Roland D-10

never used it

d 10 has basic sounds it can get boring easy so not for the extroverts ha ha you know who you are you people persons ha ha

This synth is very easy to use...Once you get to know it. I got the manual, but i have learned to know it without the manual.
But i have to say in the long run, the Yamaha DX7 is more easy to program, and has a better program system. But i've read that it's so hard to program the DX7, i don't think so...So maybe it is easier to program the D10.
The preset sounds are great. EXEPT FOR STRINGS AND ORCHESTRAS, they suck!!!
But pads, leads, brass, bass, synth, organs, pianos and other stuff is just awsome!
It also has this Van Halen-Jump brass sound in it, haha.
For 80's music, it's awsome!

The keyboard action is great, the MIDI works fine and the effects give a very nice sound to it. But i can't seem to find out how to get the delay away from the drums...Exept to plug it into my DX7. Hmmmm.
I think it has expansion cards for more memory and new sounds.

This synth reacts very good to velocity.
The instruments are ace, exept for strings!! But you could always get a cheap sound card to get good strings.
I found it works best for 80's rock and 80's synth pop, and basicly just about anything 80's, haha.

I would use this synth no matter what gig it was....But if it was at a football stadium with 60.000 peoples...I would use my DX7 as a backup. But i doubt it would be nessescary. Instead i would use my DX7 as the piano synth for those ballads.

I got this synth with two broken keys, so i ordered to spare keys from Roland. And there several WEEKS to late!!!
Im beginning to doubt wether they will come or not at all.
But in the meantime, 'ive borrowed another D10. Wich im basing this review on.

If this synth was stolen, i would buy it again ASAP! I've ben playing all my life since i was alittle kiddo. but im not a synth man. Im better at guitar, and guitar is what i love to play. But piano is pretty cool to, you know, just to have in the studio when you need to play it.
I choose to get this synth only becouse it was from the 80's. I ONLY buy equippment from the 80's...exept for computers though.
It's been very helpfull to record my music. Even though i don't really use it on ballads, i use my DX7 for that. But for rock songs, the D10 is THE synth for me to use.

I kind of rew up with my d-10. Gigged it loads with an old korg DW and an M1. Liked the realism of the sounds but I guess that depends on what pa you used. Patch editing for me was always hit and miss so I tried it and then went back to presets. The manual was ok but couldn't help me understand editing. Basic editing was fine until I started changing waves etc. But simply as a keyboard, it's so easy.

The polyphony is fine and adequate. I bought an expansion card - did anybody else. These must be rare now - I never used mine. The dum machine is brilliant and I've always liked it. Wouldn't use it live but for home use its adequate.

I think the realism of the d10 is pretty good. Piano isn't realistic but which were in those days. Organ sounds good even today as do some strings and there's some juno synth patch that you can double and play around a little bit with and you've got Van Halen jump and i founds the sound for 1984. Always liked it for this. Also got a techno type sound that Sash(?) would love!!

Yes. Have gigged with it no probs. But hey, its getting old now so just like a 10 year old M1 or whatever, it might be an idea to play it safe!!

Cannot comment.

Err no. I'd probably move on and try this Juno-D or sommething different. Do like the D-10. Good down to earth synth. I may have wished for a sequencer on it. The drum machine is amazing and I'm suprised a lot of competitors don't have similar. The only thing I don't like about mine is that the keys have started squeaking badly but having been gigged in three bands (+studio) and used endlessly in the bedroom(!) I've had my moneys worth.

Logic Pro5
VERY easy to use.
Presets are fine.
Did'nt experiment too much once i mucked up one of the Bass Guitar sounds . .Damn!
The manual is 1st class, anyone who chucked it out is a fool.

Too many 'nerdy" questions here.
Just switch the thing on, and play.

For its time the sounds are great, lets not forget, it is a "Synth"
Not a bloody Steinway.
And 20 years on, it can still be a useful tool to create your own material.

It has never let me down.
Could you use any instrument, without back? Hmmm me thinks NOT!

Never had to deal.
Nope!

Having read some "Negative" comments from other owners, i think that the "tone" of their input, suggests that they think they are too good to even breathe the same air as the rest of us.
The sounds on this Synth are great, who are these bods that think that they can judge this product with the attitued that they know best! . . .they need to get out more.
To sum up, this synth does what it was designed to do, no more,no less ADIOS.

As far as you have understood what's the "timbre" and "tone", things will be easier. Editing very "push button".

Bought in 1988, 8 note polyphony (4 oscilators). Nice reverb sound but lacks chorus (any Eff Proc with chorus is cheap now).
Has drum machine, very basic, but can be useful sometimes - even to copy its patterns to any other equipment. Light keyboard. Never let me down and has been serviced recently (keys and pots). Nice friend. No GM/GS compatibility - not useful for midifiles.

