ENDORSER UPDATE
Roli has collaborated with 20-year-old Canadian hip-hop prodigy WondaGurl on
the creation of a signature soundpack on Noise, its free iOS music-making app, and
Blocks, its music creation system. An accompanying video captures WondaGurl’s
unique perspective on music creation, her journey as one of hip-hop’s rising stars,
and how these factors influenced the creation of the new soundpack. A self-taught
producer, WondaGurl was only 16 when she started winning beat battles and
producing chart-topping tracks for Jay Z, Drake, Travis Scott, and SZA.
“This soundpack has pushed me to make some crazy stuff that I’ve never tried
before,” says WondaGurl.
Mike Balter Mallets has added jazz percussionist, composer, and performer Jason
Marsalis to its artist roster. Marsalis is the son of pianist and music educator Ellis Mar-
salis and his wife Dolores, and the youngest sibling of Wynton, Branford, and Delfea-
yo. Together, the four brothers and their father comprise one of the most renowned
families in New Orleans jazz.
“I’m now a proud endorser of Mike Balter Mallets. They have sound and consis-
tency and have been very easy to play. It is a pleasure to be a part of the Mike Balter
family and I look forward to a bright future with the company,” says Marsalis.
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Brian “Head” Welch has been a longtime user of
Orange amps, but is now an official brand ambas-
sador. A founding member of Grammy-winning
band Korn, he uses the Orange Rockerverb 100 MKIII
to create, in his own words, a “buttery” clean tone.
Welch also used his Rockerverb in the studio on the
latest Korn album, The Serenity of Suffering, released
last summer.
“One of the reasons I started using the Orange
Rockerverb MKIII live is because I was able to get
such a smooth tone from my clean channel on clas-
sic Korn songs like ‘Falling Away From Me’ and ‘Here
To Stay,’” he says.
DJ, producer, and songwriter Klypso recently relo-
cated back to his roots in the San Francisco Bay Area,
setting up a new studio facility in the South Bay to
work on hip-hop and pop music. In his new studio,
his monitors of choice are Mackie’s XR Series.
“With pop music in particular, a lot of times my
mixes get pretty dense, and it’s important to have a
set of speakers that gives me the clarity and defini-
tion I’m looking for,” Klypso says. “With the XR824s,
I’m getting a really nice, well-balanced sound with-
out any extra hype or colouration.”