you, just visually, you see where everything is and you can get to things quickly. If you’re playing, and something happens in the moment, and you need to reach for something in real time, you don’t have to go through a lot of windows and things like that to find things. The things that we use the most, you can get to them right away. The sounds are really good—but primarily it’s the setup. If you want to go deeper, you can go deeper into the instrument and do other things. Certainly Roland has a line of keyboard instruments that allow for you to go very, very deep if you want. But the idea of the V-STAGE, I think, is about being able to play right away and not feel intimidated trying to find what you need.
DW Honors Sheila E. With First-Ever Lifetime Achievement Award, Icon Snare Drum
Following Rushen’s acceptance speech, Roland Executive Vice President of Global Sales Jay Wanamaker yields the stage to “one of [his] heroes,” Don Lombardi, Founder and Chief Product Officer of DW, to present the next Lifetime Achievement Award (the first ever for DW):
“It’s my distinguished honor and pleasure to present DW’s first lifetime achievement award to someone who […] continues to blaze trails as a songwriter, singer, producer, philanthropist—and I’m going to add inventor—Because out of all the years that we’ve made drums, which has been 50-plus years, she’s come up with some of the most outstanding drum finishes that we’ve ever done.”
That someone is none other than the legendary Sheila Escovedo, better known as Sheila E. Perhaps best known for her longtime collaboration with Prince as a drummer and singer, Sheila comes from a family of musical innovators that includes her percussionist father, the great Pete Escovedo (who is present at the ceremony). In the years following her tenure with Prince, Sheila has performed alongside such luminaries as Beyonce and Ringo Starr—when she was not releasing her own hits, including "The Glamorous Life" and "A Love Bizarre."
“It’s been a lifetime of amazing music, meeting people, telling stories through music, and being able to share the gift of music all over the world,” emoted Escovedo upon receiving her award.
“I’m very honored and privileged to be able to hold the first-ever DW Lifetime Achievement Award.”
Lombardi then takes back the microphone to make a special announcement, just as much a surprise to Escovedo as it is to us: Sheila E. is “now an ICON!” (Now an icon? Sheila and the rest of us are surely thinking.) “Because we are naming our next ICON snare drum, and commemorating it to you.”
The Sheila E. DW ICON Snare Drum is then brought onstage, and it’s a beauty: a Birdseye Maple outer veneer, decorated with colorful laser-cut butterflies crafted from dyed Basswood and Sheila E.’s distinctive “backwards” signature inlaid, offset by gold hardware.
Sheila E.: “Do I get to take this home? I’m playing it on the next record!”
American Songwriter with Sheila E.
American Songwriter: Tell me about your collaboration with DW.
Sheila E.: My collaboration with DW has been, I wanna say 20 years, maybe longer than 20 years—I’ve only had two drum companies, and they’re my second drum company that I’ve ever been with. And they’re just amazing, because like Don said earlier, I’ll ask them to do crazy things like: I’ll dye my hair orange and I’ll cut a piece of hair— “Can you make the drum set the same color as my hair”—and they’ll match it exactly! Like, “We love it! What else do you have?” So it’s pretty amazing. We have a lot of fun creating and doing different things. The one thing I really love about them is, them being local, if there’s something I want to change on a stand or whatever like, “Can you put the double kick pedal on the outside,”— because I play differently than most people play—whatever I ask, they’re like, “Yeah, let’s try it out, let’s see if we can make it.” Who says that? No one does. They’re just so amazing with being able to really help their musicians with what they’re doing. It’s incredible what they do.
AS: You were just surprised with this ICON snare drum. Can you give me your first thoughts on that?
SE: Oh, my heart sunk! I did not expect that. And then he said they’ve been working on this, and the idea of it, for four years, they never said anything to me—never even mentioned it! And it looks incredible. I just tapped it for a second. I can’t wait to play it. It looks incredible. It’s beautiful, the craftsmanship… I encourage people to go to DW and go to the place where they make the drums and see the process of how they do it, it’s incredible what they do. Amazing. How they pick certain drums as a unit… they specially take each drum and tune them to a specific kit. People just don’t do that.
