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Streamlined version of the classic D-50 series. Simplified synth engine but multitimbral, and still with many features, including effects and on-board PCM drum machine.
The Roland D-10 offers many classic L.A. (Linear Arithmetic) sounds, including excellent vox and string pads, organs, basses and FX.
The sequel to the classic D-50 (even though it was really more like an upgrade of the U-20 – or “U-50” as found on the motherboard).
The D-70 is a wonderful synthesizer, that captures the spirit of the classic D-50, and takes it to a new dimension. This is a quality synth from a bygone era.
Great features include 76 keys, sound layering, and a very expressive aftertouch.
Like the D-50, Eric Persing and team did an unbelievable job with the sounds of the D-70. Patches like “Ghosties”, “Prologue” and “SpaceDream” are masterpieces of synth sound design. The sounds in ROM have a very punchy, full, “complete” sonic character that sounds great even today. The on-board effects are also of very high quality.
Roland D-70 audio demos
Roland D-70 factory demo – “Schizoid” by Eric Persing – copyright 1990 Eric Persing:
Note: You may need to slow down the transmission rate of the sysex, and the D-70 will receive it.
You can also press 5 when powering up and it will offer the menu to load sysex, but I found you don’t need it really… the D-70 receives the sysex from the main screen as well (which right now you see as a garbled mess – it’s okay).
The key in my case was to slow down the sysex transmission to very slow.
You can use any sysex software you like, but the shareware Bome’s SendSX or MIDI Ox worked well for me:
Go to Options–>Settings and set the “Speed of Sending MIDI” to the lowest position
In the same menu, set “Wrap long sysex messages upon loading”.
Also don’t forget to select the MIDI interface that you are using, in the Bome’s “Midi Out” menu.
Connect the MIDI out from your computer to the D-70’s MIDI In
On the D-70, press Edit –>System Setup and set the “Exclusive RX” to ON and the Unit Number to “17”
The Roland JX-8P is a six-voice polyphonic synthesizer that came out in 1985. It is a typical “hybrid” synth of that era, featuring DCOs but VCFs and VCAs.
The sound is – like its relatives JX-10 and MKS-70, very “lush”, classy and full. The keyboard is dynamic and has aftertouch. There are many editing parameters available, and also they typical Roland on-board chorus, and portamento.
Since the synth was built at a time when digital technology had exploded and all synths started looking like the DX7, the JX-8P has no knobs – but relies on multi-functions, buttons and a slider to edit the sounds. The PG-800 programmer can be used to program the synth with a more traditional “analog style” interface. The Roland JX-8P features full MIDI, and also accepts a cartridge to store 32 additional patches.
The rack version of the popular D-10. Useful because of the separate outputs. As I remember, the D-110 was a very popular module at the time it came out. One of the main reasons was the fact that it was multi-timbral.
This 1-U rack synthesizer is based on the proven L.A. (Linear Arithmetic) synthesis employed in the classic D-50, although the synthesis structure is not as complete and versatile as its big brother. It is much more similar to the D-10, D-5 and D-20, and even sports a front slot for a memory card, like those keyboards also had.
It is not the easiest module to use, in comparison with other modules from the day (the E-mu Proteus comes to mind), because there is a small two-line display, and an intricate system of button-pushing and sub-menus to edit it. Even then, if you are a bit familiar with Roland’s “partial” structure, this follows the same lines.
One thing that it takes from its cousin MT-32 and I’m puzzled about: the unit, when reset to factory settings (by loading the sysex presets), sets its eight channels starting from MIDI channel 2, not 1. This could lead to frustration (hey, this thing doesn’t play!) when all you need to do is call up the parts, and renumber the MIDI channels according to each part: 1 to 1, 2 to 2 and so forth.
The sounds on the D-110 are typical L.A. synthesis, and there are a lot of those “usual suspects” heard in other instruments that belong to this line.
I LOVE THE D-50. After my Casio CZ-1000, it’s the first “professional” synth I ever bought, and it still ranks as my favorite synthesizer ever.
