Roland D-50

There is no software for the D-50 that is accessible to me at the moment.

The D-50 presets are variable. The strings and synth lead sounds are very good. Some of the brass sounds are pretty bad though. For some reason my D-50 has different presets than normal and the usual reset procedure of "0" and "data transfer" do not make a difference even when write protect is off. Otherwise some of the presets are amazing and very usable. great. Editing presets are a little confusing until you figure it out but once you do, there is so much you can create once you get the hang of it. I do not use a patch editor due to my vision impairment. No accessible program yet. Its very helpful that there are buttons for U and L and partials 1 and 2, it makes it easier to find them and program with instead of total menus.
The manual did not come with mine and there isn't one in braille of course so I just go without one and research info online with text to speech program. To bad there isn't one for synthesizers!

There is 8 to 16 note polyphony. I do not feel limited by this though.
The keyboard action is ok. Some of the keys have sensor problems and always stay at a high volume level so I MIDI it to my A-90 or my CZ-5000 and use their keys. Pitch bend transmits fine but velocity will not if the recieving/sending keyboard like the {CZ-5000} does not send or receive this data. The built in effects are very cool. I really like the chorus/reverb section as well as the "chase" feature, very cool.
The D-50 accepts cards and can save to cards as well. These give the user more patches/sounds and more external memory space.
As far as using MIDI and a sequencer with the D-50, I was really surprised when I recorded a few tracks from the D-50 through MIDI to an old but awesome Yamaha QX 3 midi data recorder. I recorded perfectly with not track switching issues. Im guessing maybe they work well together becuz they are both from 1987. who knows. With the QX 3 the D-50 has 16 tracks and can be saved to a floppy disk through the QX 3. The D-50 does not have its own sequencer though.

The more realistic sounds are the strings and wind instruments. Very Sweet sounds!
The brass sounds are not too good though. The wind PCMs are not bad and could be very helpful in forming a more realistic wind instrument.
I believe the D-50 can work for most types of music styles but new age, trance and techno and non-melodic pure synthesis music would probly benefit the most. It also depends on the programmer/musician using it.
I find that the D-50 reacts decently to playing and the pitch bend is pretty good too. The velocity and aftertouch are as good as some of the newer synthesizers of today.

The D-50 is VERY reliable and turns on ready to work without any crashing and glitches. The LCD is getting a little dark with age but that is ok since I can not see good enough to use it. Also if you find that the LCD is fading on yours, the best thing to do is to make a written copy of all the menus and make detailed programming notes so that when and if the LCD fades too much or stops working, you can refer to them and still use and enjoy the D-50 the non-visual way. Also it is helpful to hold down one of the keys so that there is a constant sound being heard and when you make any changes with the joy stick or the buttons you can hear whats going on even if you can not see the numbers on the LCD.
As far as going to a gig, the D-50 is definatly capable enough to be without a backup. Also it works well with the JV-880 and the Roland Juno 1 and A-90.

no opinion

If it were lost or stolen I would be very sad and would want another D-50. A lot of newer synthesizers are too visual based and the D-50 is easier to use with its scroll through/predictable menus. The menus always stay the same no matter what. The D-50 is DEFINATLY worth what I paid for it. I saved it from a store where it was hanging on for dear life on a pile of speakers and left on with its LCD blinking to itself for who knows how long. I have been playing and programming synthesizers for 18 years. I also own a Roland A-90, JV-880, Casio series CZ-101 and CZ-5000 as well as the Roland Alpha juno 1 and Yamaha QX3 and QX 1 midi recorders. Even though I am only a few years older than my synthesizers, they are always used in my recordings and are never to old or outdated to be enjoyed by others.
The only thing I wish that it had is a built in sequencer with a disk drive but like I said earlier you can solve that issue with a computer or the old and wonderful QX3!
The D-50 inspires me in my music, especially for some of my 80's songs that I write, its the classic stuff!
The only other thing I would like to mention is that as far as repairing keys or sensors or cleaning the inside of the D-50, its not difficult at all. I was able to take the main board out and undo the whole keybed pretty easily. Even with low vision, taking out the keys and disconnecting the wires are not too difficult. If you are careful the wires will have a tendancy to stay how they were connected and you can use their length and position around the main board to help you figure out where to reconnect them. Also remember that the brackets that they connect in are all unique sizes that only that one set of wires or connectors can fit into. The keys are held in by springs and a thin plastic strip that keeps them from coming away from the metal casing that they are in. They are easily put back into place with pliers.

the presets from the factory were ok, but this synth can do alot more.
for that you'll need a pc/mac editor for a good overview, because it's filled with tweek parameters.

16 voice with two full setups of osc,filter and complex env.generators, EQ, two chorus and one delay/reverb FX. keyboard has been great, except for the hard after touch action. it's easy to save sounds to internal or card memory, but you can also transmit/receive sounds thru MIDI cables. worked well as a master keyboard for my old MIDI setup

if you don't have the patience to make your own sounds, ther are alot of sounds thru user forums. the FX are chorus/flanger, some ROM presets with delays and reverbs.the reverb sound reveales that it's a synth from -87. I tweeked some wonderfull sounds of my own with an editor for my Atari St1040fm computer when I bought it new.It produces good synth bass, strings, pads and brass sounds.

It has been very reliable the first 10 years, but then the keyboard keys needed simple cleaning up from dust and oxide on the rubber contacts under the keyboard, and I broke a pitch bender. the display is showing signs of age, with lowered contrast and background light.

very nice people at roland scandinavia helped me with spare parts for both the D-50 and my Jupiter-6 at the time. I even got the service manuals for both instruments when I won their D-50 patch competition ;-) back in 1989.

The D-70 got my interest later with better filter emulation, but that one was focused on sampled sounds and lacked vital synth parameters that the D-50 had, like PWM modulation of oscillators. it remainded my central sound unit fot 10 years, together with my samplers for drums and vintage samples.

A decent (for it's day) 40x2 LCD display and plenty of buttons make it pretty easy to get around. The manual isn't too bad and it certainly points newbies in the right direction. The presets are great, but since they've been used to death you'll probably want to start tweaking straight away.

Again, when it was launched it had a pretty impressive feature set and was one of the first (the first?) to have proper FX built in.

8 or 16 voice poly is the go and never really seems to be an issue.

Some people (audiophile types, I suspect) complain that the FX are crap, but I think they're fine and really add sparkle to the sounds. The keyboard action is typically Roland, which has always been pretty darn good.

Oh boy, this is the business! The D-50 was, and will always be, one of the most unique and special sounding synths ever. Even now, 20 years after it first turned up, there are sounds that NO OTHER synth can come close to. Even some of the presets still bring a tingling to my spine and a tear to my eye - thinking of "Glass Voices"! Truly a special machine, one of, if not THE best.

Tough as old boots. Should last longer than most of the people using them!

Hmm, never having dealt with Roland, I can't really comment, but people I've talked to (regarding Roland Australia) have nothing but praise, so I suspect they're pretty good.

I bought one of the first D-50s in Australia, back in 1988 and sold it about 6 months later. I always missed it and now, 19 years later I've just picked up another - and this one I'm KEEPING! A truly special and groundbreaking synth. A future classic and no mistake!

