Roland D-50

TODAY PRICE IS 200 EURO,NOT SO EASY BUT WITH PATIENCE D-50 IS THE
KING OF THRD GENERATION ANALOG SYNTS.NOT 3000 SOUNDS CHEAP SAMPLED
CRAP SOUNDS ONLY 64 WARM ANALOG SOUNDS WITH DIGITAL OSCILATORS CALED
PARTIALS.NOT SO EASY TO USE BUT WHEN YOU LEARN ITS HEAVEN,BABY.

GREAT LIVE FEELING WITH THAT SO SO GOOD KEYBOARD ACTION,
AND AFFTER TOUCH, AND BENDER .NO SEQUENCER

If you have a rom cards,try to mix sound rich brass upper tone brassy
1 from pn-d50-oo card with synth lead 2 from pn-d50-01 card.
Set dual-s mode and play with portamento on 30.
You can make magic leads and brass.For editing these soundsyou can using STRUCTURE 1 I 2 for some ring mod effect.
TVF,and FREQ,RESO,KF TVF DPTH VELO
FORM SAW OR SQU
PITCH CORS
TVA T1 T2 T5 ENV L1 L2
WG PW PW VELO AFTR LFOD
LFO 1 SYNC KEY
PITCH MOD EDIT LFOD AFTR
FOR GOOD PAD SOUNDS TRY TO MIX SWEEP AND STRINGS SOUNDS TO ONE GREAT SOUND,THAN SET THE TVF MOD AFTR + 7 ON EVERY PARTIAL,THAN SET THE AFTR SLIDER ON MAXIMUM AND PUSH ACORD ON ROLAND D-50 HARD.SOMETHING HAPPENING WITH THIS SOUND.FOR DYNAMIC USE TVA VELO.
FOR FLANGER EFFECT SET CHORUS ON 3 AND 45 66 55.
ANOTHER FLANGER EFFECT IS ON PITCH CHORS FINE OSC1+3 OSC2+4 OSC3-5 OCS4-6,CHORUS IS +4 -4 -4 +4.
FOR PADS TRY ENVELOPE OSC1 T1 35 OSC2 T2 35 OSC3 T1 40 0SC4 T1 40
OR 60,60 60 60
30 30 30 30
30,35 30.35
40 40 30 30
15 15 15 15
15 15 25 25
30 40 30 35
35 35 45 45
THESE PARAMETARS ARE MOST IMPORTANT FOR ALL ANALOG SOUNDS.
IN GENERAL ALL ANALOG SOUNDS ARE SUPPER EXEPT SYNTH BASS.
HAMMONDS GREAT,EL PIANO GREAT IF YOU DONT COMPARE WITH YAMAHA DX-7.
SOUNDS ARE VERY BRIGHT,GENTLY,SILKY AND WARM AND YOU CAN PLAY
EVERY MUSIC STYLE ON PLANET EARTH.SAMPLE SOUNDS ARE GOOD ONLY IF YOU
EDIT AND MIX THEM WITH SAW AND SQUARE WAVES.SOUNDS ARE ALWAYS ALIVE
AND FRESH,THANKS TO PORTAMENTO,REVERB,CHORUS AND CHASE EFFECT.
CHASE SETING:ULU 25 25
ULU 35 35
ULU 45 45
ULU 55 55
FORGET VIRTUAL ANALOG THESE IS THE MACHINE OF YOUR DREAMS PAST PRESENT AND FUTURE.

12 YEARS AND YOU CAN CHANGE THE BATTERRY CR 2043.
SAVE YOUR SOUNDS ON COMPUTER LIB PROGRAM.
OR USE ROM CARDS FOR BACK UP .

YES OF COURSE,IT IS A CULT AND FOREVER SYNTH FOR GREAT MUSICIANS OVER
THE WORLD.BUY IT ITS A WONDER AND GENIUS MACHINE .SOUNDS ARE SUN.
ONLY LIMITS ARE YOUR FANTASY,INTUITION AND CREATION.ENOUGH SAID.

