Roland D-50

The D -50 is a synthesizer from the 1980s of Roland.

History

The D-50 Digital Synthesizer with 61 keys and a maximum 16 -note polyphony ( Single / Dual / Split Play Mode) was launched as a competitor to the Yamaha DX7 by the Roland Corporation in 1987 on the market. He was a sought-after synthesizers of the 1980s and is next to the DX7 and Korg M1 one of the best-selling.

Sound generation

The D -50 is based on the LA- synthesis so designated by Roland. The LA synthesis utilizes the effect that the human ear perceives especially the first fractions of a second of a sound. Therefore, short samples are mixed (8 bits ) for the Attack with a sound generation based on various base - waveforms conceptually. Much of the sound generation corresponds to the construction of subtractive synthesis, which is intuitive to understand, unlike the more complex FM synthesis of its main competitor DX7. In addition, the D-50 at the time of his presentation one of the first synthesizer with built-in effects unit ( chorus, reverb, echo ) and an equalizer. The " Pizzagogo " sound of the D -50 as you can hear on Orinoco Flow by Enya for example.

Handling

Data input is either menu driven and supported by a joystick or via the optional time programmer Roland PG -1000, which greatly simplified with many sliders to the process. Also much clearer than via display is working with editor programs usually offer an external memory option for the sounds. The internal 64 storage spaces for own sounds can be expanded with the battery-backed memory card Roland M256 for another 64. By Roland also five ROM cards were PN -D50 -00 available to PN -D50 -04 with 64 different sounds, the first card contained the factory sounds of the D -50.

For the D-50/D-550 an extension of the company Musitronics called M.EX D-50/D-550 expansion board is available which allows up to 8 times multitimbral operation, 128 additional presets provide and improve the Midi- timing.

Variants

The rack version of the D- 50 is the D -550. With the synthesizers D-10, D -20 and the rack module D -110 1988 cheap versions of the D -50 came on the market that are less powerful. Some sounds and expansion cards are partially compatible with the D- 50th The D -50 was replaced in 1990 by the otherwise designed D-70. In contrast to this successor to the D-50 is now considered one of the neo- classic in the field of digital synthesizers.