For what ?
Better than anything since the 18 yrs that I've owned it
Easy - dont need an editor
dont need the manual

not so good when splitting the k/bd
mainly reverbs
External cards not sure about internal memory
in/out thru
Nah.. This is a kbd for the user to play

Only organs / strings
Rock / New age
ok
ok
ok

18 yrs & still going - Except the screen is starting to go..
I do

Not from Roland

Could never be replaced... unthinkable
25 yrs. The only other kit I use now is a piano module to compensate for the crap piaNOS
Love strings hate pianos
Nope.. Class of its own
real grand Piano. 64 note poly
how can you ask that?
Not my D%) that's for sure

Turn it on and play the sucker, that's what it's about.

There are alot of patches on the net, to mix with the mostly great but of course by now overused presets.

No knobs, typical 80:s thing, but a joystick for mixing partials.

Pretty cool modulating possibilities 3 Lfo:s/tone=6 Lfo:s/patch and PWM(on square and saw waves),different synth/output structures,EQ etc
which makes it sound FAT, BIG ,etheral and atmospheric.
Try to layer it with a DX-7 II/TX-802..or an analog.Uber Gorgeous !!!

As mentioned above it sounds great. It has a true charachter to it, more alive and Fatter and not as harsh as most romplers.
One reason for this is that I think it generates the saw and square waves(with PWM) as opposed to romplers where they are sampled. Although they are not really analog sounding, something great happens.
When the M1 came out and I looked at the specs, I said to myself, now this is gonna be the shit, this is the way to go, real long pcm samples so goodbye D-50 right? Well not really...The D-50 almost always sounded more natural, ballsier and better than the romplers (except for piano,choir etc due to the multisamples in those ) until maybe the Motif came...and the Kurzweils of course, since they are much more than just romplers.
It does great pads, brass and leads, bells, and unique sounds impossible to nail on another synth.

Never crapped out except once when the pitchbend lever got worn out and sent weird pitch messages to my other modules through my Midi-patchbay.

No problem when I needed spare parts (Sweden)

Don't buy this it you want it to be your do "everything" workstation, 'cause it's not.it's a digital fat sounding thing with an identity.
When you put on your headphones or of course plug it to a good PA, there is a VIBE to it that my triton and K-2000 won't always give me.
Simply put: a great synth for what it does (and that's alot)

This is my first synth and I will never sell it.

Quite good. For playing, its so simply that a 6 year boy could easily operate it. To choose a patch, you press at most 2 buttons, and there are a joystick to control balance of the parts.

Otherwise, editing sounds take a while to learn. There are a lot of functions and parameters, but most of them are hidden in menus, and all are abreviated... So without the manual, will be a frustracting experience.

Low poliphony (16 or 8, depends on mode), but the acoustic pianos are so bad that you wont need more. 3 lfo for each part of voice, a lot of parameters, envelopes to everything, modulation too. It really have a unique sonority. There's a card slot too, but i cant find a cheap one. Lacks sequencer and arpegiator.

GREAT! GREAT! GREAT! Oh God, i've never heard so beatiful pads! EPs are great too, organs emulate Hammond decently, incredible Syths leads. You can mix guitar sounds (good) with synths and get a guitar-synth sound like Jordan Rudess, wich is great for solos.

Although, Ac. Pianos are useless. It cant even be called ac piano. Looks like a sax mixed with xilo. Strings pad isnt that great too.

Well, it is too old as me (18 years now), and the only problem is the aftertouch (ill fix it soon). It's as solid as a tank, i think it could resist even to radioative exposition, because its case is made of solid and heavy steel. Realy strong.

Roland? pfff... I never needed them with this gear, but i know it is really bad...

I loved it. Every single patch i start to play, i can still playing for a lot of time. It make you play from the deep of your heart. If something happen with it, i would search another one in a heartbeat. I bought just a week ago, but i fell in love. It would have decent ac. pianos, orch strings and drums, because you will miss them.

If you have the chance to buy one, do. But if you will use it as the only keyboard in your setup, forget it, unless you play only Digital Pads, synths and organs. If you have other machine to play pianos and etc., it really worth each cent.

My three cents worth:

I got mine over 2 weeks ago, at first it was a little awkward to use, without alpha dial and cursor keys you'll need to get used to "scrolling" pages and typing values (with annoying messages if you type it wrong- too little or to much), or "increase"/"decrease" buttons- there's also joystick to enter the data, but it's very unreliable.

You need to get used to editing, but after a while it's pretty straightforward (there are controls to select/mute/compare and copy parts).

As for playing: no reason to complain, it works great for playing either by keyboard or MIDI.

16 voice polyphony isn't a blast, but keep in mind it was released 18 years ago!

Midi implementation is good, however there's one remark: dumping banks and patches is separated to totally different pages- which can be misleading and confusing (to dump patches, go to MIDI page and scroll to Sys-Ex, ON is the ability to receive patches, P-Dump makes D-50 dump patch thru MIDI when it is selected). After that, receiving and dumping patches is easiest cake. Warning, this synth is monotimbral! Also remark on previous comment: there are two MIDI modes D-50 can handle with bank dump: send-ahead (now the default for modern devices) and handshake (remote device must acknowledge every packet sent- this being the default on D-50).

The essencial of patch in D-50 are two tones, each consisting of two partials (basically synthesizer blocks), partial can be PCM source (no filter then), or synthesized sound (Sawtooth/SQUARE with PW and filter). You can use only one tone (you'll get 16 voices), two tones split (each 8 voices), dual (8 voices max) or separations with monophonic parts.

Pretty good chorus, you can use two programs separately for each tone- lack phase shift though.

Well, mixed feelings:
- it's so classical and overused that it's pretty easy to distinguish D-50 on your tracks,
- The sawtooth wave is not actually a sawtooth, but sine cut in half (that CAN have it's advantages, but not always).
- the filter has a very unique feeling (reminds somehow of FM synthesis feedback loop), hard to do something very inventive without messing with EQ and chorus. You can't use filter on samples too...
- the LFOs are tied to "tone" (the base building block of D-50 patch), so you get three LFOs total to use across all voices in tone (2 partials) and another three to second "tone"- only one LFO per "tone" can control pitch of all partials and the control is negative or positive influence only.
- Don't seek good samples on board, most are lo-fi attack samples.
- EQ is a joke (well, it works, but basically it just cuts, not boosts).
- Reverb simply is... enough said... (the only control you have is program and balance)
- Keyboard is a little spongy/rubbery- though pretty reliable for dynamic playing. Wavestation's is much better here.

on the other hand:
- Excellent PWM- very clean, not really digital sounding.
- Pretty good LFO sync (which is a nightmare on Wavestation for example), you can use LFO to do pulsewidth, filter and amplifier modulation- which in conseequence can be used as an arpeggiator. Excellent random modulation.
- Warm sound, filter is pretty good (see remark above, though), resonant.
- 5 stage envelopes, aftertouch and keyfollow on every aspect of synthesis.
- Can seamlessly balance mix petween parts in tone and tones in patch with joystick.
- pitch bend lever is very reliable and precise.

A workhorse: can play for several hours without problems.

Built like a tank, I was imagining it pretty fragile and light, but in reality it's a heavy-duty steel casing with plastic wrapped.