IF YOU WANT POWER KILLER ANALOG D-50 SOFT,SMOOTH AND WARM SOUND
SET THE PITCH SHIFT -20 ON PARTIALS(1-4)
SET THE DUAL MODE ON 50
SET ONE ANALOG SOUND WITH 2 OSCILLATORS OR PARTIALS ON LOVER TONE
SET OTHER ANALOG SOUND ON RIGHT TONE WITH 2 OSCILLATORS
SET REVERB 23 BALANCE 60 KILLER DELAY
SET SOME CHORUS

D-50 IS LOVELY SYNTH AND MY FAVORITE BABY ALL THESE YEARS(12)
CLASSIC ROLAND AND LAST SUPER ANALOG ROLAND AFTER JD-800...

I bought my D-50 around 1995, it's overall a great perfomancesynth.
Most of the presets sounds great, especially for 80's music.

Patchediting is a bit of a jungle, the easist way for me to program the D-50 i found was to adjust each and every parameter up and down until it sounded like i wanted it to, just like adjusting an equalizer. ;)
Most of the editing is pretty logical and when u get used to it it's not that difficult.

A pactheditor has been made, Roland PG-1000, it has a slider for everything and is said to be a great assistance when programming the D-50, especially because the D-50 only has a two line display capable of showing 40 digits on each line.
The display is very clear and sharp and are always readable even in very bright sunlight and from any angle of view.

I never had the manual as it did'nt come with my D-50 that i bought used.
The manual is (here in Denmark) pretty expensive and therefore i decided that i could live without it.

The polyphony is 32 notes, BUT, the fat sounds it delivers comes with the cost of polophony as each patch can consist of up to 4 partials which brings the polyphony down to 8 notes.

The keys are semi-weighted and are actually really good, they have a good feel when pressed, they don't have that "plastic-feeling" nor sound when u hit or release'em.
There's aftertouch wich works great with flutes, brass etc. and u can adjust the aftertouch intensity by a slider next to the volume slider on the left just above the pitch/aftertouch control.

It works with both PCM samples and pure L.A. synthesis, also it has a ring modulator, there's 100 pcm samples to choose from, ofcourse they're lowfi, but yet some of them are really good for attacks etc. and makes it possible to create good guitarsounds using a sample for the attack and the synth for the hold and decay.
I think it's about the last 20 pcm samples that are made as loops from other samples, some of them are really good when used together.
U can't change the sounds in the loops which makes'em pretty "as they are" usable, but ofcourse u can filter them all u want. :)

It also has a split feature so that u can split the keyboard into an upper and a lower section, that means that if u need to play a string in the lower section and a brass in the upper u would create a patch where the first 2 partials are making the stringsound and the other 2 partials make the brass, then when u split the keyboard the upper and lower partials are assigned accordingly.

There's pretty many built-in fx, they're also really good, there's flanger, echo, reverb in different combinations and types.
They provide u with the ability to produce really "foggy" sounds for ambience aso.
Among the fx-section it should be mentioned that it has both portamento and a "chase" function, the chase is a kind of echo function, for some sounds it's a really great utility, but it eats up polyphony, and using chase for notes played fast one after another
results in lack of polyphony.
The D-50 has a ROM/RAM-card reader on the top back, u can store up to 8 patches in each of the 8 banks on a RAM card (64 patches), u can dump patches from a memorycard to the internal memory which also consists of 8 banks with 8 patches in each bank, giving u a total of up to 128 patches to switch between without directly from the controls on the keyboard.
Also, u can dump any amount of patches to/from the memorycard, so dumping for the sake of one sound does'nt erase everything else with it.

The D-50 sends/recives through on midichannel at a time, but with the earlier mentioned split function u can play different instruments at the same time via one midi-channel.

A multitimberal mod-kit has been released, it makes the D-50 quadrotimberal meaning that it can receive on 4 different channels at the same time, the mod comes with not only the cost of a great deal of cash, but also the cost of great sounds, what it does is that it assigns a midichannel to each partial of a patch, that means that u can have only a sample or a pure synth-generated sound on each channel, considering that the D-50's greatest force is the partial-combined patches, it's like ripping the beeds of a flower and use each beed as a seperate decoration.

