Roland Unveils The VIMA Concept Keyboard

Roland Corporation U.S. is proud to announce VIMA: a new concept keyboard that blends various musical and visual content applications into one consumer-friendly unit.

Roland U.S. Contemporary Keyboard Vice President Lynda Smith relates, "VIMA or Video Interactive Musical Application is a new kind of entertainment unit that allows anyone to take part in the video/audio experience. The concept is simple: simply plug in any audio or visual device that you have in your home, such as a video camera, iPod™, DVD player, or television and then, with a few button pushes, create your own videos, customize your karaoke experience, or compose your very own soundtracks for your digital photo albums."

Additionally, audio CDs, DVDs, MP3s and any other digital images/multimedia content the customer may have archived, can be loaded onto the VIMA for hours of customized family entertainment.

The home karaoke experience has never been this easy. By connecting a television and a microphone to the VIMA (both sold separately), customers can sing along to music while lyrics are displayed on the screen. Families and friends can also connect two microphones for duet-style performances.

Thanks to Roland's progressive technology, VIMA also comes equipped with 264 built-in musical instrument sounds, and a "vocal effect" function that manipulates the sound of the human voice for additional entertainment. VIMA even contains a "center Cancel function" that can mute the vocal part of an audio CD, allowing singers to add their own vocal stylings.

The dynamic and feature-rich VIMA is designed with the whole family in mind and comes fully equipped with Key Number Sheets for easy play-along fun, a Melody Guide, and Tempo Adjustment functions.

With the attached wireless remote, home-entertainers can freely control the music tempo, key, and songs from anywhere in the room--for hands-free ease of use.

Roland has also included the VIMA TUNES CD-ROM that displays lyrics, music scores, and a dynamic library of slide-show images for creative performances.

The new VIMA is available in two sizes, the RK-100 entry level VIMA and the more advanced RK-500 VIMA.