You won't necessary loose your work even if you don't save it- there's a key combination to recall your work even if you accidentally switched patch.

N/A, never had problems so far...

Manual is full of flaws though...

Considering it's an 18-year old synth which everyone's used ;-), it's a great machine. However expect certain flaws. Definitely worth having- among with Wavestation and Fairlight, it's a blast!

Thinking that over 3/4 of J.M.Jarre's "Revolutions" was done using D-50, it's a great recommendation- and the album is really about D-50, great sound effects, fat analog sounding strings.

What I love about it: It's a D-50! What I hate? It's only D-50 ;-)

Doing my part here to contribute to this great database. Reviewing my favorite "classic" synth, the mighty D-50. Easy to use for a live performer. It's a bit of a specialist's item for the home recorder, though. It plays only one patch at a time (which is fine for me since I multitrack), but what warm and "alive" sounds it creates.

One thing that might be useful: It requires "handshake" mode to do midi patch sends and receives. To do this, you need to press (and hold) the 'Data Transfer' button with one hand. While holding, you can select dump or receive. Hold the DT button down until it starts sending or receiving and you'll be in business.

Another similar comment. This synth is from 1987, so you may need to "slow down" the rate at which your sequencer sends sysex patch data. (There are usually configuration options, sometimes hidden in some ".ini" file if you use a software seq such as Cakewalk, as I do.) In some sequencers, if you send data too rapidly to the D-50, it gets confused and your patches may come across as garbled. It took me forever to figure these last two things out, so I wanted to share.

Low by today's standards, but very high by 1987 standards. You buy this because of the great sounds it is capable of, not for the spec's.

If you are a rock keyboard player fancying music from the Marillion, Rush, prog-rock genre, this is a great board to buy. Main comment: I bought a ROM card made by Voice Crystal - it's their "Keith Emerson" card, I think it's model VC-03. Holy cow, waaay better than the presets. I kid you not, I was a big tweaker until I got this card, and I've literally been using those (unedited) patches since mid 1993 to write song after song. I have entire compositions that just flowed from my fingers based on inspiration from these sounds. If you have a D-50, try to hunt that card down!

Like others said, the piano is horrible and unusable, and I always thought the board lacked in the low frequency department. Beyond that, it's all good. If you like "rock synth" sounds (think Journey "Separate Ways", that sort of thing), then this board will keep you occupied for years. (Mine has been a mainstay in my studio since early 1993.)

It's also great for evolving, atmospheric, "soundtrack" type sounds.

The synth sounds have a meat to them that todays $2 grand and up boards lack. I will never part with this thing.

The "brains" are as solid as a rock. (Still running on the original 1987 battery!)

The only weak point (as others mentioned) is that the contacts under the keys can get a bit unreliable. I've had 2 or 3 keys that haven't worked for years. No worries for me, though, as I use it as a module and control it via a 76-key master.

I've tried to take it apart to clean them a couple times, but I admit that I always get a bit daunted - I'm afraid I will mess something up. So I just live with it.

Terrible. I bought mine used ($600 or so in early '93) and it came with no manual. The store thew in a Bo Tomlin instructional video, which helped a lot. I spent 20 minutes long distance on the phone with California to order the manual, for which they want $40. I receive it, and (a) it's photocopied pages(!) and not a book, and (b) it's the most useless thing ever. No instructions at all, just a bunch of hard to read charts and graphs. Plus, the worst "engrish" ever. DO NOT order the manual! Save yourself the headache. The "manual" is truly worthless.

Best synth-related money I've ever spent. It has propmted or inspired me to write some of my best work. It sounds just fabulous doing what it does best, which is big, fat synth chords and leads (and I have two analogs from "the day": a Moog and an Oberheim to compare it to). This thing will be essential to "my sound" forever. If you see one (or it's rack counterpart, the D-550) and have the scratch, jump on it. Surf the web for the Keith Emerson Voice Crystal card (or download as many patches as you can find and assemble your own batch of favorites - I did this too, and it was definitely time well spent).

It doesn't do everything, and it's definitely not a "bread and butter" board, but it just does certain things better than any other board I've heard (and I do try to keep familiar with what's out there).

Definitely a recommended buy.

Yeah - Another D50 review
I'm going to keep it punchy and simple. The D50 by any standards is easy to use. It is a nice machine with a good feel. You can download a multitude of patches off the net so it is quite well supported.

Here is the main thing that I am concerned about....

PROSPECTIVE BUYERS!!! Check the keys and the keyboard very carefully before buy your D50. I have have owned 4 of these over the years and every single one that I have had has developed problems (or already had) with keys dying and not playing or aftertouch on the keyboard giving up.
My latest one was hardley used and it is in mint condition. I am so paranoid about the keyboard stuffing up that I have it controlled by another keyboard. I play the D50 keyboard every now and then to keep it in shape.
I guess they are over 15 years old now but I have other keyboards the are older and are played more that have hung in there - DX7

Hey! It's a D50. Everyone knows what it sounds like.
Good bell noises. Good pads. Biting leads. Good 80's analog. Average bases that lack punch in my opinion by today's standards. GREAT ORGANS!!! Love the D50 organs

LAME, LAME, LAME electric pianos and no piano sound worth mentioning. If anyone has an ep sound that is remotely playable please let me know. (Patch 88 Reluctant EP is rude!!!)

Yeah it seems solid except for the brittle keys. It is getting old now so needs a little babying ie - Dont take a shower with it.

HA HA HA! It's roland man!

I love my D50 and I cherish it as a classic. It still gets a fair bit of use but it is not gigged and hardly is used as a first synth. It is nice to have there in the background and it thickens some thinner modern (xp60)sounds nicely.
Unless you specifically want one or you find one cheap I would get something more versitile. It is pretty limited by todays standards and I believe the DX7 has stood the test of time better in my opinion.

I'm using Roland D50, XP60, U110, (seriously hate the fantom series, c'mon roland! Make something that is not a repackaged 1995 Rompler!!)Korg poly 800, 05rw, T3, Triton Studio, Yami DX7, Ensoniq ESQM

I'll cut to the chase for anyone interested in buying. The D-50 is a digital synth, once the flagship of the Roland family..it's 61-note keyboard is a soft, expressive, immensely playable board which has never been improved upon. It is a real players keyboard. Almost every sound on it has been featured throughout 80s chart music, film scores, TV themes and instrumental albums. This of course dates it and at the same time makes it a total classic. It has no multi-timbrality (although there was a quadro-timbral add-on invented, but this diminished the quality by assigning each of the four oscillators to a separate MIDI channel), and only 16 notes polyphony. It is a collectable classic, up there with the DX7 and the Korg M1, but not at all a practical tool by todays standards. Most of the sounds have been reproduced by later Roland technology (although I would argue that none of them have the warmth or the charm of actually playing them on the D50s beautiful chassis). In fact, if you scan the pads of any good GM menu you will find a few signature D50 sounds right there (Fantasia for example). This is a self-indulgent buy for the gigging keyboard player, but perhaps arguably a sensible investment for any collectors out there. It has to be a few years off being an offical Vintage Keyboard. I would only suggest you buy if you really do have plenty of money and want to decorate your studio with antiquated, charming, beautiful, but slightly impractical synthesisers. I love this keyboard but I'm never going back there. Currently I own a KORG MS-2000, Triton PRO-X, Triton classic, Roland JV1010 with Session and 60s/70s and a Yamaha Clavinova.

