Roland XP-50

There is no "ease of use" its a nightmare to operate this device,only some things are to tweak a bit fast and easy,the rest is put away in a most stupid and strange way,and why??
The sequencer i never used,how to operate it,is one of the biggest secrets i ever experienced,i have simply no time to figger out how it works,i want to be creative and not losing myself in al kinds of stupid and strange operations to let it work!
Program this Roland is a nightmare,the OS really sucks!

Al the features are not bad,in fact there are a lot of them,polypony is reaaly good,effects are good,the sequencer is a pain in the ass,i never use it again!

Almost al sounds are extremely good,this is were the XP-50 really shines,this is also the reason i keep this synth. Roland did a VERY good job,sounds are stunning,overwhelming,some are very realistic,piano sound is dated and weak,pads are awesome,organs are fine but could be better,gitars are very good,brass sounds awesome,synthesizer sounds are also awesome!
Incredible! a 10!

My XP-50 has no problems til now,i think this is an reliable product!
build quality seems to be very good!

I dunno,never dealt with them,hope i never wil! LOL!

I bought it second hand for 350 Euro some years ago,believe me its worth it,due to its sounds,but no more,if it get lost or stolen,i buy something else with a better and more logical OS,i hate the OS:it gives me nightmares when i try to tweak and program this device,i have more things to do than spending 100 or 1000 of hours to tweak/program this nasty beast!
But the sound engine is incredible! VERY,VERY PROFFESIONAL!
i use only the presets wich i sometimes tweak a bit,some programming is possible in an easy why,further or deeper tweeking is a horrible job!
the manual makes me laugh,it must have being written by a clown,this is my 3th experience(S-10,Juno G,Xp-50) with a Roland product and this is also the last one! no more Rolands for me!
a 7 because of the extremely good sound engine!

Browsing patches and playing them is easy. The rest, well plan to spend a lot of time reading the manual, which is huge and not exactly user friendly. In fact, I think it could be used in a technical writing class on how NOT to write a users manual.

Huge learning curve, but once I worked with it about a month, it all made (more) sense. Lots of button pushing\multiple uses for buttons, etc. I do like the numeric pad for quickly punching in values. Basic loop sequencing is pretty easy. Within an hour of getting the XP-50 I was laying down tracks and jamming over the top of them. The more advanced sequencing features are tougher, again more manual studying is required.

Editing sounds is a real pain from the front panel. I use Soundiver software and it makes a huge difference, although it causes the XP-50 to lock up occasionally.

I think the features have all been covered pretty well by previous reviewers. Basically its a JV-1080 with a keyboard and sequencer built in. It has a 3.5" floppy disk for saving songs and settings, and can play standard MIDI files.

I like the two sliders that can be assigned to a lot of different parameters for realtime control. The only thing I wish it had is an arpeggiator, the XP-60 has one. But I can live without it.

The JV-1080 is an industry standard ROMpler synth, and for good reason, it sounds excellent, even today. OK, some of the presets are not that great, especially the drums, but with four expansion slots you have room for adding plenty more sounds. I have the World, Session, Super Sound Set, and Orchestral expansion cards. There are also lots of sound banks for the JV series available on the web, for free and for purchase, so there are lots of options for upgrading the factory sounds. Of course, tweaking the sounds to your own liking really helps, especially with piano sounds, as many of them are programmed too bright for my taste.

The keyboard is a very light synth action, no weighted feel, but not bad. It has aftertouch, but you almost have to break your fingers to get it to engage.

Seems pretty sturdy.

Never dealt with them.

If stolen I would probably try to get an XP-60. I am primarily a guitarist, and keys are my second instrument. I have a couple of other synths, Korg DW8000, X5DR and E-MU Proteus 2000, and use Cakewalk Sonar for serious sequencing. I just wanted an inexpensive, lightweight, good sounding keyboard with a built in sequencer for practicing, writing, and the occasional jam. I picked up the XP-50 on Ebay for $400, in great shape. I think I got a good deal and although its been a challenge (still)learning how to use it, I really enjoy playing the XP-50.

I am tech-slow, and I do not need to edit patches. The sequencing is laborsome, and I am still having trouble with it. Not it's strong point.

