Roland have announced the launch of the Mood Pan, a unique electronic hand percussion instrument that has been designed to encourage anyone to discover the restorative power of music. Inspired by acoustic handpans, the latest arrival to the company’s range of electronic instruments produces a wide range of tranquil tones, and features a simple design that requires no previous musical skills.
Roland say that the Mood Pan is made for mindful people and modern musicians seeking a versatile and expressive new instrument, and blends the soulful resonance of acoustic handpans with multiple sound variations and other flexible features thanks to their advanced percussion technology. While many musical instruments require a significant amount of time learning and developing skills, the Mood Pan can be enjoyed by everyone, with no experience or special technique necessary.
Its electronic design is said to offer many benefits over traditional handpans: users can easily explore different instruments and tunings, enhance sounds with onboard effects and silence the onboard speaker by plugging in headphones for quiet solo sessions. The instrument is played with finger taps, and its nine pads can be assigned to different musical scales, making it impossible to hit a wrong note. It’s also possible to tap the sides with the palms to create percussive sounds and resonant tonalities, mute sounds with a touch and use a special control pad to trigger expressive variations.
Selectable sounds include handpan and other acoustic percussion such as a tongue drum, gamelan, crystal bowl and singing bowl. There’s also a sitar voice, orchestral strings, synth pad tones and four user locations with selectable sound variations. a range of environmental music and nature sounds are included too, along with four modes dedicated to playing soft soundtracks for mornings, evenings, relaxing and yoga sessions. It also doubles as a high-quality Bluetooth speaker for streaming music from a smartphone or tablet.
Users are able to adjust the onboard sounds, choose different environmental sounds and effects and fine-tune the pad sensitivity using a Mood Pan Plus mobile app, which also includes a range of additional sounds that can be loaded into the instrument’s four onboard user locations.
Pricing & Availability
The Mood Pan is available now, priced at $659.99.