Roland Honors Steve Stevens, Gary Numan, and Jim Keltner With Lifetime Achievement Awards
Following the presentation of awards for Patrice Rushen and Sheila E., Wanamaker finally takes to the stage to present a few awards in honor of Lifetime Achievement Award recipients who were not able to attend: Billy Idol guitarist Steve Stevens, new-wave artist Gary Numan, and famed session drummer Jim Keltner.
In presenting the award for Stevens, whose credits include not only the bulk of Billy Idol’s hits (“Eyes Without a Face, “Rebel Yell”), but also “Top Gun Anthem” from the original film, credits with Michael Jackson, and more, Wanamaker says “Steve can’t be with us today, but we’re deeply honored to recognize his visionary contributions to the world of rock and pop music.”
Next comes the award for pioneering new-wave producer, songwriter, and singer Gary Numan, who is being honored with a retrospective 2022 Lifetime Achievement Award from Roland. “We’d like to honor the pioneering talent of Mr. Gary Numan,” said Wanamaker of the “Cars” hitmaker. “His dedication to innovation has steered the sound of modern music and he continues to inspire a new generation of musicians today.”
Last but certainly not least, Wanamaker presents a retrospective Lifetime Achievement Award for Jim Keltner: “We’d like to recognize the storied career of the world-class drummer and percussionist, Mr. Jim Keltner. His list of contributions to music is long and legendary, spanning over fifty groundbreaking years spent playing with some of the most influential acts in rock history.” (Influential acts including Bob Dylan, Neil Young, Willie Nelson, and Steely Dan, to name just a few of the iconic artists Keltner has recorded with and backed live.)
“To both Gary Numan and Jim Keltner—we honor you and appreciate you with Lifetime Achievement Awards,” concludes Wanamaker, before dismissing the excited spectators, including myself, who can’t wait to get our hands on some of the incredible new gear that Roland, BOSS, and DW has just debuted.
As Wanamaker leaves the stage, a fellow showgoer standing near me in the audience concisely sums up the energy in the room: “Now it’s a NAMM show.”
Introducing Roland V-STAGE Performance Keyboards
Roland isn’t only here today to celebrate their Lifetime Achievement Award honorees, however. The brand is also dug in on the second floor of the Anaheim Convention Center to debut an astounding array of new products. Among these: the Roland V-STAGE line of professional performance keyboards.
Designed with a gigging musician’s workflow needs in mind, the V-STAGE line (available in 76- and 88-key) represents Roland’s understanding that user experience is every bit as important as top-line tones—especially in a live performance setting.
The V-STAGE 76, Roland’s Dustin Good informs me in a personal product demo, features brand-new waterfall action (semi-weighted with aftertouch) that’s perfectly designed with organ and synth feel in mind. The V-STAGE 88, meanwhile, has fully weighted hammer-action Ivory Feel keys.
“The whole idea behind the V-STAGE,” Good tells me, “is having everything you need for stage and performance right on the top panel. Of course there’s a lot of very powerful menu options for when you’re in the studio [...] while we do have a very deep modeling in there that you can tweak, right on the top panel you’ve got the most impactful controls.”
And, as I heard in the demo I was granted, the V-STAGE series’s four advanced sound engines combine Roland’s latest cutting-edge sound technologies with tons of customization and control for all the depth, clarity, and detail you need in any setting.
One of the best new features, per Good, is “scene remain,” for “when you’re on the stage, if you’re sustaining a big layer, with reverb trails and all that, and you switch to your next scene, you’re not going to have any cutoffs.”
With four sound engines (featuring unlimited polyphony on the acoustic piano and organ settings), deep modeling capabilities, adjustable stereo width, and so much more at your fingertips, there’s no question that you can find the sounds in your head on a V-STAGE keyboard. But what’s perhaps most compelling is just how easy it is to find those sounds—even in real time onstage.
BOSS VG-800: Guitar Processing—Individualized
I also had the privilege of taking a close look at the workings of BOSS’s brand-new VG-800 V-Guitar Processor.
“The idea on this,” begins BOSS’s Aaron Marino in an exclusive one-on-one demo, “is adding a special Serial GK-pickup to a normal electric guitar, allowing it to connect with the V-Guitar processing in the VG-800. The Serial GK-pickup,” he continues, “allows me to split the strings up individually. Once I do that, I have the ability to manipulate what happens individually on each string.”
