Roland's FR-2 accordion, now with extra polka

When you absolutely, positively must have the finest, most advanced accordion money can buy, look no further than the Roland FR-2. With an astounding eight (eight!) separate virtual accordion sounds, 128 note polyphony, pneumatic (high-resolution) detection of bellows pressure, 15 micro-tuning regional presets, MIDI functionality, AA battery power, chorus and reverb effects, and integrated pad triggers for sampled percussion (or shouts of "Get funky!"), this is the Rolls-Royce of digital accordions. Unless, of course, you count the Rolls-Royce Digital Accordion. Phantom or Silver Shadow models notwithstanding, for $3,000, you can't go wrong.

[Via Crave]

[Faisal Ajam @ Feb 12th 2008 8:31AM]

this is a joke right..... who on earth would buy an accordian

[pokey @ Feb 12th 2008 9:48AM]

Weird Al? John Linnell? Brave Combo? Every Tejano band in existance?

[Faisal Ajam @ Feb 12th 2008 9:53AM]

yeah weird al is amazing sure...he rips off other music and makes it his own

[bobbywigs @ Feb 12th 2008 9:06AM]

umm, maybe the many thousands of folks who play one? you do realize there's more to music than guitar hero?

[Brodie @ Feb 12th 2008 9:16AM]

Like accordion hero?

[bobbywigs @ Feb 12th 2008 9:18AM]

we can only hope. I'm sure SOMEone out there could do a mod.

[oshean @ Feb 12th 2008 9:10AM]

Weird Al Yankovic approves.

[Ray @ Feb 12th 2008 2:12PM]

Weird Al hated digital accordions. No matter how "good" a digital accordion is, it can only be better than other digital accordions, but they're never better than acoustic ones.
As an accordionist, I've played lots of models and the digital ones are really only novelties, with the only advantage being that they're easier to amplify.
I'll stick to my 1950's Enrico Roselli custom gold n' pearl, thank you very much.

[ZeroCorpse @ Feb 12th 2008 3:28PM]

Your avatar makes SO much more sense now.

You're OK in my book. Rock on, accordion man!

[Trae @ Feb 12th 2008 9:42AM]

Accordion hero...awesome.

Actually I saw this and had a strange sensation to do the chicken dance.

[Marty @ Feb 12th 2008 10:25AM]

Does it play Doom?

[Deed @ Feb 12th 2008 1:35PM]

BUT DOES IT PL--ARGH KNOBGOBBLING FUCKMINTS YOU BEAT ME TO IT.

[TIMMAH! @ Feb 12th 2008 12:46PM]

I'm waiting on the bagpipes version...

[granny down east @ Feb 12th 2008 12:56PM]

Accordion...that's a lot of music without a power cord.
Chicken Dance FTW!!

[Kimric @ Feb 14th 2008 3:46PM]

It is a bit of a stretch to call this the Rolls Royce of a accordions, since it is not really an accordion any more than a keyboard synth is a piano.
I tried on at the NAMM show and found it have advantages and disadvantages. The notes to either end of the accordion keyboard sounded odd. The notes on the low end sounded more like an Organ pipe than a reed, and the highest notes sounded like compressed files of lower notes.
The response was a bit odd , but I suppose you would get used to it.
The person demoing it was doing some skilled but rather awful arrangements with trumpet samples and the like.