Guitar heroes on the go now have a new product to get them amped up. Roland has announced a Bluetooth speaker that features a guitar cable input, overdrive, and even a delay effect to make playing in odd spaces more fun.
The new speaker model, called the BTM-1, has a rounded pill shape with metal knobs and Roland’s well-known honeycomb grill. It looks, for the most part, like many other medium-sized Bluetooth speakers on the market.
What’s special about this particular speaker is that it features three different inputs. On the front left side, you can plug in a 3.5 mm audio cable, as well as a quarter-inch guitar cable. There’s also wireless functionality that similar speakers its size tend to feature.
That means you can easily play guitar over a backing track or other music, making the BTM-1 a perfect companion for those who want to practice outdoors, on vacations, or in other environments where toting along a full-sized guitar amp would otherwise be unfeasible.
We have yet to hear the new model, but if there’s any company we expect can pull off the guitar amp/Bluetooth speaker combo, it’s Roland, which has long been known for its excellent electronic instruments and solid-state guitar amplifiers.
In fact, Roland has long made the hyper-portable, battery-powered guitar amps that are used by street performers around the globe, due to their robust construction, quality built-in effects, and solid battery life.
The new BTM-1 model will be available exclusively on Amazon, and we expect it will be popular among both aspiring and established musicians the world over. After all, many of us want to bring our favorite songs with us to the beach, on a road trip, or on a picnic already, and the ability to serenade friends and family around a campfire with an electric guitar, rather than an acoustic, would be pretty darn rad.
We have a review unit headed our way to check out, and will be sure to post our full impressions of Roland’s new hybrid Bluetooth speaker/guitar amp as soon as we’ve had some time to jam out with it.