Roland D-110

The Roland D-110 is known for its not so very user friendly layout. From the unit itself you have to go through a lot of pages to get the function you want, but that doesen?t make it difficult to use; only a bit fiddly. When you know where to find the functions you want, editing is not that frustrating, although I really recommend using a PC/Mac editor (especially for making your own sounds). There are a handful of editors out there, and they are mostly very good. You get a much better picture of what?s going on with your synth, and you don?t need to press all those small black buttons all the time.
I don't have the manual and can't therefore comment it, but the data sheets that came with it is enough to understand what you must press to get what menu, so it's ok.

This flat little thingy has turned 12 years now, and it?s not one of those make-instant-Gr00vEy-tunes-on-just-one-unit-and-become-famous-thingies, which I am by the way very glad it isn?t. What it is is a little 1U rack which has got 8 part + 1 rythm part multitimbrality, and 32 note polyphony. The polyphony is sadly referring to the numbers of partials you use, and as one sound can use up to four partials, you can run out of polyphony fast considering the 8 parts of multitimbrality. One partial consists of one synth waveform (you can choose between saw wave and square wave) or a PCM sample. You can edit each partial of the sound with things like
*PWM (Pulse With Modulation - synth waveforms only), which is very useful for fattening up the sound.
*Ring modulator - You can ring modulate two and two partials together (the output configuration blocks work in pairs). Personally I really like ring modulators. RM can make your synth bite :)
*Filter section - Low Pass filter with resonance. I don?t know how many decibels the filters are, but they don?t exactly ?bite?, although they are very useful for softer filter usages (with 5 step envelopes - synth waveforms only, you cannot filter the PCMs).
*Pitch section (with 5 step envelopes)
*Amplifier section (with 5 step envelopes)
*De-tuning (now I have listed so many obvious things that I think it?s time to just move on)

Effects include 5 reverbs and 3 delays (only one effect at a time since there is only one effect processor) which can be edited by level and time, and only set globally for all parts.

You can buy additional PCM cards for this synth, but as I haven't got any (and I'm not planning on buying any either) I can't comment that.

You can save up to 64 multitimbral setups (patches) on this synth, containing all the information you need for every part, and that is very useful as you don't need to write sysx from an external sequencer to control it.

I don?t find many downpoints in the features of this synth, but one downpoint must be the midi. The synth only sends midi for controllers like notes, volume, velocity, modulation, expression, hold and pan pot. This means that you can?t tweak the filters realtime using another controller, or through a sequencer. Maybe you can do this through sysx, I don?t know, but one solution tho is to set the filter?s velocity sensitiveness on maximum, and turn off the Vel sense on the amplifier section. This way you can get filtered bass-lines by changing the velocity output of your controller/sequencer during playing. Note that this won?t work for pad sweeps and such as you must re-trigger the note to get the new velocity level (then again you can make pad sweeps using the filter envelopes, so it?s not a big problem really).

Another downpoint is that some of the parametres have too little steps. Ie the reconance which has got 30 steps, and the panning which has got only +/- 7 steps. Another downpoint is that the panning is too weak. You cannot do extreme panning effects as the other side will always be heard, something that is a shame considering FX usage and so on.

The presets on this synth are pretty awful IMHO (Rumours say that the Roland crew rushed them out, although a -very- few numbers of the "acoustic" instruments -can- sound alright in an arrangement). But on the net you can find sysx?es with new sound configurations, and there are some very good programmers out there who have made some more up to date sounds for it. Since I got this synth for a very low price I was schocked by hearing all those wonderful sounds coming out from it. It sure is some steps above all those PCM playback synths when it comes to synth sounds which are not too complex. It has not got the warmth of an analog synth, but is more sharp in its sound, something that can be very useful sometimes. You should also note that this synth is not very good for very clean or complex sounds, and it has got some minor noise in it's oscillators too, athough that doesen't seem as a problem.

(If you want to hear examples on how this synth sounds, you can mail me at zepsi@hotmail.com, and do specify what kind of sounds you want to hear)

I bought mine not very long ago from a person who bought it second hand from another person (yea). The only problems i had was that it locked up in the very begiining without any obvious reason (that hasn't happened since), and that the midi in port has some minor contact problem (all I have to do to fix it is to move on the cable a bit, so it's probably not that hard to fix).

Haven't dealt with them

I would buy it again if it got lost or stolen (in fact I'm planning on getting a 2nd one as i want 16 channels of D-110 sound). I have been into sequencing myself for less than 1 year, and have a Yamaha CS2x in addition to this (although I have experience with other synths).
It sure is very inspiring to work with, and I recommend it to beginners (don't we all love that word? :P ) as well as pros, as I can imagine this synth being useful in any setup. The only thing I really wish it had is more midi possibilities, but it's old cheap, sounds good and so on, so it's not really a big problem.