Not only can the VG-800 make a six-string electric guitar sound like a nylon-string, acoustic, or 12-string guitar, but it can actually digitally convert the tuning of your guitar, allowing you to access open tunings, drop tunings, and more without having to physically change the tuning on your instrument. Bass, banjo, sitar—it’s all possible here. There’s even a string bender that simulates the sound of a pedal steel!
Drop-tuned, distorted low strings, clean standard-tuned high strings? You got it. Bass low strings, sitar high strings? I don’t see why not…
Instantly change your tone and tuning with the twist of a knob for quick onstage changes—like the V-STAGE keyboards, the VG-800 processor is designed to be as user-friendly as it gets. It’s compact enough to fit on your pedalboard, but features robust connectivity for use in the studio as well, with a USB audio/MIDI interface and multi-channel routing that allows you to record multiple sounds to multiple tracks simultaneously.
That’s it, we’ve peaked. I challenge anyone to dream up a more versatile tool for guitarists.
Roland V-Drums Quiet Design, DrumLink Wireless Products, and the Return of Slingerland
Drummers, Roland didn’t forget you. This year’s NAMM Show saw showcases of some cutting-edge new drum tech, including the new V-Drums Quiet Design electronic drum kit and a preview of the Roland DrumLink wireless products—as well as a blast from the past with the relaunch of the storied Slingerland brand.
V-Drums Quiet Design: The Quietest V-Drums Yet
The VQD106 V-Drums Quiet Design drum kit is the quietest V-Drums kit yet (and some of the very quietest available today). What’s truly amazing is that the V-Drums accomplishes a 75% reduction in unwanted playing noise (thanks to newly developed pads and hardware) without sacrificing the feel and response of the original V-Drums pads.
Through a combination of a “noise-absorbing honeycomb rubber insert” with “specially placed vents on the underside of the playing surface,” air pressure is allowed to dissipate—providing you with a noiseless, yet realistic-feeling drumming experience. I saw this kit in action at NAMM—it looks great—but folks, I can tell you with certainty that I did not hear it.
Plus, New DrumLink Wireless Products
Roland also previewed its forthcoming new DrumLink wireless products, the WT-10 Wireless Trigger Adapter and the DH-10 DrumLink Hub. Designed for use with Roland drum and cymbal pads and other select products (including DWe Convertible Drums and DWe Wireless Hub), this wireless system offers quick triggering and versatile connectivity in a slick-looking and easy-to-use package.
The transmitter (WT-10) features an integrated mount for easy setup, and the DH-10 receiver captures your signal and, with USB and/or MIDI connectivity, sends it to your module or computer. With tons of connectivity, a streamlined user experience, and an unobtrusive design, these new DrumLink products are a vision of the future of percussion.
DW Re-Introduces Slingerland Drums with Radio King Limited Edition Snare
And now for a vision of the past of percussion: DW’s relaunch of the venerable Slingerland brand of drums.
Slingerland was formed in 1920 by H.H. Slingerland before going on to sponsor the likes of Gene Krupa and dominate the first era of American drumming. And while the original iteration of the Slingerland company shuttered in 2008, vintage Slingerland kits and pieces are widely in circulation today amongst the drumming cognoscenti.
DW’s involvement in relaunching the brand came from a very personal place for Founder Don Lombardi: “Slingerland has a rich legacy and is dear to my heart, so when Chris, my son, presented me with the purchase of the Slingerland brand for my birthday in 2019, our talented craftsmen began working to leave no stone unturned in preserving the company’s sound and details everyone knows and loves.” Talk about a passion project!
Slingerland is marking their return with a new Radio King Limited Edition Snare drum, a faithful recreation of the original Radio Kings of the 1930s and ‘40s. With steam-bent Maple shells, period-correct Nickel-plated hardware, genuine calfskin heads, and available in four gorgeous finishes (Black Diamond Pearl, White Marine Pearl, Blue and Silver Lacquer, and Black and Gold Lacquer), these things look and sound straight out of Krupa’s own kit. Each drum in this limited edition is personally signed by Lombardi himself.
Slingerland promises that “the Radio King snare is just the beginning of many new drums from Slingerland, and we will be designing and crafting a full line of drums for the next generation of drummers.” I got a peek at these snares at NAMM, and I genuinely can’t wait to see the full kit.
Comments
Loading…