The MIDI supports "omni-mode" which vasically means that it recieves MIDI on all 16 channels and also u can manually select a send/recive channel.

There's a possibility to turn "Local" on/off, what it does is muting the local sound, if u use the keyboard as a master u may want to mute it locally but still send MIDI.

It has some more MIDI-functions that i've never used and never really figured out, but maybe someone else in here knows about it.

There's some controller inputs on the back of it for use with piano pedals etc.


There's no sequencer onboard.
The D-50 is a perfomancesynth and it's really good at it also.

There's been made a bunch of sounds for the D-50 so i'll only describe preset sounds here.

The accoustic sounds are pretty good, especially some of the guitarsounds are very realistic, the jazz-guitar is warm and fat with release effect where u can hear the finger mute each string when released.
Flutes sound pretty good also, the strings are hard to rate as they to me sound both realistic and synthethic at the same time, but i think it's because i'm used to the sounds of todays keyboards, let me put it this way, the strings was great compared to the competitors that i know of.

The accoustic pianos stinks, they sound nothing like the real deal at all, but more like if u sample a piano with a toymic in the bathroom at 11khz samplerate, i read somewhere that it's because of the L.A. synthesizes that accoutstic pianoes sounds bad.
The electric piano sounds are great though.

Organs sounds really good also, maybe some distortion on the rockorgan to make it more dirty and real, unfortunately there's no distortion fx built-in.
Speaking of organs, the D-50 has a very fat, warm and unique Cathedral Organ, i've never heard anything like it in any other synth/keyboard, it's just so great and when u apply som external fx to it it's cream for the soul.

Synthsounds is a must on a synthesizer, and some of them are really great, some of them are also really boring, there's a lot of pluck/pling sounds, only one synthbass though and it's not actually kicking any arse, it ain't punchy, solid or anything, but pretty plain sounding.

There's some synfx sounds which are ok, especially two of them (Intruder FX and Digital Native Dance) has been used in a lot of horror movies from the mid 80's til the mid 90's.

There's the usual "Fantasia" sound which comes in every keyboard today, and also is in every 80's synth, the sound of that is clear, sharp but also warm and fat, it does'nt have that tinny and sometimes harsh sound as todays keyboards deliver.
In that range of sounds there's some other "beel"-like sounds which are also warm and fat.
In particular there's a "Tubular bell"-sound that sounds exactly like the one "Band Aid" was using in "Do they know it's christmas", it has that crispy sound instead of that more "plainbell"-like sound most of todays keyboards deliver.

The D-50 is a truly all-round synth, whether it's dance, techno, pop, you name it, only for hip-hop and stuff like that it may not be too usefull.

Owning and knowing the sound of the D-50 it's easy to tell when your hear it's sounds on the radio etc., that tells me that the instrument's sounds are very unique and a lot of perfomers has been / and still do use it.

This machine is a very faithful instrument, i've had mne for almost 10 yrs now, and never had it caused me any major trouble.

There're two bad things i've experienced with it though:

1. The rubberconnectors under the keys gets weared out, it basically means that a key will stop functioning at all, loose aftertouch function or the velocity stops responding and the key plays with max velo no matter how soft u press the key.
It's nothing a little isopropylalcohol can't handle, but dissembling the D-50 is kind of a bore and because of it's relative heavy parts it's pretty unhandy to fix.

2. The MIDI has been f***** up since i got it, it can't dump from the D-50 via Midi, well, the dump itself are possible to make, but when i dump it back into the D-50 weird signs appears on the display and there's no sound or just some scratching sounds.
I've dumped patches from the pc via MIDI and that works fine, also when i dump from another D-50/550 it worls fine.

The physical build of the D-50 almost qualifies it for a battle in Robotica on Reality TV, it's heavy as hell and the hard plastic combined with metal leaves no doubt about the physical quality of the instrument.

