"Remember your first car?" he asks. "Mine was just a heap with a crappy radio, but it was still fun; same with bands and musical instruments. My first band using that old technology equipment was fun but it can't compare with this group of guys and the newer hardware. "

On stage with Rain, Hess' rig looks like an advertisement for Roland equipment. "I like Roland equipment because it's built like a tank and it all sounds true. I use two keyboards because I cover everything but the guitar, bass and drums all at once. The song won't sound like the audience remembers it if they don't hear all the parts - and I'm cheaper than hiring a piano player, and an organ player, and a horn section. Right? Plus, where are we gonna find a real accordion player that rocks?!"

On the top rack of his double keyboard stand sits a Roland JV-80 synthesizer. He admits it's a couple generations old (mid 90's era) in the Roland catalog but it was a top-of-the-line model in its day. Even the factory preset patches are multi-layered tones and then one touch gives you access to effects that you can change on the fly with the dashboard buttons and sliders. Many of the sounds were so good that they're still used today in the latest boards.

"This is a player's board. You can buy more exotic gear for the studio but on stage the JV-80 reacts to your touch like a fine sportscar. Patches change instantly with one touch and everything you might want to modify can be controlled in real time with sliders." The JV-80 also has the ability to split the keyboard up to 8 ways or you can pre-select 8 patches that can be called up instantly with one touch. That makes it a great instrument for a small band that wants each song to have all the signature sounds of the original, even in live performance. More customized sounds are available on expansion cards that you plug in and access just like a factory tone bank or you can create your own patches and save them to a floppy.

The lower rack holds a late 90's era Roland XP-50 synthesizer.  One generation newer than the JV board, the XP-50 has twice the sounds of the JV model. It shares many of the great acoustic instrument samples - pianos, strings, and horns - found on the JV-80 plus a wider choice of pretty convincing Hammond organ and Rhodes piano patches. But the real selling point is that it accepts 4 expansion cards to dramatically increase the variations of organ and electric piano sounds.

"Roland no longer makes the expansion cards for the XP models but you can find them on e-bay and they're well worth whatever you have to pay for one. I only added one card but its their Keyboards of the 60's and 70's card and what it doesn't have, you don't need! They've sampled or created hundreds of different Hammond, Wurlitzer, Rhodes, Farfisa keyboards to duplicate the particular sounds of specific groups or songs from back in the day.  Many you will immediately recognize."

"The board is also highly programmable so I can edit and store the sounds I need for each song and pull them up with just a click or two. That's a life-saver when the dance floor is full and we want to go quickly from one song to the next and I have to change instruments on both keyboards."

For backup, Hess kept the Roland JV-30 synth that he replaced with the JV-80. The little brother of his JV-80, the "30" has nearly as convincing piano and horn patches as his other Roland boards and has excellent real time effects to fatten up the sound. "I didn't get any complaints about the sounds, playing rock 'n roll on my old JV-30. The horns were fat and there were good pianos, but why drive a Chevy when you can drive a Corvette?!"