LA synthesis was nice in 1988 but PCM waves don't go through TVF (Time Variant Filter). Ok then use Synth waves - square/Sawth -.
Presets were nice, multipurpose, but when edited you can have very good results. A chorus is needed for some colour in the sound.
I always pick presets and edit them.

Neve let me down. Payed 130? in 1989 for M256 but never needed it.
It looks as new (I protect my investments).

Have dealt with Roland Oficcial Technician/Service. No problem, not expensive.

Nice friend, and if it were stolen/damaged, I'd buy a D-110 (have to many keyboards). Have it for 18 years.

This was the original version, bought in 1988, pre D20 (Chris Williams, you haven't done your homework). It was my first ever performance synth, so can't rate it against anything. The sounds were quite lush, plenty bass & at the time in the sub #1000 bracket the keyboard was peerless. There were two manuals supplied, both reasonably clear & concise. I was comfortable with all aspects of operation within a matter of a week.

32 voice polyphony, though realistically this was 10 keys, less if you used the drum machine. Reverb & delays built in, with limited capacity but enough to soften everything.
All aspects of MIDI were supported except for volume send (it received it though). This was frustrating, because I had a hardware sequencer, & could not force this to happen.
No onboard sequencer for notes, as the D-20 came out later, but there was a sequencer for the drum machine.

Most of the sounds were reasonably realistic below C5. Fine for most types of music, though I noticed during recording there was a bit too much noise overhead. The keyboard wasn't weighted, which suited me fine. Velocity sensitive, but no aftertouch (that was still a new feature on the best keyboards at the time)

The only thing that ever went wrong was the control panel keys became sticky over time. No other problems I can remember.

Never spoke to them. I regret ever having sold the unit, it was a fine writing & performance tool. I'd buy another if I came across one for the right price (ie what I had in cash in my pocket).

Like I said, at the time it was peerless. The ability to have 8 different channels, plus drums, made it possible to completely program a band for backing, and the relative ease of use made it fairly painless. Expensive at the time, though, and it was overtaken in the technology stakes fairly quickly. I didn't regret the purchase, ever. Why anyone would want to just give one away is beyond me - unless of course you have a brace of better instruments & don't mind throwing away money.

Basic operation of the Roland D-10 in 'preset-mode' is a very simple affair. Instead of having to type in a three digit MIDI number, you've got two rows of eight buttons - one for the bank, the other for the individual program within that bank. There are two main banks of 64 sounds, each main bank then subdivided into a further eight banks with eight programs in each.
A drum programmer is also provided and comes with about 32 ROM patterns, and then space for 32 of your own custom designed patterns. I have yet to program my own loops to use in the drum programmer but it looks like a pattern is one bar long, and you can chain together different patterns to achieve the effect of drum fills, build ups and break downs. This is quite a nice feature as it allows you to jam to a drum track without all the hassle of cheesy auto-bass-chord stuff you'd find on a home keyboard. The preset drum loops are also mainly eight beats and 16 beats so you'll sound like a rock act rather than dance or cheesy home organ (there are a couple of Bossanovas and Sambas though!)
Edit mode is a bit more tricky. I've only had this keyboard a week and not really had much of a chance to start building my own programs with it yet. I can say that it's less obvious than the Yamaha DX7 because the panel controls do not say what their edit functions are. I have found out that there are two types of editing: one to edit the patch, and the other to edit the tone. I assume that to create custom programs from scratch - it's something to do with tone editing. Patch editing involves higher level functions such as the transpose, split points, layering and the sounds you want to split or layer.

In 'Whole' or, more familiarly what is often termed 'Single' mode these days, you've got 32 notes of polyphony to play with. This is quite a lot, and pretty good for a keyboard that was released in 1988. However, the synth is up to eight-parts multi-timbral so this could cut it right down to only being able to play four notes at once. Many sounds in performance mode layer at least two sounds together so you can play upto 16 notes at the same time.
The keyboard itself is of the light plastic type, rather than the semi-weighted keyboards like the Yamaha DX7 or the Korg 01w. However, I can't imagine these key mechanisms ever suffering from the 'sticky key' problem that some keyboards have, no matter how much gunk gets in between them.
The D-10 accepts RAM cards inserted at the rear panel which expands the total number of programs available at any one time.
The synth has full MIDI implementation over eight simultaneous MIDI channels with velocity sensitivity but not aftertouch. The lower row of program select buttons on the front panel act as MIDI status LEDs so you can see which channels are active. The lights react quickly so even if a fast passage is playing the lights will flicker rather than just stay on. There is no onboard sequencer on the D-10.

