The Roland AIRA Compacts are a fantastic tool for introducing live electronic music-making and performance. These modular synthesizers are great for students of all ages, super accessible, and sound great!
Our partnership with Roland allows us to access these tools at reduced prices for schools. Contact us if you'd like to learn more. We also deliver student incursions/workshops around the world.
This partnership has also allowed us to build the Roland ASPIRE Project, which includes a completely FREE set of digital resources to support schools wanting to introduce these devices into the classroom. These resources will help you learn how to use the Roland AIRA Compacts:
Roland ASPIRE Project Resources
Click to open the units and choose any of the resources to be taken directly into to the resource platform
A quick introduction to the AIRA Compacts
Roland AIRA Compact T8 Beat Machine
The T-8 is an electronic drum machine. It uses 16 ‘triggers’ along the bottom of the instrument to represent a full bar of semiquavers/sixteenth notes. When any of these sixteen triggers is activated (orange light is seen) then the instrument will produce sounds according to the part of the drum kit that is selected. For example, in the image below the ‘bass drum’ is selected and triggers 1, 4, 7, 11 and 14 are activated. A musician might then choose to select the snare drum and program the snare drum in the same way. As you can see there are also a number of knobs and buttons to manipulate other elements of the drum machine. The T8 also comes with a powerful on-board bass instrument.
Roland AIRA Compact J6 Chord Synth
The J-6 is an electronic chord sequencer. It is designed to help musicians develop chord progression ideas. It has a one octave keyboard and space to sequence an 8-bar chord progression. The basic idea is for a musician to place one chord in each of the 8 ‘steps’ in the sequencer. For example, this can be achieved by pressing ‘1’ and then choosing a chord from the keyboard below i.e. C. Then, pressing ‘2’ and choosing a different chord i.e. F etc. The J-6 also has some introductory synthesizer elements including the ‘envelope’ and ‘filter’ knobs, which manipulate the sound of the J-6 in incredible ways. It also has ‘delay’ and ‘reverb’ effects knobs that sound amazing!
Roland AIRA Compact E4 Voice Tweaker
The E-4 is a vocal effects module and looper. It is super fun! The E-4 can use a set of headphones with attached microphone to create some incredible music using only the voice or any other acoustic instrument. For live performance it requires an additional microphone with a jack cable. It can be used to manipulate vocals with a wide range of effects for live performance, including pitch shift, harmony and vocoder. The looping function also means that the unit can be used as a stand-alone device for a musician to build vocal layers.
Why we use the Roland AIRA Compacts
Making music using electronic instruments is standard practice in today’s music industry. Whether it is an electric guitar or keyboard, a modular synthesizer, or computer-based music, artists now produce music in an array of wonderful ways. At Musical Futures International, we are committed to providing school students with real-world and industry-relevant music making experiences. We want to empower students to be creative, expressive and engaged music-makers. For this reason, we are always looking for new approaches, pedagogies and instruments to bring into the music classroom. Many of our students are listening to electronic music. Music that includes strong bass-oriented rhythms, powerful synthesizer melodies, and ‘effected’ vocals. Listen to the top 10 songs on any current pop charts and you will hear these features. This music also features in video games, streaming series, YouTube videos and blockbuster movies. It is the music of today.
We have been delivering workshops using Roland AIRA Compact instruments because we see these as the perfect gateway to electronic music performance for students. These electronic music-making devices are small, lightweight, lithium-battery operated (yay, no power cables!) and incredibly tactile devices. When played through headphones or a sound system they sound amazing! They are stand-alone instruments that don’t require any computer software. All you need is a set of headphones and some small cables to connect them to each other if desired.