Great keyboard feel, limited features.

Warm sounds, not many of them.

Pretty dependable.

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.

n/a

n/a

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

I purchased my D-50 brand new in the late '80's. In 1991, I sent for the "SCREAMIN' B3" organizer series card from VALHALA. The patches are excellent, and I started to leave my heavy Hammond and leslies at home.
My wife and I play as a duo all over Southern Ontario, and use the D-50 as a lead instrument and a Roland E-30 Intelligent Synth. as a back-up "band". Through an excellent stereo P.A. system, we still sounds great, even though we are using outdated synths. We realize that there are better sounds out there to be purchased, but we have used these synths for so long, that they are second nature to our show, and we do not have to think about how to use them, leaving more enegy to creativity.
The manual has been filed for over 12 years. It was very too time consuming to completely master, as was the editing.

The action is very good. If you have one of these machines, then you know the difficulty in mastering the midi. I tried hooking the two keyboards together at first with midi, but, again didn't have the time to figure it out, so,... Besides, when I did have them linked, there was an annoying LAG in transfer.

Great sounds! We play for such a cross section of audiences that we need some traditional sounds, as well as the :- "of or relating to the regions beyond the earth b : CELESTIAL, HEAVENLY c : UNWORLDLY, SPIRITUAL" sounds for which the D-50 is famous. For traditional sounds with a flair, the organs are super, I like the sweet vibes, calliope, horns, horns and strings, rich-bones. Pianos suck, so I lean towards the elctric ones. I like the PCM on the original sound card. Strings seem to be too digital.
For wilder shows, the stereo pad, stacat. heaven, spacy voices are wonderful

It's been reliable for the dozen+ years of live gigs so far. I had Roland replace the internal battery 6 or 7 years ago. From what I've read in other reports here, it should be good for years to come. I'm actually starting to get finger wear marks and indentations from repeated use in areas on the snyth. The touch sensitivity messes up, and right now a "B" note in the upper range is extremely loud. An A flat note was doing that several years ago, but self-corrected. This doesn't seem to be going away. I haven't tried to take it apart to fix it,...perhaps someone could e-mail me with a step by step safe way to do it, or I'll take it to Roland.

See battery replacement in previous slot.

If it were lost or stolen, would I buy it again or get something else?.... Probably get a newer synth. Is it worth what you paid? Yes, even though it was expensive for me.

the presets were great when it was new on the market, I got myself an Atari Dr.T editor for the D-50 as well as for my D-110 at the time. this machine is packed with parameters that need some editing tool.

16 voices with two oscillators is ok. keyboard is good but be aware of the velocity switches under the keys. they get dirty over the years and force you to take it apart for cleaning. (3 times since 1988).the FX's are outdated and primitive but have one reverb and two modulation FX's. one for upper & one lower Tone. Midi sends out note off velocity that disturbs some sequencer programs.

thanks to all modulation parameters I've made some great string sounds, filter sweep, e.pianos and brass patches on it. it is a bit dirty and noisy. with pedal, pitch bend and after touch the expresiveness is wonderfull, though.

the keyboard switch was the only problem with it until the power unit broke down two months ago.

the technical support was good here in sweden.

the sounds I've made on it are now emulated by my soft synth Vaz Modular. the last two years it's only been a master keyboard at home.
It's very old so I've replaced it with a newer keyboard. a Roland JP-8000 or some other virtual hardware synth is a good replacement to me.

This is not the easiest synth to program, thats for sure. However, underneath the messy user interface lies a simple but powerful digital synthesizer. If you know what kind of sound you want it is relatively easy to dial in.

Polyphony is usually 8, and for me that's enough. Effects are ok considering the age of this synth, basic chorus and echo.

The keyboard action is very good. The keys are light and therefore fast runs are easy to play, but still the action is precise and firm. Personally I don't like the joystick, bener&mod wheel feel better to me. The aftertouch is a good feature to have in this kind of synth which has no tweakable knobs.

This synth does well the things it is supposed to do. Beautiful analog-like pads and strings, digital pads and bells, monsterous leads. The sound is very recognizable and many of the presets are used in various albums. I use this synth in a prog-rock band and D-50 has proven to be a very flexible instrument for this kind of music. We play some RUSH covers and D-50 can do most of the needed sounds except the Mini leads.


Basically all imitations of acoustic instruments are bad. Get some other synth for them.

Well, some number pad keys need cleaning from time to time. I have fixed aftertouch once. No biggies, anyhow.

Overall, this synth is strongly built.

This thing is definitely wort the money it cost. I have considered buying another D-50 so i could leave one to training place and have another in my house. The keyboard action is very good and the sounsd are heavenly. That's why I love it. I compared it with several other budget synths like DX-7 and CS1X and found D-50 to be the most flexible of them and still having the characteristic of it's own. Of course D-50 has some drawbacks like the lack of tweakable knobs and confusing user interface, but I like playing with a quality instrument like D-50 more than some toy like CS1X.

when i first got this synth i found it to be a bear to program,due to the fact that i did not get a manual with it, and it also being my first synth programable by a digital menu rather than with knobs, sliders, etc. But i love a challenge! after a little practice i love the fact that i can adjust so many parameters i still wish i could adjust these a little faster but the end result is always worth the wait.
i am starting to get a little tired of the presets though. luckilly i got a rom card with itso there's many more. the string and pad sounds are awesome not quite as fantastic as pure analog but oh so close!

i like the fact that this keyboard comes with aftertouch that's defenitely a plus. the on board effects are also a nice feature (e.q., chorus) but the reverbs sound way more digital than the sound generators. i wish i could find more rom cards for it but what can you do?

the d-50 works perfectly with the style of music that i use it for: gothic/ambient, experimental/gloom. i'm not really using this synth for realistic sounds but the electric piano sounds pretty good. i have also found that through extensive programming, i can get the keyboard to respond to my expressiveness quite well. it does have alot of noise to it but for me that adds character as i'm not using it for movie soundtracks or anything like that.....

i also received this instrument with a hard case and this keyboard especially for a roland, is built like a tank!

i've never had to deal with the company so i have no comment on this one.

i'm pretty new to playing keyboard (i mainly play guitar) so there's not much i can offer from a "professional keyboardist" stand-point. what i likemost about it is that you can create sounds that fulfill the emotion/sound connection i'm looking for. these sounds also seem to fill my head with new textures, licks, and songs that i probably never would have thought of.
i really, really, really need to know how to save the sounds i create internally since without a manual i am lost. oh yeah, i also really, really, really need a manual too!

I got my without the factory presets... so I have to program my own sounds in it... since it come without manual I have to figured out things by myself but it worth the time I spent and it makes me blown away by the sound power! since I like sounds programming this synth really give me alot of fun. its not sound dated.. it sounds classic.

I know it lack of polyphony... but at least it's polyhony! when playing EP layer or gliss the organ/synth sounds you could expect voice stealing. the built in effect is usefull to help the sound have some delay and add character. the aftertouch is hopeless, and the key action is great for internal sounds only but pretty bad if controlling external sound source. dont expect to make it an expresive controller for external soundsource.