Hmmm... some of the presets are questionable. The Roland D series uses LA (Linear Arithmetic) synthesis that combines digital sampling with traditional analogue synthesis. For some of the sounds this works quite well, like synth bells and chimes, but for others such as *some* of the piano sounds, the combination of analogue and digital does not gel together well and you get the impression of hearing two distinct sounds as a composite rather than one coherent sound. The chorusing sound evident in acoustic instruments which the Yamaha DX7 could emulate so well is also more difficult on the D-10 so while your attack might be more realistic, the decay side of the envelope is much more static in the absence of the complex feedback loops and timbral changes that the DX7 handled with ease.
What the D-10 is pretty good at is analogue strings and pads, none other than prog A11. The analogue waveforms you get are Pulse and Saw - both used for creating string sounds on a traditional analogue synthesizer. The lead sounds and atmosphering bell sounds are also rather nice, and I quite like the vox sounds too. Also, the rock organ sounds are absolutely amazing! Bass sounds aren't so brilliant on the D-10 - the Yamaha DX7 has a much tighter bottom end. Although in the factory presets there are probably only a handful of sounds that are really good, this suggests that the tone generator is capable of a whole new array of good sounds that can only be accessed by learning the programming interface.
What makes the D-10 sound more modern than the Yamaha DX7, and what is definitely cool about the D-10 is its built in effects processor which helps to add gloss and animation to the sounds which is so essential in studio recordings. This synth features five different reverbs and three different types of delay - the variations basically being related to the time (reverb one is short while reverb 5 can be very long).

This is well made. The whole body is metal. The base and underneath of the keys is steel, and the front and rear panels are black brushed aluminium. It's only half the weight of a DX7 at eight kilos but it still feels pretty sturdy. My only dislike is being able to hear the sound of the springs in the keys echoing around the unit, and I was never a fan of trailing power leads...

Never dealt with Roland so I can't comment on this aspect.

This keyboard was an absolute bargain for the price I paid for it. Not only was it cheap but because the previous owner had owned it since new and never gigged it, it was still in near mint condition with only a few very minor dings in the finish.
If it were lost or stolen I'm not sure at this stage whether I'd get a replacement. I haven't become as attached to this keyboard as quickly as I did with the DX7, but I do think that the on-board drum programmer is a huge plus for jamming and creating ideas to later record in a more serious manner.

Other stuff:
Yamaha DX7
Korg 01/wFD
MicroKORG
Yamaha DJX
Casio CT-101
Evolution MK-125
Yamaha PSS-470
Oberheim MC1000
Technics EX-50
Ibanez GSR200
Yamaha PAC112
J&D 5-String Bass
Fostex VF08
Behringer MX2004A
Boss PW2
Boss RV5
Boss DD3
Boss CH1

It is harder for me to go to the bathroom than use this synth. But we have become one; my grandmother bought it for me for my bar mitzvah. She is now dying of emphysema. The buttons are gumming up after all these years. But that's all the problem I have with it right now. As I approach thirty, it doesn't matter so much anymore--my own buttons are gumming up!

The marvelous D-10 keyboard is a black box of inspiration, wonder and PCM samples. I believe that the saw and square waves are actually analogue--but I could be wrong. Nonetheless, the string sounds I get from it sound a billion times better than my Proteus 2000. Damn! This is features, not sounds. I guess I'm fired from my D-10 review.

To Review the D-10 is to review my very flesh and blood. Through many years it was my only friend in the whole world. They have questions here, maybe I should focus that and eschew sentimentality. The onboard effects are great, in the larger sense. What I mean to say, is that they are, technically, audiophiliacally bad. So, in a limited sense, they are awful. But in the grand scheme of things they have great, noisy personalities that shine through every track. Roland has always had the best sounding digital synths, D-10 is no exception. There is great fun to be had with the ring modulator. DX7, eat your fish-heart out.

Can you depend on the sun? Can you depend on the utter corruptibility of the human heart? I'd sooner depend on the D-10 than on God. Dependability? In the ten plus years of constant use my D-10 has had to be repaired but once. ONCE! And I am a very sloppy, angry keyboardist. I'd sooner back-up myself than the D-10.

I have no opinion on this issue. I never needed customer support. They sent me a free magazines for years. It would be humorous to see those old articles on Hall and Oates, etc.