I would without any doubt replace it with another one if the one i have got stolen or broke down for good.

The $550 i paid was well spend, it brought me a lot of inspiration when just "playing" around with it, and now i use it primarily as a master keyboard with my pc and other soundmodules, but sometimes when i need that special sound that does'nt come in todays gear and cant be made with a software synth, i use the D-50 which has totally unique sounds.

The best part is the sounds being clear and sharp, but without getting tinny or harsh at all.
It has a sound of warm analog synth mixed with "modern" well-defined pcm sounds.

My fist keyboard was a Yamaha PSS-680, i got it for christmas in 1990, my parents gave it to me as i were showing interest of playing music, also my dad was getting a bit bugged with me as i was using his keyboard/organ which he used professionally.

I use it along with the following:

Roland JV-880
Roland Juno-1
Roland M-GS64
E-MU Orbit 9090 v.2

When i bought it, it was an impulse buy, i tried it at a local dealer, i just fell in love with the sounds immidiately and bought it right away.
The part i don't like is the programming interface, it's complex and to a rookie who just knows the very basics of programming a synth it's a complete mess.

Multitimberality would be nice, but as i use it for studio purpose it does'nt really matter that much as i can sample it trackwise on the computer.

I' ve beeen using this keyboard since 1994 and in the beginning i've found it quite difficult to use.Now it' easier but there's yet something dark to me.The manual is an horror tale.I've called Roland customer's service to send me one but the first pages are runes.You have to tweak and re-tweak , and spend time to make d-50 sing as you want.

I think the polyphony is 32 but each tone use 2 partials so the real polyphony is lower.Otherwise the result you get is good:I own a korg m1 and the limitation in polyphony is heavier than in the d-50 because the sound of the d-50 is in my opinion richer than the m1.The keys are excellent, ones of the best i've touched.Aftertouch and dinamic are very good.There are some reverb and chorus effects.It's not multi-timbral, and i' ve had some difficult in midi connection.

The d-50 is a synth type keyboard.I think it's an instrument that has its place in the history of music.The pads, strings and digital sounds are very rich and hot;the electric pianos are quite good;the acoustic piano are awful, it lacks in this category but i repeat this machine is a monster for digital sounds.Good for brass and flutes, i've found some patches on the net very realistic.The organ section is IMHO very good.It's pity that there's not a rotary speaker effect inside neither a distortion;in this way the hammond sound could be excellent.There are some sounds that only this keyboard can sing out.On the net there is a mountain of good material for this baby:just connect it with a pc and send files via sysex and your opinion on d-50 will still grow.

One night i broke the display and the control panel under the lcd.A nightmare.But i went out without any backup it was a fault of mine.I couldn't change the patch because the control board was broken.The machine is anyway solid and you can trust it.I play heavy a lot of time on the keyboard and always everything go good.This machine is excellent.

Quite easy to get the manual.Instead When i was looking for the lcd display and the panel control...oh my God.No one in Italy, no one in Japan.I think that boys in the after-sales shop where i brought my broken D-50 they didn't want to waste their precious time with a so old machine.They told me that the only thing to do was looking for another d-50 to reapir and take those two pieces and substitute with the broken ones.I brought the keyb to a friend of mine who is good with tin and after repairing some tracks on the broken board, the d-50 returned as new except for the display without calling Japan.

I've just bought another one while the first i used was broken.Some suond are unique.Very good and perfect for a beginner, excellent for a professsional user.There are newer machines that are beyond d-50 for the quantity of sound, patches and effects, but d-50 has its place,IMHO like stratocaster for guitars.Difficult to leave this keyb

I just don't know to say how easy this keyboard is to use. You turn it on, it plays. And that's all. Never tried to program a patch onto it, and the card system is safe enough I can program my sounds onto cards and use it on live gigs. Nice keyboard.

The keyboard is superb! Nice sounds, a very good feeling on the keys, nice effects and MIDI bus, this is the best keyboard I've got. Ever.