This keyboards strong point is it's expandability. I am having difficulty hooking it up to cubase though.

The sounds are awesome- the expansion boards like the "keyboards of the sixties and seventies" are the best thing you can buy to augment this board. The basic sounds are good, but most of the expansion boards are where you will find the essence of how good this board can be.

I have used it on a couple of gigs with no problem.

When I called roland with tech questions about my cubase issue, I recieved a rocket scientists answer to my question ( i am not a rockey scientist). It was an unpleasant experiance.

Nowadays...you can get the exp- cards on e-bay cheap. If you are not into editing sounds and just want to plug and play, you will not find a better value! I would buy it again for sure.

The Roland XP-50 in fact is very easy and intuitive to use. I use the XP-50 now for ten years buying it a few weeks after it came out. I've used it live, in studio's at home, etc. If one's willing to spend some time (as you in fact should do with all new aplliances you buy) to read the manual you'll be up and running doing crazy stuff with this keyboard in no time. Have a Triton aswell the 2-lined display seems not much and Oscillator and Envelope data is displayed in mysterious mnemonics, but then again, the manual can and WILL help you in that area!

64-voice polyphony... a plethora by the time it came out, still enough for most performances nowadays! The built in effects are easily accessible but sound a bit tacky all over the board. The keyboard is featherlight and has a good respons... for those people complaining about the keyboard, you can edit the responsiveness of the keyboard which will make you have to play the keys more or less hard to get the same volume. The onboard sequencer is a bitch to use because of the small display, but then again if you give it some time in fact you will find that it is quite an ingenius sequencer with all the functions you'd expect and need... again... take time with the manual and don't try to build a house from the roof down!

The sounds overall are good or good enough. Hence this is the keyboard-version of Roland's JV-1080 which is still one of the most used modules in studio's! I would discribe the sounds as very allround and apllicable for most styles of music. The only downpart of this synth is that the sound overall is a bit to hi-fi and crispy... If you listen to the XP-80 for example you'll find that the XP-80 has been improved to a certain degree in this area having better outputs and D/A-convertors.

It is reliable, although time will catch up with it if you play live for about a 130 times a year. Coming from the Nehterlands, the European power-supply which connects to a power-outlet via an electric-razorcord is absolutely a nono, and this turned me down immediately after opening the box after purchase. This is so clumsly, cheapo made, and has let me down more than once. I already had a new power-supply installed in my XP-50 and ackwardly all the time the two screws keep unloosening themselves falling onto the mainboard, occaisionally shorting everything out, to the extent where the whole power-supply comes undone an rips loose the soldered wires which over and over have been resoldered by me. Also I have a problem with my outputs, so I've refurbished the Phones-output to a stereo line-output which connects to the mixer with an x/y-cable, but this ouput now also starts humming and crackling as probably soldered connections on the board are becoming loose. So if used heavily every week, this keyboard can turn into a bit of a careneeder, however, recapitulating the fact that mine fell at least 3 time from a height of about 3 meters (in the flightcase ofcourse) to the extent where even the keyboard is slightly bent, it still works and goes on. It even managed to continue working on a way to low voltage for half an hour once before the power-supply burned (without a fuse installed this was a problem playing live!). Another problem with the XP-50 seems to be the expansion-boards which keep coming undone out of their sockets about once a month. Nevertheless keep in mind that mine is on the road for an average of 3 times a week!

Never needed it. Do the repairs myself or have a repairshop to which I can go have it repaired which has parts on stock.

The XP-50 is for the ten years I've used it become a steady and more or less reliable part of my setup. If it dies on me one day it will be replaced by a Yamaha Motif. By the time I bought it was worth every penny. Showing it's age it can still compete with instruments being produced right now and apart from some ackward things as the tacky cheapo powercord and cumbersome powersupply, in combination with no fuse. Also from time to time you will have to refasten your expansion-boards, but they keep working till the extent that they are literally dangling from the sockets. It has helped a lot with my productions and live-performances and many of the sounds are still on to par with recent keyboards.

First off, my use has been mainly a hobby w/o much live application...