If my d-10 was stolen or lost...
I don't know what I'd do. I might just give up music for good. I mean, I don't know exactly what to do with myself sometimes anyways--but then I find the D-10 when I get home and it is just me and it. Gost, that's sentimental. But, what can I say. For awhile I had an E-mu ESI sampler, and the two of them got along very well. But then the ESI died. In the meantime, as I mentioned earlier, I picked up an E-mu Proteus 2000. I use the 2000 much more now only because I really like huge bombastic textures. Shamefully I must admit that I use the d-10 primarily as a controller. But! But! It is always there under my fingers, reminding me of all the years, those melancholy years through highschool and college, alone alone alone, just me and D-10. Me and a handful of PCM notes and a ring modulator that didn't always work right. There I sat for years and years, hunched over, formulating warbly sounds, composing sentimental melodies over Depeche Mode beats, our conductress that grand Dame, Ms. Alesis MMT-8 sequencer. OH! Those years will never be back. Now everything has to go through a filter. Every melody, every break, every everything is swooped up and down a lowpass, a midpass, a high pass--up and down, down and up, wip wip wip wip bloop bleep bloop! Aie! I can never escape it. I hear too. Up and down, down and up. I should return to my roots. Burn the proteus. Excise my softsynths. GONE GONE GONE!!!!

Never had a manual for my roland D 10 but I think one would come in handy, also I do not know the software version or how to find out. It's whatever came on it. Patching the sounds isn't too hard, takes a while to get used to this synths layout, but you can change the pitch, reverb, split point (for using multi instrument sounds), and a gang of other stuff that I cant remember at the moment. You also are able to control the pitch bend knob (a whammy bar for a synth basically) and what it controls on the synth, IE- pitch, reverb, ect ect. I liked that feature alot.

I love the fact that this synth had midi in and out, and aux in and out, and a headphone port. The midi comes in handy for software such as reason, or nuendo, and there's a ton of software synths that you can plug in to via midi. The keyboard plays great, the sensitivity of the keys is pretty close to a real piano. the harder you press the key, the louder the note. Can expand the soundbank via cards (which are hard to find)and through midi somehow (never found out how to do so) Onboard sequencer is a bit difficult to get familiar with, but once you figure it out you can actually make some crazy stuff with it.

Already noted were the organ sounds, they're aweswome. Also, the piano sounds are not bad at all, most of the isntruments sounds decent, i'd give most a 7 or 8 out of 10 . Could be a little sharper but not bad for how old the equipment is. Onboard effects "sound effects?" It has some sound effects, but I was dissapointed at how limited this soundbank was. My dissapointment was removed when I found out about "software" synths that the roland works great with via midi, on my pc.
Endless sounds and possibilities with these. I use this synth mostly for hip hop, drum n bass, speedcore, and trip hop type music. On it's own I could see it being used for jazz or in a noisy indie rock band definitely. Get an external midi to usb and a laptop, then your possibilities are endless.

This Synth has never failed me or done anything bizzare, one key sticks but I think it's because there's something in there (prob. compliments of my 2 year old) which I need to clean out.
I'd definitely do a show with it. It's built like a tank.

Never had to contact roland for anything, I never had a manual either, this keyboard is made out to be harder than it really is.
No upgrades and never had to have it repaired.
This synth ROCKS.

If I lost my roland I would definitely get another one at some point, though they're quite hard to come by.
I've been playing for a year or so, using this roland for about 7 months in various ways to help me make beats and music.
The only thing I don't like about this synth is that it's so damn heavy... But it's very durable as a result of it's weight, so it evens out. I also wish I had a manual.
I love it's compatability with my soundcard and all software that i've run it through. It's never not worked.
I can't really compare it because this is the 1st synth i've owned, but i've played others and read up on others and for the price, this isn't bad at all. I do wish it had better drum samples, and more of them at that, it's seriously lacking in that department, but that's what SP's are for. haha.
I'd say the Roland D 10 definitely helps with music making, if you can get past the akward interface then you've got yourself a piece of great musical equipment.

I'd love to know how to add patches and such and find out how to access different things in the synth that I might not know about if anyone knows.

The presets on this keyboard aren't to good. Considiring its age they still aren't good. I'm a church musician and I bought this keyboard because I was desperate for a professional style synth. The only thing good up their was the organs and the leads weren't to bad. But you can get a better piano sound out of a $100 dollar radioshack keyboard. Editing isn't to hard. You won't need a manual. I never had a manual and I move around the board pretty easily.

As I said before the sounds suck. Unless you are just buying the synth for an organ sound. The leads are straight but I heard better. If I were to compare this keyboard to another it would have to be a beginner one from radioshack.

I wouldn't use this keyboard in a gig without a backup. I don't think I would use this keyboard at all. When I bought it had something wrong internally but the out side was in good condition. I got it fixed which ran me almost 70 dollars. It really wasn't worth it.

It wasn't hard to get my D-10 fixed. I just brought it in to my local Roland Dealer (MCfayden Music) and they shipped it in to get it fixed.

Overall this keyboard doesn't meet any of today's standards. I would pay someone to steal mine. I really wouldn't recommend this keyboard to anyone