ALL hail the V-Synth, the new king of keyboard synths! Its name may not have an impressively regal ring but this could well be the all-powerful master keyboard you need to keep your MIDI-based musical kingdom functioning at peak efficiency.

Aside from its awesome analogue-simulating processing power and incredible integrative capabilities, the V-Synth is possibly one of the most user-friendly performance synths to hit the market in recent times.

Creating music and original sounds with it is so easy that synth players who grew up grappling with the daunting intricacies of such a fabulous but frighteningly complex keyboard as the DX7 will want to jump for joy.

There're analogue-style sliders and knobs and a bleep-emitting touchscreen to let you change the shape of sounds in real time. But best of all is the revolutionary TimeTrip Pad that allows the manipulation of waveforms... while your playing the damn thing!

And in terms of looks, this has to be one of the spiffiest and truly pride-inspiring keyboard synths ever to come out the Land of the Rising Sun.

Inside the Black Knight

One thing has to be cleared up before we take a peek at the V-Synth's innards: It's not a workstation!

That may put off composers and sequencing addicts who get off on building vast storehouses of songs on their favourite mother keyboards. But the lack of a built-in sequencer is actually refreshing because the V-Synth's programming flexibility is so broad that you'd never want to permanently settle on a song's sonic flavours.

In any case, Roland has thrown in a pretty powerful 32-step arpeggiator (it can be programmed like a basic drum machine) if you ever feel the urge to play with yourself, or to put it in less ambiguous terms, if you're dying for auto-accompaniment for some solo noodling.

OK, before we unleash another flood of admiring epithets, we need to flummox you with some unavoidable jargon.

To start with a basic description, the V-Synth is a 61-note (velocity-sensitive with aftertouch) keyboard synth that comes in a solid metal/plastic structure measuring 1,056 x 398 x 111mm and weighing 13.1kg. It utilises multiple oscillator technologies to offer up to 24-note polyphony and is packed with 287 fully rewritable preset patches (the total patch count including user sounds is 512) straight out of the box.

The main synthesis controls are located on the top panel at the centre of which is a large (320 x 240) backlit touch-screen LCD.

On the left are the modulation and pitch control controls and the TimeTrip Pad (which looks like a miniaturised helipad and lets you touch-control a sound's characteristics).

The controls for volume, input level, arpreggiator, the dual D Beam and patch palette are next to the TimeTrip Pad.

The synthesis controls are on the right. These include a jog wheel, cursor keys, and buttons and knobs for two oscillators that offer three different signal paths or "structures" as Roland calls them. The oscillator controls can be used to regulate pitch, time, formant and various LFO functions.

There're also buttons for making small changes to the presets of the COSM processing and adding global COSM effects and controlling the ADSR section.

Most of the parameter-editing functions can be performed with you finger on the touchscreen. But navigation through the major sections necessitates the use of the Mode and Exit controls.

The extensive I/O options at the back include two sets of stereo 1/4-inch outputs, two 1/4-inch inputs (balanced), a 1/4-inch headphone connection, a PC card expansion slot, a USB port (.WAV/AIFF file import, .WAV export), optical and coaxial digital I/Os, an LCD contrast control, MIDI In/Out/Thru and three pedal jacks (one for Hold and two for expression).

At the heart of the instrument are dual oscillators that offer three types of (32-bit) processing. There's the proprietary VariPhrase-powered PCM oscillator that provides hundreds of preset waveforms and gives you the option of sampling your own.

The second oscillator type uses analogue modelling to offer everything from fat-sounding Moogish waveforms to cheesy simulations of traditional instruments.

The third type of oscillator processing relies on external audio. It lets you process any signal that's fed into the V-Synth via the analogue or digital inputs.

Of course, all three oscillator types can be mixed and layered or modulated using the inbuilt FM, ring modulator and oscillator hard sync functions.

The sound engine can be configured in various ways for original patch creation, just like you would on a semi-modular synth. First, you assign an oscillator type (analogue, PCM or external) to one or both of the oscillators.

The analogue oscillator (each oscillator has four envelopes) lets you control eight modelled waveforms (sawtooth, square, triangle, sine, ramp, modulated sawtooth, high-quality sawtooth and high-quality wave or noise), while the PCM and external oscillator sections let you manipulate factory or user samples or external sound sources.