WHAT A NICE STEREO GRAND PIANO!!!! LOL... just a joke =)... the power of the D-50 is for the synth oriented sounds... it could produce amazing leads and stabs that no other synth could match... the pads is wide, inpiring and wonderful.. and some soundtrack sound efx is gonna be useful for scoring and its very expressive. I even makes a very funky analog clav from it! cound makes some decent sounding organ or flute like... haven been able to make silky strings pas but some strings sound I make could be useful. the EP sound classic... thats the only sound you could expect heard some background noise... actually this synth sounds noisy but the sound it self makes out for it and in live situation you wond hear them.. an in the studio when you out it in the mix it wont bother at all. never regret to got one.. just wish to have the chance to also have the rack version (D-550) so I have back up for the future... but this one built like a tank and good lookin'!! =)

seem very rugged and durable... I can count on this one.

in my country Indonesia you could find some used D-50 for about 200-300$ I got mine pretty cheap and its in a very good condition!!! very satisfied with it. I'm a Christian keyboardist and do recordings and gigging... I also have KORG TRINITY, i30, X5D, Roland XP-80, U-220, Emu proformance 1+ and this D-50 really gives me good classic and powerful synth sounds... I really want to have another for back up/collection, but its hard to find the rack vertion and if I bought another D-50 it gonna just taking more space. one of the thing that I love from this synth is the portamento feature... it makes leads sounds come alive! the D-50 is undoubtly a Roland classic... if you love classic sounds and if you like sounds programing you wont reagret to have this one. I have modern keyboards that sounds awesome (Trinity is trully a magnificent sounding synth man!)but they all have their own beauty.. and there'll always be a place for the D-50 in my heart and in my music mix.

No the easiest synth to use, but once you get your head around it, it's pretty straightforward. I'd recommend getting a PG-1000 for some better analogue-like programmability.

Great effects and chorus section and fantastic aftertouch and velocity sensitive keys. This is basically a 2 part multitimbral unit with 8 or 16 voice polyphony(depending on the complexity of the sound).

Absolutely fantastic. It's great for just about every kind of music if you are looking for synthetic analogue like sounds. If you need the perfect bosendorfer piano sound, don't buy this synth. Strings are a real plus here.

I bought my D-50 new in 1989 and I'm still on the original battery. No problems whatsoever. As sturdy as they come.

Roland has excellent customer service and are always ready to help if anything should happen or if a user has even the most basic of questions.

My first synth and my all-time favourite. What else can I say? I love it!

I bought this D-50 new in 1988. It is very easy to use. It is somewhat involved to tweak existing patches. Expect to spend considerable time if you really want to program new patches. I bought a third party book back in 1988 written by some prof of synthesis explaining virtually all the programming features of this synth. I think it is a must have.

You buy this synth for it's sound. It is NOT multitimbral by todays defination! Though way back I bought a third party MEX card which does allow some multitimbral capibilities. I have two ROM cards, (Thank the Lord), The original 64 factory presets, and a Bo Tomlyn card. Recently the CR2032 battery crapped out (after 12 years), which I promptly replaced. I lost all but was able to Dump a ROM card back in within seconds. I do have this stuff backed up to a computer (X-OR patch editor/librarian) as well. MIDI is suberb. I still use this synth as my main midi controller board. I am primarly a guitarist/composer and have several other MIDI sound modules to create my back drops. There are some sounds on this synth that cannot be found any where else. By no means can this synth cover most bases, but the ones it does cover is does extremely well.

Sounds it is lame at: Acoustic Pianos (barf!!!), most horns(trombone, trumpet), sax, human voice, No drums what so ever.
Sounds it Excels at: Cathedral Organ (best I have ever heard!), Hammond roter organ (GREAT!!! - Again tough to beat this one any where), Electric pianos, Analog Synth strings, Stactto hits, French horn(very haunting, I love it), Erriee Pads, Crisp sparkley tones.
This synth is useless as a GM synth but it's unique expressive sounds add that spice that may make or break a soundtrack. One of the problems with the D-50 is that many of its legandary sounds have been over used in the 1980's. Staccato Heaven and Digital Native Dance probably more than anything else. Just though I'd point that out. I mainly use it for the organs, E-pianos, strings, and some sweet Ring Mod sounds I came up with.

Yes, still seems to be going strong. They say in books that the D-50 has been considered a "Vintage synth" for years now. I have no idea what the author's defination of "Vintage synth is". My D-50 is an integral part of my MIDI studio, looks and sounds as fresh today as it did 12 years ago. I don't see it retiring anytime soon. Replacing that stinkin' battery ticked me off a bit though.

If I ever lost this I may try to track down another one. It is like an old buddy to me.

I have a D-50 v1.0 of 1987.
The preset sounds are not great, but when you hear them they are appealing. This Staccato Heaven preset is a legend.
My D-50 is like my brother so I can't really answer about the ease of editing patches. I think everything is at the right place but the sub-menu organisation is a little bit painful sometimes.
I have 2 manuals: 1 basic and 1 advanced. And they explain the action of each parameter quite well.
I like the big buttons on the front panel to select patches, and the portamento button near the pitch bender is very convenient.

Actual polyphony is 16. Most of the time 8. But it is sufficient, even for pianos. The keyboard is delicious, a little bit heavier than other keyboards. It is very easy to control the aftertouch.
The effects are a little bit noisy, bit it gives some charm to the sounds. The reverb sounds like no one on newer synths. You cannot adjust the delay though, there are 32 presets.
You can use memory cards but they are expensive. And and anyways there are tons of librairans for the D-50 in any platform.
The MIDI capability is standard. With the manual I have I don't have the midi sysex implementation, but I'm not sure that they are the original manuals.
No sequencer, no arpegiator, but there is this interesting effect "chase". A patch is composed of 2 tones (each tone being 2 partials).
With the "chase" effect, their will be a delay between the "upper" and the "lower" tone, and you can ajust it and make funny effects with it.

All acoustic instruments are bad. The synths are killers. Once you have heard a D-50 you will never get enough with a sample player !
I had a CS1x and now I have a XP-30 (which features "Techno" expansion board). They look like they are toys compared to the D-50.
The sound is PHHATTT. You have 2 tones, 2 partials each. Each tone has its own 3 band parametric equilizer and chorus.
The ring modulator works great and produces awesome sounds. The D-50 will never tell you "I can't". You can make sounds which distord like hell.
The samples are of poor quality but they give a unique charm to the synth.

I had to fix some keys because they didn't respond to velocity anymore. It's not a complicated operation, although pulling the keyboard out of the box is a pain.
Otherwize this keyboard is 13 years old and still working great. The box is in metal, you cannot destroy it.

Never deal with them. Never upgraded.

