• Old Roland synthesizer contest winner tapes

    From Nightfox@DIGDIST to All on Friday, February 23, 2024 19:03:43
    In the late 70s to part of the 80s, Roland (synthesizer manufacturer) had annual synthesizer music contests where people around the world could submit songs they recorded with their synthesizers, and Roland would choose & award winners. Roland would then sell tapes of the winners' songs. My dad bought the 8th synthesizer contest tape (1984), and he eventually gave the tape to me.

    When I was much younger (a child), I was careless and lost the cassette sleeve, so I lost the information about the winners' names and the names of the songs (and I didn't particularly treat the cassette very well either, for whatever reason). Several years ago, I bought a USB cassette player and recorded the songs digitally on my computer (I've saved them to FLAC format, and have also converted them to MP3). I put it on YouTube, stating that I'm missing the original information. I've since found many of the song names, thanks in part to a kind user who commented with a tip just last week, though there are still a couple I don't know, and a couple I'm unsure of.

    This is the YouTube link to the 8th Syntherizer Contest: https://youtu.be/1sgibLoz9cA?si=eIpGfzgrOZU4EAkw

    A few years ago, I happened to find th 6th and 7th for sale on eBay (while also looking for another copy of the 8th). I also digitally recorded these:
    https://youtu.be/1Bn6I801BhE?si=kIH0YXVH3RFqNc-S https://youtu.be/Gi5JH1ZfZYA?si=KLV42vx03qjwZjk9

    I've also uploaded the FLAC recordings to the Internet Archive (though I should update the track names of the 8th, since I now know more).

    These recordings are very niche, and some of the tracks are IMO not 'great' music, but I think they're still interesting to listen to. Information about these has been fairly hard to find.

    Nightfox
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