The ADSR and LFO (sine, triangle, sawtooth, square, random, trapezoidal, sample and hold, and chaos) sections are comprehensive enough to satisfy most envelope-pushing (sorry, couldn't pass on the pun) synth freaks.

As for the two 24-bit COSM modelling processors, based on Roland's acclaimed sound-processing technology, they offer 10 reverb types, eight chorus types, a multi-effects section with 41 distinct algorithms, resonator and two sideband filters.

The V-Synth also come ready for video integration via its onboard V-Link video control, though you need Roland's DV-7PR Digital Video Workstation to use the TimeTrip Pad for video-editing functions.

Greetings from Planet V

OK, now that we've dispensed with the relevant technical mumbo-jumbo, how does this cool creature sound?

In a word, awesome! And that's just from auditioning the factory patches which aren't exactly cutting-edge and predictably try to cover a broad variety of genres ('Big Fluff', 'Synthethik', '120 LP Mix Menu', 'Jet Bass', 'Heavy Drone', 'Hyperballad', 'Radar ARP', 'Dusted Loop', LetThemPray', 'Harp Trek' etc).

But what's amazing is the degree to which you can instantly alter the shape of the sound not only with the TimeTrip Pad and D-Beam but also with the touchscreen. And the real-time sonic manipulation extends to controlling even the timbre and texture.

Running through the presets, especially wonderfully wavy, swishing offerings like 'Dbl Sweeper' (think Rick Wakeman), 'Pulsatronic' (Tangerine Dream) and 'Percolator' (Krafwerk), you'll be dazzled by the sheer expressive richness of the sounds which are evocative of such classic synths as the JP-8, Juno-106, ARP 2600 and MiniMoog.

But what's truly thrilling is, just by dragging you fingers on the TimeTrip Pad, you can not only alter a waveform but also enrich it with articulation. What does that mean in plain English?

Let's say you've made a sample (44.1kHz) of your voice or your church choir (limited to 50MB of data on the internal memory) and have edited it for replay in a preset pattern (tempo and bar count predetermined).

Now, while playing the keys, you can magically modulate the voice or voices on the TimeTrip Pad to sort of bring the sound to life. The effects you can create with your fingertips range from rousing swells to ghostly whispers. And you can slow down the tempo or practically freeze the sound (Hold) while you're at it.

The touchscreen, which actually seems much more responsive than the one found on Korg's high-end keyboards, is integral to the original patch creation process. Most of the important parameters are accessible from the screen, and navigation is a cinch.

It's imperative that you read the fairly well-written manual cover to cover to fully tap into the V-Synth's stunning capabilities.

And although a basic understandling of analogue and digital synth technologies would be helpful, you don't need to be a Bob Moog to figure out how to structure your own sounds within a matter of days.

With the TimeTrip Pad and the dual D-Beam alone, you can do things to sounds that you wouldn't have thought would be possible on any other state-of-the-art keyboard synth.

The V'dict

If there're any reservations that might be harboured by serious keyboardists about the V-Synth, it would have to do with the price. Ten grand-plus is a whole lot of dough for a standard-sized keyboard synth that isn't really a workstation.

And while it's a multi-timbral machine capable of 24-note polyphony, the voices available become significantly reduced once you have the synth engine working in full capacity.

But as a performance keyboard, there're very few machines on the market right now that can match the V-Synth for ease of operation, flexibility and sheer sonic sizzle.

And when you factor in the sampling section, the amazing sound-design capabilities and such resource-expanding facilities as the PC card slot and the USB port (you can just drag and drop banks of sounds from the V-Synth to your PC or vice versa) and the V-Link video control option, you will begin to realise that this really is a magnificent performance/production machine.

If you're into sound design or composing film music, this could well be the tool you need to spur your creativity to new heights. And if you're regular-gigging electronica nut, the V-Synth will let you take your act into the stratosphere.

Roland seems seriously committed to supporting the V-Synth with a regularly updated Web site (www.v-synth.com) that offers free downloads of new patches and tutorials.

And if the gushing testimonials of some of the world's top keyboard programmers are anything to go by, the V-Synth could well become the most happening keyboard of the decade.

PROS: Terrific sounds; intuitive controls; first-rate touchscreen LCD; excellent facilities for sound library expansion; well thought-out audio/video integration.

CONS: Costly; polyphony is affected by the amount of processing power used.