Roland D-110

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.