Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 372 Location: Santa Monica, Ca.
Audio files: 2
Posted: Wed Apr 04, 2007 4:57 pm Post subject:
My new-old D-50
Well I took the plunge and just brought home this D-50 for $125.00. The keyboard contacts need cleaning and two keys don't make sound but I'll be using it as a sound module. It came with 2 manuals, power cord and Factory sounds card. While I normally prefer virtual analogs I hope to use it now and again for Pads. The presets are pretty laughable and most have that annoying "chiff" PCM sample but I hope to program some good atmospheric pads on it. What struck me about the presets is that there's really not a single good lead sound. Is it possible to program leads on it?
For sure I'll be asking a lot of questions about it as I take a trip back to the '80s in learning how to get around on the thing!
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_________________ Apple Mac Pro 2019 3.2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W
96 GB Ram
15.6 Sequoia
Novation SL49, Behringer 2600, Crave, Edge
Mophox4, Nord Lead 2,Modal electronics Argon 8m, Roland System 1, Novation Nova, Nord Micro modular, Korg Radias, Roland d-05, Yamaha A3000 sampler, Novation SL MK2 and Remote Zero controllers, Arturia Beatstep and SparkLE, Korg ER-1, Unosynth
"We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams"
Dymaxion Vehicle Music at www.dymaxionvehicle.com/ Last edited by Gothboy on Tue Aug 28, 2007 11:38 am; edited 1 time in total
You can make some good sounds with the D-50, but it works usually best played manually. AFAICR, the midi latency was a bit like a Jerry Lewis movie ( like that war thingie with Dean Martin .. as in slow and with really bad timing.. ) Both Roland and Jerry Lewis got better.
The presets it came with were pretty bad. Trying it out in a music store could be seriously embarrassing. Shockingly, the same presets were exactly what sold the D-50 to anyone else but the serious synth-heads. The D-50 was one of the first Polka-boards that got everything right ( for its intended audience ). Still, the D-50 is a D-50, and it is useable. I reckon it is even collectable these days too. _________________ A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"
You can do some leads on it, but don´t expect too much. I would suggest adding some external analouge effects.
The D-50 was all over the place within weeks after it was available in the shops. It fitted certain styles pretty well at the time. That "clear" digital sound was cool, non-obtrusive semi-acoustic plonking was cool, it had the right presets ( believe it! ) and it was .. new. _________________ A Charity Pantomime in aid of Paranoid Schizophrenics descended into chaos yesterday when someone shouted, "He's behind you!"
A friend did some nice stuff (mostly JMJ sounds) with D-50. It's really capable of doing a LOT more than original presets. Though for a great, lush pads I bought myself a JD-800.
As for the lead/techno sounds I also remember Don Solaris making a trick to open D-50's filter fully. Here's a quote of his post from harmony-central forums.
Quote:
Roland D-50 demo
First about synth. This synth is really a true classic, just like the JD. Last night i noticed this thing can get very near to the famous JX-3P string sound. But thats not all. When filter fully open (that is, using envelope too push it even more up the frequency) you get sound similar to JD. Another thing i found out is that this synth features Vector synthesis - they just complicated it a little bit. You can sweep between upper and lower part, and you can sweep between two partials. Problem is, when sweeping between partials, you must select either upper or lower part - as a result you got vectoring between 3 tones, instead of 4. Well, not bad. Here is a collection of sounds that i programmed in the last few days:
And for those Tekknoheads, this is the birthplace of Supersaw patch! In fact D-50 can make really thick Supersaws. Because on each of 4 saw oscillators, you can apply individual PWM - pulse width modulation. (Now try that on JP-8000...). Here is the most basic example i did, even without using PWM:
D-50 Supersaw (Disclaimer: i do NOT listen or make this kind of music - which is supposed to be called trance. In fact i really hate it . I wrote this for demo purpose only.)
And for those younger, D-50 did some of the most popular sounds in early 90's. Often used by Italian producers such as Gianfranco Bortolotti (he had something like 8 or 9 D-50's). One of these sounds was this famous rich saw sound he used in every dance track. The one and only D-50 Italo Saw. I played this song by memory and programmed this sound in a hurry so probably it aint 100% accurate. The song was written by "Capella" as far as i can remember.
Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 372 Location: Santa Monica, Ca.