The instruments are great, in the category of this keyboard. The Pipe Organ is simply W O N D E R F U L L ! ! ! and the other patches are excellent also. But the pipe organ is what makes my heart beat...

Completely reliable. Never had a problem. Seems to be rock solid as my DX-7. Maybe should have a better painting on top, mine is loosing the numbers and letters.

never had to use it.

The best keyboard I have. Period. Of course, there must be better keyboards around. But this is the best I've ever played. If a simple keyboard like D-50 is so good, I can imagine what the Wavestation and the Nord Lead has reserved for me ;o) My other keyboards are: Yamaha DX-7, Korg Poly 800 MkI, Roland MV-30. I'm looking for a better cosmetically keyboard, or a replacement for the top cover. This is an unsellable keyboard!

It's no easy to use,but you can learn for few months.
Than is super easy,if you have a little patience.
Preset sound is perfect and some patches are brilliant,
and you dont make better some patches.example;
DIGITAL NATIVE DANCE ,STACCATO HEAVEN,LIVING CALIOPIE,
FUTURE PAD,SHAMUS THEME SPACIOUS SWEEP.THESE SOUNDS ARE GENIUS,
AND YOU CAN HARDLY MAKE THEM BETTER.
If you want to make your own patches this synth is present from GOD.
Like roland jd, jx-10,jv,and xp synths sounds have 4 oscilators.
Best sounds are ELETRIC PIANOS,HAMMOND ORGANS,SYNTH LEADS SYNTH BRASS
SYNTH STRINGS AND SYNTH PADS AND NEW SPACE SYNTH SOUNDS.
If you want this type of patches buy it.There is no mistake overal
rating is 10.Manual is so confusing.

Polyphony is 32.If you use best sounds polyphony is 8.
Killer so live chorus effect and chase(delay effect )
This effect are programable.Expansion is 4 rom pn-d50-cards.
Pressure senstive keys with so damn good feeling.

This machine have no limit.You can use sounds in every music style.

I wish that roland d-50 have arrpegiator and sequencer.
With this features d-50 could be perfect . Thanks roland.

PRESET PATCHES ARE SO SO FAMOUS.EDITING PATCHES ARE HARD AT THE BEGINING BUT LATER ARE FUN AND EASY.MANUAL IS NOT GOD.

POLYPHONY IS 32.NO SEQUENCER ,NO ARPEGGIATOR.THERE IS A 5 SOUND CARDS
WITH NEW PATCHES.ON THE NET HAVE A THOUSANDS OF D-50 PATCHES.
SOME ARE VERY VERY GOOD SOME ARE NOT.

ANALOG INSTRUMENTS LIKE SYNTH STRINGS SYNTH LEADS SYNTH PADS AND SYNTH
BRASS ARE EXTREMLY POWERFUL.NO COMPARATATION WITH NEW SYNTHS.
IT'S MORE THAH WARMTH MACHINE.THERE IS NO WORDS TO DESCRIBE MAGIC
ANALOG SOUNDS FROM ROLAND D-50.IDEAL FOR NEW ELETRONIC MUSIC.
KILLER CHORUS EFECT AND REVERB AND DELAY(CHASE).
ULTRA COOL FEELING WHEN PLAYING AND SUPER AFTERTOUCH.

I HAVE TWO MEMORY CARDS FOR BACK UP.

OVERALL RATING IS 10.I ADORE THIS INSTRUMENT.WHEN SOUNDS OF ROLAND D-50 PUT IN ELETRONIC PROJECT WITH SAMPLED SOUNDS,D-50 SHINE!!!!
THIS IS MY SECOND ROLAND D-50 ,BEFORE ONE YEAR SOMEBODY STOLE ME MY
FIRST D-50.I ADORE ROLAND PRODUCTS,EXPECIALLY D-50.

i think this keyboard is the best keyboard i ever played with i bought like four roland d-50 already they stole two from me by traveling and 1 girl friend broke it now i have one it's been protected by adt lol! but anyway my problem is i'm dieing for some one to tell me where can i find sound cards over the site or stores located in ny my email add (datunes75@yahoo.com) thank you

very easy to used the best i love it.

