Hi, this is Brett Domino for MusicRadar.com, I suppose you were wondering how that piece
of introductinary title music was created. Well wonder no further, because I can tell you that everything
you heard was played on this, the Roland Lucina AX-09, at first glance it may resemble a dot
matrix printer from the mid 80's or some kind of musical photocopier but it's actually a brand
new shoulder synthesizer from Roland, a smaller more affordable version of the AX Synth Keytar
which is what I've got. The keytar is having a bit of a resurgence after hitting its peak
in the 1980s. Keytars have recently been spotted around the necks of such artists as Will.i.am
off Black Eyed Peas, Lady GaGa, Matt Bellamy out of Muse and Snoop Doggy Dog. So what's
so good about keytars, I'll tell you but first let's take a look at the Lucina AX-09. The
first thing to do is to put the keytar on, luckily Roland have included a tuitional DVD
to help you do this, the first thing I notice about the Lucina in comparison to the AX Synth
is it's much smaller and lighter this is due to it having less surface area and not as
much weight. Let's have a play.
[music]
It's alright isn't it. Here's my top 5 things. The positioning of the buttons underneath
the keys is good as it means you can change your sound really easily without having to
faff around up here, if they were up here like they are on the AX Synth, so that's good.
One thing I'm not keen on is this handle system here, this blocks alright when you're doing
your D-beam and your big volume knobs fine, but when you're trying to do your pitch bends,
it often gets in the way, if you've got big hands, then you keep knocking against it and
it's quite irritating. One of my favourite things about the Lucina, is this little holster
thing they've put on the strap, don't know if you can see, not sure what it's intended
for but it's good for putting your phone in and a bottle of water. What I like to do if
I'm doing a gig, is to have a mid gig banana, so it's great for that or say I'm in a practise
and I get a bit peckish, just reach round here and I've got a banana, no hassle whatsoever.
Another big difference between the Lucina and the AX synth is that on the Lucina there's
no controls on the back here which I do miss because on the AX Synth you've got a volume
wheel and a tone wheel, a sustain button and all sorts which I like to play with my thumb
but there's nothing here, what you can do though is plug a sustain pedal in and you
can set the bar so that, this squeezy bar does sustain as well which is quite good.
Yeah and the last thing is it's got this USB stick holder, here where you can plug in a
memory stick with some songs on and you can play along to some songs on the keytar, don't
really know what to say about that, I've not tried it. Doesn't really appeal to me, I'll
just put a CD on but I imagine it would be quite a novelty wouldn't it? For a full review
of the Lucina AX-09 go to musicradar.com. Remember earlier when I asked what's so good
about keytars? Does this answer your question?
[music]