oh that's about as honest as Hohner saying
"made in Germany by Hohner"
Roland had originally bought SIEL out years ago and established a
Ronald Europe in that location. They made the E series there, and
developed the VK line among other things, then the FR series.
When the Euro vs Yen went belly up, they closed their Europe facility
and offered very few employees jobs in other Roland facilities.
Several people famously went to Dexibel..
the Picena real-estate was sold off
originally, FATAR was contracted to build/assemble the FR8 and
presumably the FR4, as well as whatever lower models were continued
for a time. I had understood that all other models were considered
closed from the manufacturing perspective, though certain models
are/were shown as current for years longer as inventory was exhausted.
Fatar is in Recanati
Roland has no R&D or manufacturing facilities in Europe and has had none
for a decade or so. Electronics sub assemblies were always crafted
in Asia (the LSIC chipsets and such) ALL coding and firmware is done in Asia.
FATAR is a specialty keyboard and keyboard OEM supplier to the industry.
Their R&D is extremely limited and focused on physical manufacturing.
Under their own brand they offer/offered a few MIDI controllers
as an assemby facility contracted to Roland for the FR series accordions,
they simply fulfill orders to Rolands specifications using Roland supplied
electronics with most if not all hardware being manufactured at FATAR.
We do know some tooling was transfered to FATAR when Picena closed.
the finished product is made/assembled in Italy, but not by Roland
nor in a Roland facility, unless someone can show where they purchased
FATAR in the last couple years (LoL) without anyone knowing about it
www.synthzone.com