Like most gear w/ a 2 lines of text, its display is nothing compared to newer synths w/ touch screen color lcds. That said, I never editted patches/settings directly and have always used a sequencer/patch manager so to me it was a non-issue. I'm a geek so I actually think the controls make sense but I'd be surprised if that was the case most of the time. I never used the sequencer or rps functions. I've always used it w/ a PC midi program and it has worked beautifully.

64 notes has been plenty for me. It's works fine in live applications using a single patch, and for studio situations. As far as I'm concerned if that patches sound great live, it works for me. You can go performance mode and stack ungodly amounts of wavs,filters,patches, etc... and 64 should still make u happy. If you're recording, you can always record tracks individually to go beyond 64 poly. 4 expansion cards is a nice option. I've never used it, and quite frankly, feel now a days (tho I bought it 7 years ago), samplers r a dime a dozen so it didn't affect my purchase but... the sounds from the expansion cards r still pretty sweet. I suppose they would be useful if you didn't have a sampler.

Personally, I've never liked Roland pianos, and the patches here are no different. I will say this though. The piano sounds r much better w/ a decent weighted controller. However, they still don't stack up to kurz or yama's piano sounds all things being equal. Again, maybe I'm biased on the controller to a degree. Another big disappointment are the drums. They are just very stale. I had a Alesis DM5 at the time and it blows it away. Now, the DM5 just sounds ok...

Now, the punch bright sounds are just that. Wonderfully open and clear. Most people probalby love Korg organs but organs on here are great. The pads on here are awesome too. Tons of parameters to play with. The roland sound just seems to have its trademarks at the upper registers. Bright strings and pads just sound perfect.

You get a ton of sounds w/o any expansions. I used this for everything and as an all rounder it is great. The controllers work well and you can definitely get a good feel w/ the pitch/mod wheel - as standard as it is.

The effects are nice but there's only 1 as opposed to the newer models. Mind you, patches r also associated w/ effects so if you use patch A that uses chorus and patch B that uses delay at the same time (say in a 16 part sequence) only one could use the effect. Again, this wasn't a problem for me since most of the time I sequencing so I could record the parts one at a time.

Nothing has gone wrong w/ it for 7 years.

Never dealt w/ them

Overall, I don't plan on selling it anytime soon. It's a fully featured synth. It doesn't have sampling, but that's not why I bought it. Stand alone, I can compose and jam w/ all the sounds I need and w/ a sequencer and I do even more. I think the sounds are stellar except for the piano and drums. Not that they are unacceptable, there's just much better available. anything I wish it had? Actually no, at this point, it does everything I need it to do. W/ a sampler and nice weighted 88key controller I'm set :).

I have been spoiled over the years with my Korg T-3EX and to work with this board you sometimes need to go three levels deep in nested menus to make it do what you want but I'm an old computer geek anyway so not a big problem. But the UI could have been layed out a little more simply. Otherwise a piece of cake to use.

This was a major workhorse keyboard throughout the 90's and even today it holds it's own against some of the latest models in terms of sounds. 64 voices are nice coming from an era when most keyboard sported 16 - 32 voices. All the midi capabilities are there and easily setup. The built in effects are nice but the stock patches are a little too drenched in reverb for live use. Easily fixed though.

The sounds in this board still hold up even to this day. For it's time though it had one of the best pianos. Lots of ethereal sounds and that signature Roland brass ensemble patch. On the whole though, you'll want to tweak the patches for live use to make them less "wet". Everything is soaked in reverb! The extra control sliders next to the volume fader are certainly useful. I was never a real big fan of Roland's combo pitchbend/modulation stick thingy. It doesn't feel as nice as Korg's 4 way joystick or even the old two wheel system of older boards but that's a matter of personal taste.

I have used this board all over the world and it has never failed me. My one gripe however is that over time the most oft used buttons become less responsive to the point you're pushing so hard they break and sink into the face plate making it even harder to work with. Also they keybed sensors become utterly useless if any debris enters the contact area. I have opened mine up and lightly caulked the keybed sensor strips shut to keep debris out and never had a problem again after that. The button sensors are not as easy a fix as they are permanently wired to the main board and thus when they start to go you're only real option is to replace the main board.

I've had great success with Roland. Because I usually do my own repairs once the warranty period expires I've had great success will-calling replacement parts and installing myself so if you want to call that customer support then great! Otherwise, I've never shipped this board back to Roland for repairs.