I will never sell this keyboard. Once you've played with it, you feel like you know why you like synthesizers so much.
I bought it in 1995, I've been playing for 17 years.
I do love the sounds. Electric pianos will make you cry. Pads will make you dream.
The sound is bright, transparent, on all the keyboard. DAC are 20 bits and you can feel it.
I hate nothing about this keyboard. I just wish they had made a multitimbral version. Maybe an arppeggiator could have made it even better, but with the chase effect you can have fun anyways.
The sounds I have created with this synth inspired me all my best songs.
I'm OK to share my sounds with other people.
Overal rating is: 10. For me the D-50 is the best synth ever, unique combination of samples, analog stuff, digital effects. Also very pretty.
The only keyb I have tried and that I think is worth trying to compared with the D-50 is the Kurzweil K2000.
God bless its designers D-50 !! :)

Turn this sucker on and blast off! The presets are great! nothing sounds like this synth. Editing patches is not a breeze...but worth the effort.

Plenty of polyphony and a thick sound. the built in effects are noisy as can be..adds to the character of the beast. Not a multitimbral axe.

You've heard 'em over and over again..and still they're fresh. Like a big analog/non analog synthesizer on its own turf. The organs cheese, the synth sounds buzz, the pianos are far from real, the brass sounds fat, the choirs irretate. Its perfect! And its sounds are big. The newer units and modules from Roland are thin by comparison.

Well, this is an old synthesizer and it still is working.

I always want one of these in my rig ( maybe 2 or 3 ).I get tired of the great/ newer pristine tones my Triton or Kurzweil K2600 delivers...I need grunge and imperfection to achieve perfection. Of coarse the synths aforementioned are incredible pieces of sonic gear, the D50 holds its own usefullness. It works well for retro / progressive rock ( although now adays , its considered re-gressive rock ), film and video post score and music beds, pop,alternative, hip hop, techno, classical ( Wendy Carlos style ), jazz, fusion, country, and Disneyland cartoony stuff!!!!
I'm inspired everytime I sit at this instrument. It helps my creative juices to flow!!
I own a Triton / Kurzweil K2600 / Roland JV2080 (2) / Akai S2000 and S3000 samplers / Gigasampler / Korg O1W / DX7 (3) / Alesis QSR / Korg M1 / Korg Wavestation AD / Roland D50 / Roland JP8000 / Waldorf Wave / Minimoog ( retrofitted for MIDI ) / OBX 8 ( w MIDI) / EMU Proteus 1 and 2 / Roland Jupiter 6 / Moog 15 module / Roland Juno / Nord Lead (12 voice )/ Synclavier system ( bought it used for peanuts from the old Motown studio ) and Prophet 5 (2) that were recently overhawled and cost me a fortune! So as you can see, I'm outfitted with some of the best stuff...and I still recommend the D50 as one of my favorite synths of all time.
I make a ton of money composing jingles and such...and spend quite a bit of it on gear. So, if your like me...go ahead and purchase the D50...if your not like me..treat yourself anyway!

Straight out of the box, it's a Roland in look and feel. Therefore, it can sound okay, but you need to get right into it. I don't have a manual, and some of the more esoteric functions are less than intuitive.

The presets are wonderful. This is a synthesizer, not a 'keyboard', and it comes with a handful of sound effects, as well as emulations of traditional instruments. Like all Roland gear, it's 10/10 for strings, but sometimes sounds a little hollow on brass - better than a JV, though, and it has room to improve with the parameters available.
Lacking a powerbrick is a big help, although it's a heavy keyboard by modern standards.

Mine has just been serviced, the keyboard action is positive, but seems to require a fair push to wake up the velocity sensitivity. I've found the outputs are a little weak, too, needing quite a high level of gain compared to my JV-50.
Built in effects are many, and although they aren't easily accessible, familiarity will pay off. For performance, arranging your patches in the banks sequentially and using a footswitch to skip patches is wonderful, and quick access to chase effects means the sound of the instrument can be changed very quickly.
I haven't used MIDI on it yet - so I can't comment.
It lacks both a sequencer, which is a tolerable ommission, and an Arpeggiator, which is not, and really reduces the functionality of the synth. It's a shame, but as I record everything live, I can survive without it, and I'm sure it could be controlled by an external synth with a sequencer or arpeggiator.

This is where the D-50 really comes alive. It responds to you wonderfully - when it was demonstrated, it sounded so-so, because the guy was more into performance keyboards, but once I had had time to familarise myself, I found it worked beautifully. The effects are good for the age of the synth - it can really surprise you - and what music you use it for is up to you. I play ambient music mainly, and was overjoyed to see one of the D-50 users is Jean Michelle Jarre.

Dependability - I have yet to find out. I've had it two days. The display failed once, but fixed itself, so I suspect a loose connection which may well be addressed if I fit an expansion board, even with the display messing up, I know enough of the synths menus to be able to play it. I don't play live, so it's not a concern for me. I hope it doesn't prove to be unreliable!

I've had my JV-50 refurbished by Roland, and found them exceptionally helpful, I also have a VS880, and have had other Roland gear in the past - EG101, JP8000, MC-303. On the whole, in the UK they have been very helpful and reliable.

I know it's worth the money, and as an additional synth, I love it. The user interface could be better, but it's 13 years old - it can be forgiven. I can only imagine how wonderful this seemed back then. After only a couple of days, I would be heartbroken if I lost it - as for replacing it, if I found one, sure - but I think modern synths would keep me happy. I found it by accident when looking for a Korg MS2000 to try out, and decided to buy it whilst scraping together money for a Korg Triton - and I will keep it once I have the Korg, whereas my JV-50 may go. I've been playing for years, but have no musical knowledge, play live, ambient, and am very dependent on synths to express exactly what I am feeling - I will record it one day!

This keyboard really is a classic. Its sound is used as a reference of new Roland keyboards (like the Junos, Jupiters and TB-303).
It really set the standard configuration of modern keyboards. Think of it as an adittion to your gear, not as a main keyboard. The presets sound as good as you get into them. You can find zillions of patches on the net. Its bitimbral. Every patch has two independent oscillators. Editing patches is a bit confusing, but if you think the D-50 as four independent synthesizers, it's really easy. PG-1000 programmer or a patch editor is a bit helpful. The manual is simple. Does'nt have too much information.

It has a great keyboard action, but as a midi controller, it has an old school response (you have to fix then velocity of your new modules if you want the same response). It has great effects section. Two effects processor, one for each patch. You have a selection of 36 reverbs, 8 pitch modulators (chorus, flanger, tremolo, phaser) and a 5 band EQ. Believe me, they sound great. How is its architecture? Great. 3 LFO's, independent low pass filter for each voice (4 of them), three 8 stages envelopes (pitch, filter and amp). I probably give it a 10 if the LFO's and effects were synchable to midi clock, impossible to an 80's keyboard.

The output is a little bit noisy but I think is a good addition to the sound. If you are looking for realistic sounds on this board, look elsewere. Think of it as a big synthesizer. It sound as big as an analog. Compared this board to an XP one and the XP's sound really thin. This keyboard is capable of really awesome ambient and breathy pads, analog stuff (pads, leads, strings, basses), incredible realistic organs, choirs. It can cut probably in any kind of music, including electronic. You have to push hard to get aftertouch. Velocity is ok.

What can I say? It has the original battery for RAM. It's very dependable. Solid as a rock.

Never deal with them.

