How many Instruments Roland has manufactured

5 Jan 2017, 22:13

I just bought a new piece of Roland gear (Roland RD800). In fact, I have several Roland Instruments and I would like to know how many of each have been manufactured. Can I get an idea from reading the serial number? Would Roland share that information with me? I'm very curious because I'll actually buy used Roland instruments from time to time especially if I suspect there weren't many of them made. Please share this info. if you know.

Re: How many Instruments Roland has manufactured

5 Jan 2017, 23:00

I don't think there's any definitive and complete list outside of Roland, and they probably wouldn't disclose it. That's generally considered proprietary information. Serial numbers are unreliable because they don't always start at "#00001" and the like. But according to some older books and sites on vintage synthesizers, these may be accurate numbers for these few units:

Jupiter 8 - 2,000
Combined sales of Juno-6 and Juno-60 - 30,000
Juno 106 - 40,000
SH-101 - 50,000
D50 - 200,000

Re: How many Instruments Roland has manufactured

6 Jan 2017, 17:24

Thank your for the reply. I just have the curiosity of wanting to at least get an estimate if not the actual number of instruments manufactured that I've purchased. I'll contact them and see if they'll give me some general info. on it. If you ever run across those details, please let me know. Thanks again and have a great weekend.