I'm not married to the unit itself. I've been looking into replacing it with a Phantom but alas, the sounds I need such as the Roland brass stabs don't seem to exist in the Phantom (at least not that I've found yet). If stolen I'd probably replace it with a JV-2080 rack module and a controller keyboard since I already have 2 other workstations and don't need the sequencing capabilities.

Very easy to use. If there would be a complaint about it, it would be about the display's size, but that's just because I've tried the XP-80, and it was much easier to work on the sequencer and a bit easier to edit patches, other than this, if you were ever good woth any MS-DOS-like Computer Operating System, it'd be a piece of cake.

Good preset sounds, but it lacks a hammond patch. Editing could be easier, but never had any problem with it.

64-voice polyphony, 16-track sequencer, floppy disk drive, lots of Roland-quality effect (And that's very good!), actually I couldn't use half of this baby's features. If I keep it, I'll probably spend a lot of time exploring its capabilities.

Also, there are 4 expansion slots fot the SR-JV80 series expansion cards, which gives this synth great expansion capabilities. If I keep it, I'd probably get the orchestral one. There're gourgeous sounds in that thing.

Marvelous pianos! Wonderful pianos! Great pianos! Fat-sounding pianos! Ah, did I mention this synth had excelent pianos? :) Well, unfortunately that's very much about it. There some very good organs, but (shame on Roland) NO HAMMOND! Strings are great if you're going to make a soundtrack for a movie, but none could be used on stage. With some layering (violin + viola + strings) you can make a good one, but you'll have to work on it. Anyways, I don't think strings ever were Roland's specialty... Korg's ones are much better. There're beautiful synth sounds, great brass-sections, but I didn't like any non-conbined brass sound, but I could only find brass sounds that I liked in Ensoniq's synths. By the way, they're much better than any Korg's synth that I've tried, which goes from the X3 to the trinity, and I think that they can beat this one only with strings sounds. The orchestral expansion board may supply this deficiency, but I really don't have great expectations on roland's strings sounds.

I own it since 96 (that's 8 years) and never had an internal problem with it. It just got out of tune misteriously, but it was easy to fix. I even dropped it during a rehearsal with a cable in the output, and it was bent. Send it to a Roland authorized repair shop, and they fixed it quickly. Even after the drop it's still functional.

I'm giving it a "7" because the repair sho owner told me that this board frequentkly have problem with some SMD capacitors leaking, and this can damage the mainboard, and in the worst case scenario, you'd need to replace the entire think, which would be very expensive. It's possible to replace all the capacitors, but that also would be expensive, so I can't rate it better than 7.

I can't rate i precisely, because I know the repair shop owner which I deal with, and he's a pretty friendly person with anyone. Nevertheless, whenever I needed a replacement part (which was only an output jack), I could get it easily from Roland. This shop owner told me that the cheapest keyboard replacement parts are from Roland, and the easiest to get also. The still make parts for the U-20!!!

Great keyboard, but I don't thik I'd buy it again. Instead, I would buy a XP-60 or XP-80. :) It would be much better if there was a hammond patch and a decent-sounding strings one, but the pianos and synths make for it. If you can get one for a good price, buy it, but don't forget to check for the capacitors' problem that I described!

Well, this is my first workstation, with the caveat of having owned a Boss DR-5 Dr. Rythm Section, so I am used to pattern type sequencers. I found the XP-50 easier to use than I thought it would be. Within 3 days I was saving multi track recordings on it. There are some documents on Roland's web site that I found to be the most important. The manual is really tough to understand.

The preset sounds are OK, but the add on board sounds are what is so amazing. I bought this keyboard used with a POP expansion board and a Dance expansion board. The Dance board is fun, but not really useful to me (it is on sale on eBay as I write).

If I did not have previous experience on drum machines and synths as well as a bunch of other Roland gear, this would be hard to use...but I found it pretty easy to do what I want.

This is my second keyboard, and I really like the action on this one. I am not a pianist, so 'weighted' action does not matter to me...matter of fact I LIKE synth-action keyboards better.

Polyphony is more than adequate for me. The sequencer, which is why I bought this board, is fairly easy to use. I can create music fairly fluently with it after two days of learning it. Given that I have a drum machine background, the loop recording feature is cool.