I would probably get another one. Is worth what I paid. I'm playing from about 12 years. I also have a Roland JP-8000, Yamaha TX81Z and an E-MU Emulator III. It sounds wonderfull. Maybe the only thing I hate is its sluggish keyboard response. I compare its sound with my JP-8000 and E III and it sounds fatter than the JP but can't compete with the E III analog filters. I wish it had filters for the PCM waves and synchable LFO's to midi clock. Try to get one, you won't be dissapointed.

NOTE: Rick's review is a very good description of this board.

Well even for its age I understand the D50 it is a benchmark for new synths to style their architecture to. This synth definately set the standard for modern synths. It is only 2 8 voice poly, and 2 part multitimberal, which is its downfall as far as not having a realistic piano and maybe a couple of other multi-sample reliant accoustic instrument patches. The synthesised type patches are amazing. Thick, full, and because there are a couple of different synth structures to select from, you can develop those early vanhalen multi sawtoothed sounds. This was the first synth I learnt to edit back in 1988, and did it without the manual (even though i had one) and it wasn't an easy task. New terms and extra parameters compared to other synths, were there to add to the confusion. Once you feel your way around it for a while, it soon becomes logical and creating sounds is good. As far as i know it was the first synth to incorporate a signal generator and sampled sounds in the same synth. When creating sounds you can select between a realtime analogue type signal generated waveform,with pulsewidth adjustment on a selection of saw, square, sine, etc waveforms, and any of the numerous pcm sampled sounds to create your patches. Patches are created like the xp and jv synths. A selection of up to four basic tones/elements mixed together with only low pass filtering available. It has alot of features which were dropped off later roland keyboards, like the genuine signal generator, ring modulator, and routing/mixing of reverb and chorus through eachother, and initial waveform routing. These features have finally been brought (excluding the signal generator) back into the xp80 and 60. The lack of these features in newer keyboards made it dificult to replicate the d50 properly. The xp series finally recapture the sound. (well as close as you'll get so far.) The manual like all roland manuals is a shocker. It tells you what you need to know but not in a logical order. Don't expect to find what your looking for in a couple of seconds. I recon they need a few lessons off Yamaha. they have brilliant manuals in my opinion. this is one synth a patch editor really helps. It has a reasonable display, easy to read, but for its features, you really needed something bigger. Its the same size as the JV80.

The poly is 8 voice, and 2 part timberal. 2 of the elements/tones can be assigned to one midi channel, and the other two to another. Keyboard split is there also. There is an old 3rd party mod available to make it 8 part multitimberal but still limits some parameters. It has built in reverb, chorus, and ring modulator. Now the other beauty of its effects are that they can be mixed together in different ways. Making sounds thinner, thicker or just plain different. The effects aren't infinately adjustable like newer synths. The chorus and reverbs have multiple preset selections (about 34 reverbs and 6 chorus) which have different reverb thicknesses (densities and durations and delay times) and chorus types at different rates, so selecting a delay time means selecting one of the 34 preset reverb types which closely matches the tempo you're looking for and the same for chorus. However, effects depths and balance can be infinately selected for each. The effects are very good! The are similar to the quadraverb made by Alesis. Very realistic and natural. Not sharp tinny sounding like my Yamaha. I think the reverbs are better than my jv80. It has velocity sensing keys and monophonic aftertouch, and a dedicated aftertouch control slider on the front which control how effective the after touch is. I don't think this slider can be mapped as a controller. It has a slot for user memory expansion cards or roland developed patches, but no sample/ waveform expansion. Your stuck with the built in waveforms. It has a portamento feature, and chase (a delay feature which splits up the patch and delays each element/tone). No onboard sequencer.

Yep the synth sounds are great. There is no emulating the sounds accurately on other synths. It is a synth you need to buy to get the real thing. I find its great for early 80's rock. Piano sounds are impossible to simulate closely due to its limited midi parts. Some great techno synth sounds and rips can be created. It has excellent velocity and aftertouch sensitivity, and the bender/modulator is great. Not much travel in the modulator but still controlable.

Very very reliable. This is the only synth i have hung onto and will always hang onto. The sounds are individual. I have always used it on a gig without a backup.

Yes I would buy another. The sounds you can make are extremely usable and sit well in a mix without too much messing around. Low noise level with no sound played, but does have a little bit of disortion as the sound fades right out. Un noticable without headphones at high level. The keyboard is a classic without any doubt. Its price s/h has held at 500 to 800 for the last 6 years and I believe if you hang on to them for long enough, it will probably increase in value.

The presets are very good for the most part. (weak piano though). The organs are fantastic, the strings and brass sounds are very good and the bass and guitar is passible. I am just learning how to edit patches but for only having it for afew months I have been able to create some wonderful new patches so I would have to rate the ease of programming very good. There is so much you can do. The manual is helpful after you read it a number of times and get the feeling for it but overall it gives you the basics and lets you explore the options with the many menus the D-50 offers. The joystick is a nice help in editing.

The keyboard action is very comfortable. Having been used to the organ keyboard of the E-15, the touch sensitive keys are a pleasent change. The effects are fun to play around with especially the settings for the chase and portamento. It is completely MIDI compatible. I have expanded it with the use of a piano module and extra data cards.

The presets for the most part are very good. The organs are simply wonderful! The D-50 has the best church organ sound I have ever heard and the rock organs are excellent as well. The only place it is lacking is in pianos. There are acouple but they are poor. The guitar is ok, the strong point is the ambient strings and atmospheric tones are very deep and rich. I use the D-50 for composing new age music and the atmospheric and ambient tones (strings, soft synth sounds ect.) are excellent. I find I keep the aftertouch all the way up so, while it does react to your touch, I guess it could be better. The chase and portamento features really enhance the tones and are fun to use!

I got the keyboard used and have had it for three months now. It is in perfect working condition. I have had no problems with it at all!

I have only had the keyboard for three months and up to now have had no problems or any reason to contact Roland.

If I lost this one I would definately get another. I chose the D-50 because I have another Roland keyboard (an E-15) and really enjoy the Roland quality and sound. The D-50 is perfect for the new age and progressive sound but if rock or dance music is your style you may find it lacking.

Terrible presets are nevertheless highly recognizable in a mix. Editing patches is fun & absorbing 'cause you are thrown in a great panoramic space of stereo field, especially with the on-board controllers like poratamento and chase. I have no manual but a little knowledge in programming got me some awesome sounds that I want to hear for the rest of my life.

8 poly but 4 oscillators each, which is interpreted as 32 poly, so the indivisual sounds I create with my D-50 are way more complex and fulfilling than the patches (not combis)I make with my 01/W pro. Built-in effects are not as versatile and advanced as today's other synths' but adequate enough to express the machine's unique possibilities. Mono-timbral, so no good for stand alone tool for computer music. But the potential sonic power of single patches has placed this a specialist's item. It does have the selection of 128 sounds which corresponds to GM at least in numbers.(w/ card) I love the chase and portamento buttons (also transpose) on the left side of the keyboard

Galaxy! Hence surrealism! (rather than realism) Very good chiffy sound, high & clean choir, heart-filling brass and synths, brilliant chromatic percussion, very expressive E. guitar, terrible pianos but poised E. piano for some mood, horrible and skimpy drums; this instrument is not "everything" like a good Korg, but something of a crown which has its territoty. The bouncy keyboard gives you such a smooth and nice feeling that somehow, when played by other keyboard over MIDI, the sound even doesn't feel as good. However for fast playing, I thnk, the keyboard action is a little ineffective: that noisy VFX keys work a lot better. Velocity reaction, I suspect, is not really as sensitive as some other keyboards.