the sound are very powerful i love it

no problem for 5 years now i used it np gigs no problem

i repaired twice i had keys problem water fell inside of it also

yes and i did buy it four times already i wish i could get it new i would pay anything for it .Playing for seven years now also own the triton le korg... I Need some sound cards and memories cards. thank you

The D-550 is somewhere between a knobby analogue and a parameter/value user interface. I didn't find it very intuitive, even though I programmed it extensively during the four months that I owned it. Fortunately enough, I had the optional PG-1000 programmer; otherwise, I'd probably have gone mad. Each of the four building blocks of the sound has so many parameters I kept getting lost. The manual isn't very helpful here - Roland have a way of descrbing the problem very well but rarely providing an effective solution.

The D-series synths were the first to feature on-board effects. I may be biased against digital synths, but I believe this was because they needed the effects to sound good. Strip the effects off the factory presets and they suddenly don't sound quite as lush and classy anymore.

I found the 8-note polyphony absolutely adequate, especially when considering that the D-550 is monotimbral and that one rarely uses more than eight notes at a time. A memory card slot is a Roland standard from their very first rack synth (the JX-3P) on and the M-256D card may be used either to back-up your patches or to double the patch memory. There is another way of saving your patches - MIDI sysex dump. The MIDI implemetation in the D-550 is non-problematic and I didn't experience any lags when using a hardware sequencer.

Instead of pointlessly ranting about how much I hated the sounds (which I did), I'll tell you why this happened: I used the synth for what it was not made to do. I never subscribed to string/pad/ethereal school and when I was buying the D-550, I was certain that I'd be able to squeeze some aggression out of this legend. Being a mediocre programmer, I failed and this is why the D-550 was used only ONCE on our demo tape - mail me at sartre@siol.net to hear an aggressive hit/pad from the D-550.

For me, the D-550 was a lose-lose situation. If I used the sampled attacks, I could never quite smooth-out the transition to the synthesised element. If I used the analouge-like waveforms, there was no character left, only cold and thin analogue emulation.

If you're thinking about buying a D-series synth, think carefully about your requirements. If you need complex pads and other "background" sounds, you're likely to find the D-550 very useful. If, however, you're like me and prefer lively and up-front sound, look somewhere else. I'm looking at another Roland - the MKS-30. It's warm, punchy and above all simple: all the things I missed with the D-550.

I had the D-550 for four months and during that time, it performed flawlessly. The only backup I used was the memory card - another synth lost all my patches once and since then, I'm extra careful about it.

The guys at Roland Slovenia are great. They're so bored with all the home keyboards and GM arrangers they have to repair that they're absolutly thrilled when someone brings in a real synth. The D-550 never needed a doctor, but if it did, I could rely on the technician to get it up and running again in no time.

The fact that I just sold it speaks for itself: the D-550 wasn't what I was looking for. It's been nice owning a legend, but due to limited funds and space, I cannot afford to keep a synth which I'd only use for one sound in one song. During the time that I owned it, I more or less realised that I prefer analogue to digital, not the ideology but the sound.

My final mark for the D-550 is not very good, but don't let it discourage you from buying it if you know what you're getting. As far as I'm concerned, D-550 really taught me the meaning of the phrase "your mileage may vary".

most of the presets are true to life. I found that if you take your time and build your own piano patches they can really sound authentic. it takes reading the manual a couple of times to kind of get the gist of this keyboard, but fun it is. lots of room for creating your own suonds

the keyboard action and polyphony is very good though i am not looking at this as an experienced keyboard player(I play guitar)but it works well in my home studio.No sequencer? Who cares? This is a vintage machine and it clearly does what i need it for. Buy a sequencer....

As I stated before. Most are realistic and the rest can easily be plumped up. The effects are not state of the art but very suitable. I don't use it away from home but I would if I were a keyboard performer.

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if it were lost or stolen if i could find one about the same price I WOULD GRAB IT QUICK..I love the way it sounds.It helps me make music