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A global electronic musical instrument manufacturer chooses Qt for its product's GUI, to streamline development efficiency.
Roland Corporation uses the Qt Framework for their new Direct Streaming AV Mixer touch panels. Qt platform-independent code, emulation capabilities, and easy cross-platform compilation enable Roland to reduce development time, improve efficiency, and support multiple languages with ease.
Learn how Roland leverages Qt to create best-in-class products while decreasing development effort and verification time.
90%
Reduction of Implementation Check Time
Moving Away From Custom Development to Secure Development Resources
Roland is a manufacturer of electronic musical instruments founded in 1972. With the technological expertise and innovative ideas accumulated over their 50-year history, Roland has brought innovation to the world of music and entertainment and continues to inspire innovation among famous musicians, professional creators, and amateur users. Electronic musical instruments such as drums, synthesizers, and audio and video equipment–all bearing the Roland logo as a mark of trust–can be seen at live venues, event stages, and recording studios worldwide.
The VR-120HD and VR-6HD direct streaming AV mixers were released in 2023 and rapidly became industry benchmarks for professional live-stream events. Offering extensive audio and video I/O for hybrid online and offline events in a compact design, these AV mixers provide a variety of features while simplifying connectivity and reducing operators’ workload.
The large touchscreens, built with Qt Framework, are highly operable. They allow users to immediately call up the screen configuration—including video input, images, and video content—and set and operate these screen configurations independently for online and offline events.
In the past, Roland developed the GUI screens for its products autonomously, creating them from scratch for each category and product. However, there were issues such as insufficient documentation, limited development staff, maintenance responsibilities falling on a few individuals, and a heavy workload required for adding functions or fixing bugs.
In that situation, it was also becoming difficult to outsource development to external companies. In order to secure internal and external development resources, it was necessary to break away from the ‘scratch’ approach. Says Mr Tatsui.
Better Customization, Including Design Freedom, Scalability, and Flexibility
Roland first met Qt in 2014, before the VR-120/VR-6HD project was launched, as Qt was included in the reference design of the SoC (System on Chip) selected for incorporating network functionality with embedded Linux into the product. When learning more about Qt, Roland realized that Qt Framework could handle not only the application's GUI but also the Linux, Windows, and Mac OS applications.
In the past, we were developing configuration apps for embedded Linux, Windows, and Mac OS separately from scratch, which was taking a lot of man-hours. We didn’t know any cross-platform development framework before meeting Qt and we felt its great potential in streamlining our processes. Says Mr Tatsui.
When developing configuration applications for audio mixers from scratch, they could only express simple functions, but with Qt, Roland could better customize design, scalability, and flexibility.
The advantages of using Qt were quickly recognized across the company, and the number of Qt developers increased to more than a dozen across Japan, North America, and Mexico, including internal and outsourced resources. As a result, more Roland products were developed with Qt Framework and tools (e.g. the M-5000 live mixing console, multi-format video switchers V-1200HD, SR-20HD direct streaming AV mixers, and Roland Cloud Service applications). The successful experience with Qt still leads further product development such as the VR-120HD, the VR06HD, and the newest V-80HD, announced in June 2024.
Reducing Implementation Time From 60 Minutes to 5 Minutes with Qt GUI Emulator
For Roland, using Qt has three key advantages. The first is to reduce implementation time by using emulators on a PC, taking advantage of cross-platform support. Before, the operation was only checked after the application was deployed on the actual device—a process that took up to an hour and could be checked no more than eight times a day. With Qt, the application can now be checked using an emulator on a PC in just five minutes, making it possible to develop, implement, and check in less than a tenth of the cycle time.
The second reason is the improvement in development efficiency due to cross-platform support. Previously, after developing the GUI for embedded Linux, Windows, and Mac, it was necessary to test it on each operating system individually. But, with Qt, which utilizes virtually the same source code for all platforms, Roland sees fewer OS-specific defects. They can now assume the applications work well on any platform.
The third is the effective use of development resources. Given the drastic simplification of such essential but non-differentiating tasks, developers have extra capacity to focus on real value-added features, such as multilingual adaptation.
With Qt, we can now support not only English but also Japanese and Chinese, which simplifies the creation of multilingual products. Qt has become an essential development platform for our company, given the importance to the Chinese-speaking market.
Future Plans to Scale to Low-End Devices with Premium User Experience Using Qt for MCUs
Although Roland is now using Qt for mid- to high-end products with powerful CPUs, the team is currently considering the adoption of Qt for MCUs graphics framework for resource-constrained devices with MPUs and MCUs to achieve high-quality screen development even for low-end products and maintain a user experience consistent with that of their mid- to high-end products.
Looking back at the collaboration so far, Mr Tatsui gives the following assessment.
Qt's cross-platform versatility, simulator efficiency, and multi-language productivity are all best-in-class and play an important role in the development of Roland's products.
We also appreciate the face-to-face support of Qt Group's Japan staff. Thanks to their prompt and open responses, we were able to release our products without any trouble. We look forward to their continued support in the future.
Qt will continue to support Roland's global challenge of being a game changer by focusing on creating opportunities for people to enjoy music close at hand.
About Roland Corporation
Since its establishment in 1972, Roland Corporation has been providing electronic musical instruments that support music, which enriches people's hearts and can also be a universal communication tool. The company offers a diverse portfolio of products, including keyboards such as pianos and synthesizers, drums and percussion instruments, products related to the creation of synthesizer music, video and audio products used in broadcasting, concerts, events and conferences, and guitar-related products that boast a strong brand presence worldwide, and is committed to creating ways for people to enjoy music in their everyday lives.