Proven by myriads of musicians all over the world.

N/A

I will never even think of losing it. My favorite match with this synth is Yamaha SY85 and/or Roland JV 880, when layering sounds, which both have a very strong acoustic department. Keeps me high and dazzled. D-50 is basically for purely live music, i.e. w/o sequencing beforehand(or you have to use a hardware multi-track recorder). You can also fill an important track of your song with the sound of it. After all, I'm alive and I shine partly because of the inspiration I get from this sharp and bright instrument. Could be an instrument of your fantasy, if you already have a newer and more powerful master synth.

This one really is for synth freaks. You can spent hours editing a few patches (due to the multitude of pages and parameters that don't affect the sound untill you select something which is on a totally different page), which will by then sound great. I like getting lost in menus, but if you don't GET A PATCH EDITOR!!!!!!! Don't bother with the presets, they sound OK but are used about a zillion times.

The filters don't have enough resonance, you can't sync the oscillators and the 3 LFO's can't modulate each other. That's about it on the down side. Everything else is up, way up. Though you could consider buying two or three (I bought an additional D550, the rack version) to get more polyphony and more multitimbral channels.

I don't find the sounds that expressive, partly because of the not-so-very-good filters. But other than that, after a bit of programming you can get every electronic-sounding sound (?) you want. Great for fat basses (use a compressor!) or synth-pads. Key-like instruments are also possible, but they won't fool you into believing there's a real rhodes, acoustic piano, harpsichord or whatever. Once you know this baby you are able to create exactly the sounds you wanted in the first place (taken into account its limitations), in fact, it's the only synth I have which will do as I say.

I own this one a year. No problems occured.

No experience.

It's an indispensible too in my studio (along with the D550). I use one of them or both in about 75% of my productions. What I really love is that it's a programming-synth. It's the only synth I can sit down in front of and just keep on programming awesome sounds untill the early morning without even glancing at my O3D.

The D-50 is a very good master Synth. The Modulation/Bender control is one of its more famous features...it gives the player better control than two separate controls for each. The presets are very fat and many new patches can be dumped in it off the net. I have used my D-50 for 8 years and it still performs better than ever. It takes a little time to familierize yourself with the programming of new patches (especially without the PG-1000 module accessory. The manual is pretty technical but there are books out there that translate well.

The D-50 is 32 note polyphonic. The keys are not wieghted but it has a nice bouncy action to it plus it is aftertouch sensitive. It has 30 Reverb effects and chase and portamento. Valhala made an upgrade to it for multitimberal capabilities....but Valhala is gone (The upgrade was rumured to be buggy anyway) No sequencer on board. This machine was made for perfomance and/or personal computer sequencing.

This keyboard works well with any type of music. The instruments are true synth sounds...nice and fat. This is not a sampling keyboard if you are looking for true to life sound try somthing else. It reacts well to my playing..sharp and bright when I go nuts and delicate and smooth when it needs to be. Velocity and after touch work well...some voices need an extra hard push on the aftertouch to utilize the full effect.

100% reliable...never needed a backup...this is a solid machine (At 50 LBS it should be)

Never needed support

If my synth ever became unusable I would definately find another. It was worth every penny. I love the action and fat sounds...I hate the fact that it is not multitimberal with out an upgrade (which can't be found easily) This synth has had alot of exposure in the music world and its effects are used in TV commercials and Shows. It is a great sounding instrument that has long surpased the typical life of a synths use in the main stream market

The presets are excellent. Forget about programming it, just punch up a different patch. It seems almost any pop music record made in '87 or '88 had a D-50 factory preset on it. This is one of the last synths produced by anyone in recent years that had any character. Try mixing a D-50 preset with an analog synth patch, or a K2000 patch and it'll sound like a million $. Nothing else sounds like a D50, it totally unique.

You get what you get. - That's it. Meager on board effects, not multitimbral. You can get the odd upgrade but really there not much can do. If the presets don't sell the machine to you, go elsewhere.

It's a synth, not a sampler. They try and pull off a few "real" sounds, but if it's realism you want, what are you doing looking at a synthesizer in the first place? The sounds are in a class of their own, and absolutely first rate.

8 years old and still ticking. It's being used as a master keyboard so it gets a fair workout.

not needed customer support yet

If the keyboard gave up, we'd still use it as a sound module via midi. If the electronics blew up, we'd have to get a new one. Indispensible - a specialist item. It's not good a wide range of things (no on board sequencer, etc), but if you want unique, bright, and amazing "chiffy" pads, this is the only unit for you. Well worth the current going rate of $500 USD on the 2nd hand market.

The presets are not as good as in many new synths because the 128 ROM samples are of low quality. The strength of the D-50 is the possibility to make your own sounds using saw and square waves, and filters with resonanse. I use a PG-1000 for programming, which is much easier than fiddling around with the buttons on the synthesizer. I haven't found any patch editors for the D-50. Can someone please make one?! :)

It's 32 tones polyphonic. Each patch is made up of 4 partials though, so the "real" number is 8. Each partial is either saw wave, square wave or a PCM sample. You can change the pulse width of the waves and each partial has it's own filter with resonance. One annoying thing is that you can't use the filter on a PCM sample. Almost everything can be controlled with velocity and aftertouch, making it great for playing the instruments live. There are two effect units, one for the chorus and one for the reverb effect. There's also a built-in equalizer. You can expand the RAM memory using RAM cards. The keyboard has 61 keys and it's velocity and aftertouch sensitive. The D-50 is bi-timbral as standard (you can split the keyboard), but you can buy an expansion that makes it 8 channel multi-timbral. This expansion is a bit annoying to use though and if you want a multi-timbral synthesizer the D-50 might not be the best choice for you. You can send/recieve patches with sysex commands.

Most instruments are not very realistic due to the low-quality samples. There are no drums. The D-50 is best used for synthetic sounds, like synth strings, pads, keys, basses and some slightly acid-like sounds. It works best with dance/techno and synth music. The effects are good. The chorus really makes the sound fatter and the EQ is nice. The velocity and aftertouch is great when you play around with a sound.

I haven't had any problems with my D-50, so I guess it's reliable. I haven't used it that long though.

Haven't contacted the support, so I don't know.

I got a PG-1000 and the Multronics MIDI Expansion (making it multi-timbral) included when I bough mine, so I think it was a good buy. I love the possiblities to make your own sounds, there's lots of parameters to change. The effect units are good too. I don't like the ROM samples and the fact that there are no drums. I have a friend that have a D-20, which is almost identical to the D-50. If you consider buying a D-50 take a look at the D-20 too (or the D-10). I've listed some differences between them below:
Advantages of the D-20: - cheaper - has drums - multi-timbral
Advantages of the D-50: - chorus - equalizer - better sounding - aftertouch
If you want to make your own synthetic sounds and like to play live the D-50 is great. If you're looking for a flexible, all-round synth, look at the D-20 instead. There are lots of patches on the internet to download for the D-50, so you won't be short of sounds.