It’s the work of genius: at the time (1987), ROM was still expensive, and samplers were a lot more expensive than synthesizers (at least those samplers in the ‘high’ leagues, such as Emulator, Fairlight, Synclavier). The solution from Roland was to incorporate in ROM small snippets, very short “attacks” of real and classic instrument waveforms, place theme at the beginning of a sound, and finish off with standard, oscillator-based analog/digital synthesis. Since the first portion of a sound is the one that strikes us with a first impression of realism, L.A. (Linear Arithmetic) synthesis was very successful because allowed incredibly realistic results with very little ROM. The Korg M1 followed the year later with an improved ROM set, and was even more successful than the D-50 ever was. Short loops very also incorporated in the D-50’s 100-block ROM. Famous “snippets”, or transients as they are called include PCM 33 – Steam – useful to build wind instrument patches; PCM39 – Lips1 – used in many great trumpet and trombone patches; PCM 47 – Pizz – from which the great “Pizzagogo” patch is built upon; PCM 68 – Spect1 – classic example of LA synthesis, many patches use the Spectrum waveforms; PCM 95 – Loop19 – you’ll recognize this as being used in the famous “DigitalNativeDance” patch; PCM 98 – Loop22 – a complete, cool loop; and finally, the two “regular”, old style analog waveforms on board, used to “finish off” the patches (and sometimes, depending on the structure used, they are by themselves), WaveSAW – typical saw-tooth waveform, and WaveSQU , typical square waveform.
The D-50 is – in my opinion – together with the Yamaha DX7 and Korg M1, one of the three classic mid-range digital synthesizers of the ’80s. I fell in love with this synth the moment I heard the factory patch “Staccato Heaven” at the store, and had to have it. The sonic characteristics of this wonderful-sounding synthesizer are very particular: digital, with short loops that remind of early samplers, and analog-warm at the same time. A marriage made in synth-heaven.
The first patch one hears when powering up the synth is the very famous “Fantasia”, an amalgam of digital bells and warm synths, with a slightly detuned flavor. This patch is a perfect example of the sonic character of the D-50. Other famous patches include “DigitalNativeDance”, “Soundtrack”, “Pizzagogo”, and “Glass Voices”.
Also there were four factory sound expansion cards, that observed the following guidelines: Sustain Group, Decay Group, Sustain Group II, Decay & S.E. Group II (i.e., mallets, drums, reeds etc.) Go to the four Factory Sound Expansion Cards pages
New Age great Enya’s use of the “Pizzagogo” patch is an example of how well-suited to ambient/new-age (but not only, of course!) this synth is.
The D-50 was also the first synth to incorporate an on-board reverb/multi-fx unit, a fact that contributed to its legendary sound. Previous manufacturers (i.e., ARP with spring reverb on the 2600; Korg with Chorus/Ensemble/Phaser on the PolySix, Flanger on the Trident, DDL delay on DW-8000; Yamaha with _____ ) had started implementing effects to some extent, but Roland went full out – and Korg actually outdid them the year after with the best-selling M1.
The character of the D-50 sounds is one of richness, analog mixed with crystalline digital perfection, warmth, and an overall aural beauty that’s hard to follow. Recently, Roland’s own V-Synth reminded of the D-50 thanks to (in a few cases) the low-grade samples, the sonic character, and the amazing editing possibilities it offers -and now even includes a virtual D-50 in a card that you can boot off, to transform the V-Synth in a complete D-50.
Initializing the D-50: turn on while pressing “DATA TRANSFER” and “0” at the same time. This will clear the internal cache and solve MIDI problems.
LOADING SYSEX BULK DUMPS FROM CAKEWALK SONAR: The Roland D-50 is an older generation machine, so I found that when I’m sending sysex data from modern sequencers such as the one I use, Cakewalk Sonar, I get the “MIDI transmission error” message, because the synth cannot handle the speed at which the sequencer is sending the sysex data. The solution, found on Sonar’s sysex Help section, is to tweak the “TTSEQ.ini” file in the Sonar folder – basically setting the “SysxSendPacketSize” to 64 as shown in the screen print below. This makes the flow slow enough that the D-50 will be able to handle it.