When the D110 appeared in 1988, it was considered a pro alternative to the MT32 and a multi-timbral version of the D50 (though without as sophisticated an effects palet; eg, no chorusing or EQ and one LFO instead of three). This was one of the then new bread of single-rack modules (along with Yamaha's best-selling TX81Z). It had 192 sounds on-board and another 192 sounds via Memory Cards. The D110 utilizes the same LA synthesis as the D50 and MT32. Up to 32 notes can be played at once (though 16 is more likely) and 8 different sounds can be sequenced at once. There's a pop/rock set-up of 63 percussion sounds and on-board processing like reverb and delay. There's also six separate outs. The D110 responds to Mod and Pitch wheels, but not to aftertouch. Effects can be sculpted by altering the level and time. Unfortunately (but not surprisingly f0r '88), the reverb covers every Part in a Patch, not the individual Parts.

Naturally, Roland peddled yet another in a long line of hardware programmers, the PG10. Perhaps they should put warnings on their synths: "Sounds can be edited from the panel, but we've made it so annoying that you'll hopefully want to foot $399 for one of our external programmers." The D110 uses a system of editing Pages which are launched by pressing the edit button?actually, there isn't a whole lot that can be done without pressing the edit button. Remembering which Pages to step through and how to step through them takes getting used to! Which brings us to the D110's user interface; it has one of the most baffling interfaces ever (and there's stiff competition). First, there's the front panel. The D110 features two rows of eight black buttons. They're so close together that it's easy to quickly press the wrong button a few times and get thrust deep into some unwanted editing or full dump function! There was room on the panel to spread things out and Roland should have. It took a while to figure out which series of buttons to push to sample all of the Tones. Eventually, I came up with the magic combination: Timbre, Edit, Group, Bank, and Value. Of course, it seems so simple now! If I was going to spend more time playing than guessing, I'd have to defy the user's credo of "Damn the documentation? full speed ahead!" and crack the manual. The plot thickens. The reading ain't easy. In the first three pages you meet the following terms: Partial, Common, Structure, Part, Tone, Patch, and Timbre (and a cast of others). Roland's lexicon is unnecessarily inflated and the definitions (when given) are foggy. The illustrations aren't much help, either. Under the description of the 8 modes, we are shown a diagram?of 13 modes (there really are only 8!).

The D110 sounds are still good and even some of the imitative sounds still work well. It's a flexible all-a-rounder and a powerful tool.

This was the first sign to me that what a Roland box could do was in no way related to how easy it was to do it. There's a lot going on, but between the yuck manual, poor interface, and jargon that make even a White House intern blush, I'd say it's one of the company's weaker efforts.

The presets are great, especially the EPs and the organs. The brass sounds are really vintage (Yummy! Analog brass!) I don't have the manual, so editing patches is difficult.

The polyphony is poor. Only 32. There is an effect prosessor. Eight echoes: - five reverbs - three delays (one with flanger) There is a slot for a PCM- data card. (I own a one.) Midi capabilties are good. Touch sensitive keys, after touch etc.

Great EPs, organs and winds. Nice synth brass sounds. Poor strings (with PCM- cards you get better ones) Good for rock music. The effects are fine, considering the age of the machine. Very fun to play.

You can rely on it. Yes I would.

I've had no problems with my D-110. I called the importer for the manual, but they asked too much money for it.

Yes I would. It is worth every penny I paid for it. It has all the sounds I need. The polyphony sucks. I compared it with a Yamaha rack module (TG-7 ?). Well the Yamaha had FM-synthesis. This was much more modern. I wish this had a seq. It is a big help.
The D-110 is a one hell of a machine considering the fact, that they sterted producing it in 1989.

Drums sounds so,so, E-pianos are nice, Clavinet usable, many usable samples and loops. I liked more U-110 because of it has dynamics. Patch editing is possible with front panel buttons, but shareware patch editor helps alot. Manual is good, altough some it lacks some interesting information. For example sample ROM size and sample format is unknow to me. Also what i needed was some table that converts TVF freq values to Hz.

D-110 has maximum 32 voices. The module has poor built in reverb unit with 5 reverb and 2 delay algorithms. You can use external sound cards to add sounds. The midi overflow feature might be useful, if you want to chain several sound modules.

Real instruments do not sound real. Synth based sounds are ok and organs too. I liked more U-110 drums. The demo song sounds ok, so listen them before buing. I used clavinet and thin bells and cliks a lot in my small home studio. An external effect is needed to make D-110 sound something.

My D-110 was realible and caused never any harm in my midi setup.

I would buy the device again if need to build up a very cheap, noise free and reasonable sounding midi sequencing system. I loved the clavinet sound and I didn't really hate any sound, because i didn't use any sounds that i didn't like, like piano. The device is very programmable so there is a possibility to create interesting new sounds.