Sounds are sooooo subjective. I always have liked Roland's keyboard sounds. The XP-50 sounds really good to me. I do believe, however, that if I get the cash saved up, I'll invest in a KORG sound module next (X5DR, or Trinity rack) next, as opposed to a getting more sound boards from Roland. Each manufacturer has it's own strengths and weaknesses....I would like to mix and match the two manufacturer's sounds.

This thing seems pretty reliable.

Roland is pretty hard to get ahold of on NEW stuff. I hope I don't need them for a board this old.

I really like this board. I am mainly a guitarist and want to compose and create backings on a keyboard. This unit is really a huge, huge deal to me and has already shown enormous value. I can expand on it through cards or add on sound modules. It's a keeper, especially at used prices. I looked a Roland Fantom S...and although those are really cool devices...and sampling would be nice...the price difference is for functional difference is tremendous.

My friend Pavle have this synth Roland Xp-50.
Synth price is 1500 german marks for used xp-50.
512 patches,A bank 128,B bank 128, C bank 128, GM bank 128.
Total 512 preset sounds + 128 user sounds.
Strongest point of this synth are:synth strings and synth pads.
Ideal for New Age ,Progressive rock,Ambient and Eletronic music.
If you want to hear preset sound you must push button patch and push
shift + bank (A B C GM or USER bank).ROLAND reads standard midi file
0 and 1 format,and GM bank are better than my Korg Is-40.And midi files sound better than my Korg Is -40.Editing is EASY because synth
dont have to much things to edit, and all parametars are written on
the board.My roland D-50 have much more things to edit.

Polyphony is 64.Sounds have 4 oscilators.Keyboard action is LIGHT.
Effect are;Chorus+Reverb+another one(41 different effect to chose).
Roland Xp-50 HAVE A SEQUENCER WITH 16 TRACKS,AND SEQUENCER IS VERY
HARD TO USE.IF SOMEONE READ THIS PLEASE HELP ME HOW TO USE THIS
COMPLICATED SEQUENCER.My email is ; geza@ptt.yu

My first priority is a great piano sound, which this unit has (I'm a former classical pianist). Other than that, for live work I've custom created almost all the patches I use. It takes a bit of time but you can get some really authentic sounds if you work with the programming carefully, which you basically have to figure out on your own as the manual is pretty much useless. If you're looking for keyboard sounds I recommend adding the Vintgage Keyboards expansion board - some excellent B3 sounds, which if programmed properly to incorporate leslie effects, are very authentic. The Rhodes sounds are also great. I've used these both live and in studio and love them. If you're doing home recording and need them, the Bass and Drums board is also very true sounding. You can get passable horn section sounds by custom programming, but I've yet to get a good solo violin type patch out of the unit.

I could almost use MORE polyphony - when you're layering several patches (16 sounds) for a big 80s type synth pad you quickly run out of voices. I don't require a lot of effect for the type of music I do, so this isn't a concern. The sequencer is very difficult to use - saving patch assignments with a song is still boggling me - but I don't require this live.

Again, the piano rocks. Very full - usually the engineer has to turn roll off some bass in the mix. I've used it live and in studio for pop, rock, country and jazz. The expressiveness is quite good (assuming you adjust the settings to your own touch). I'm quite a heavy player - having started on an acoustic piano - and can get a good range of dynamics.

I've never had a problem with it, with the following exceptions. By loading in patches from the disks which came with the unit, it erases all my custom made patches (luckily I have these backed up on disk). Also have noticed that if you have it set up for two pedals (i.e. damper and modulation), you must have pedal 1 plugged in or pedal 2 won't work properly. But this is maybe a programming thing that I haven't figured out yet. Otherwise, I've trucked it around in all kinds of extreme weather and generally mistreated it to no ill effect. The buttons are getting a bit "sticky" now but that's to be expected after five years of heavy use.

Haven't required.

I would definitely try to find another, mostly because I know what I can get for sounds if I need them. I have been shopping for a newer keyboard just for variety but haven't yet found one that's going to give me all the sounds this board does. For my uses - authentic sounds both live and in studio - this is doing a great job.