ALSO IMPORTANT: When setting up the D-50 to receive the sysex data: MAKE SURE YOU HOLD DOWN THE “DATA TRANSFER” button when you press “(B.LOAD)”. Then you can release the two buttons and finally press “ENTER”. If you don’t keep the “DATA TRANSFER” button pressed at the same time, the bulk load won’t work. Finally, sometimes the D-50 will freeze after completing the data transfer. Not to worry. Just turn it off and on again, and it will go back to normal, with the new patches you just loaded in memory ready to play.
ALSO NOTE: SOME MIDI INTERFACES DON’T SEEM TO WORK WITH THE D-50 – This had me scratching my head! I was trying to load patches from Sonar to the D-50 via an M-Audio “MIDISport Uno” interface: I have used this handy little interface extensively with my laptop and never had any problem. BUT, with the D-50, THE “UNO” DOES NOT WORK, no matter what settings on the ttseq.ini file. After an hour of trying and getting MIDI errors, I switched to my older M-Audio USB MIDISport 1×1, and that WORKS FINE. In the past, I used an Opcode MIDI Translator that also worked fine. And I will try with the MIDI on the M-Audio FireWire 1814 and will report about that one.
Patch analysis: recreating the “Soundtrack” sound
It’s not an easy task… as usual with a lot of D-50 patches, it uses 4 partials, so it can be complex to recreate perfectly, but I’ll write down the most important parameters and most of all – provide audio examples (single note at useful range for this patch – C3, C4, C5, C6) – so you can try to emulate it on another synth.
Keep in mind that this is just an approximation, because there are several other parameters that would take forever to analyze… for instance, the envelopes of Lower and Upper Partial 1 changes dramatically by velocity release… Pitch envelope and pitch modulation… slightly different tunings per tone… there are different LFO rates… there are EQ and Chorus settings… there is slight filter aftertouch etc. etc… AND there is the on-board reverb processor, which modern processors or plug-ins are way too hi-fi to reproduce… I’d suggest getting a $50 older unit such as the [url=http://www.synthmania.com/rex50.htm]Yamaha REX50[/url] – You’ll have to ‘eyeball’ these parameters by ear as best as you can – and you really are going to need to see the patch on an editor to see what’s really going on. Anyway, here it is – To help a bit more, I recorded dry and reverbed versions.
Thanks to the blindfolded Goddess of Luck, I won this keyboard in a raffle at a Mars Music (great store unfortunately no longer in existence) Keyboardist Night years ago. It is comparable to the Casio CTK-601. This is a useful auto-accompaniment keyboard, capable of some respectable sounds and rhythms. It sits at the lower end of the EM-series, but holds its own compared to its bigger brothers and sisters.
Roland EM-10 audio demos
Roland EM-10 specs
Other useful features found in this keyboard include:
Metronome button
Transpose button
Chorus/Reverb on-off button
Arrangement mixer
Style Manipulator (a great feature, allows to mute/add parts and exchange parts with other on-board styles, effectively mixing and customizing your own rhythms
Keyboard velocity on-off button
One Touch button (automatically recalls preset accompaniment and sound setting suitable for the style chosen)
“Intel”ligent harmony button (adds harmony to the solo voices, played automatically as you play the melody)
“Organ” mode (EM-10s’ for “split” section L+R)
Variation button that allows to recall variations of the standard GM set on board, for many sounds (i.e., pressing preset tone A57 (SyBas101) and then the Variation button, allows to get access to variation sounds “SyBass3” and “SynthBs1”
Powerful on-board speakers
Colorful panel scheme.
This keyboard is both GM (General MIDI) and GS (General Standard), and features “Style Morphing” (style manipulator).
Bottom line: an inexpensive keyboard with quality GM sounds, interesting rhythms, and all-around fun to play – perfect for the beginner, intermediate player, or for piano-bar, and entertaining at family parties.