Audio files: 2
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 7:12 am Post subject:
Wow! That Don Solaris D-50 demo is something else! It almost sounds like a CS-80 with all those filter sweeps. Those sounds don't have a single trace of those "Chiffy" attack samples used in the factory presets and sound like they use only the on-board saw and square waves, just the stuff that suits me, so I'm still intriqued by the D-50......despite the naysayers He probably used the PG-1000 and no doubt sequenced that demo. Maybe I can contact him and see if he had a latency problem. Thanks for posting that stuff, I appreciate it. I'm looking for some presets that are along these lines, btw.
I didn't get this thing for it to be the center of my synth world, just to use for pads and trying my hand at LA to try to coax some analogish sounds out of. _________________ Apple Mac Pro 2019 3.2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W
96 GB Ram
15.6 Sequoia
Novation SL49, Behringer 2600, Crave, Edge
Mophox4, Nord Lead 2,Modal electronics Argon 8m, Roland System 1, Novation Nova, Nord Micro modular, Korg Radias, Roland d-05, Yamaha A3000 sampler, Novation SL MK2 and Remote Zero controllers, Arturia Beatstep and SparkLE, Korg ER-1, Unosynth
"We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams"
Dymaxion Vehicle Music at www.dymaxionvehicle.com/ Last edited by Gothboy on Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:47 am; edited 1 time in total
My only "commercial" synth is a D50. I like some of the sounds, but most are pretty bad. I found this program called SysExD50 which you can use to upload heaps of sound sets for it from your PC. It comes with 31 banks you can upload. It also has a randomise function which just sends random data through SysEx to create a patch. If you want a copy of it let me know. It's freeware.
Mine has the "Musitronics" multi-timbral expansion board on it, but it doesn't work properly. This is a typical situation for these boards, and I'm thinking about removing it and restoring it back to the original design. I'm just a bit unsure about whether I can without messing it up.
I agree with Stein about smoothing it out with an analogue effect of some sort. I've got mine going through my stereo flanger, and hope to replace that with a stereo DM-2. (When I get around to building it! )
Besides all that, it's also quite a nice master keyboard, as it has aftertouch. (Although I think mine needs adjusting.)
I've never noticed any latency problems.
Keep in touch, and maybe we can help each other to get more out of the 80s! _________________ What makes a space ours, is what we put there, and what we do there.
Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 372 Location: Santa Monica, Ca.
Audio files: 2
Posted: Thu Apr 05, 2007 9:22 am Post subject:
Sounds good! Yes, I'd be interested in trying out that Sysex loader but I think it's no longer shareware. I did a search for it and the site has gone. Please either post a link if you can find it or let me know if I should enable my e-mail for you. There are a few patch editors for PC out there, most of which are iffy betas....was there ever one for Mac?
How do I load these sounds, btw. I know it's via sysex but do I load banks or individual presets? Is it possible to back up my presets with a Sysex dump? I'd like to keep some of the sounds already on there and be able to back up sounds. _________________ Apple Mac Pro 2019 3.2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W
96 GB Ram
15.6 Sequoia
Novation SL49, Behringer 2600, Crave, Edge
Mophox4, Nord Lead 2,Modal electronics Argon 8m, Roland System 1, Novation Nova, Nord Micro modular, Korg Radias, Roland d-05, Yamaha A3000 sampler, Novation SL MK2 and Remote Zero controllers, Arturia Beatstep and SparkLE, Korg ER-1, Unosynth
"We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams"
Try this out,
I haven't used it for a while, so I'm not sure about the functionality. I seem to remember that it was easy to set up though. It can do banks of sounds, as well as individual patches. I'm sure you can backup, restore, and use it for all the preset housekeeping you might need. Only a PC version AFAIK. Have you got Virtual PC for Mac? That should do it, as long as the midi implementation is sorted out properly.
Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 372 Location: Santa Monica, Ca.
Audio files: 2
Posted: Sat Apr 07, 2007 2:07 pm Post subject:
Thanks so much! I'll try it if I can find a cheap PC laptop to run it as I only have Macs right now. I'd like to find a software editor so I can get around having to buy the PG-1000. Not because I don't want one but I can't really afford one. _________________ Apple Mac Pro 2019 3.2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W
96 GB Ram
15.6 Sequoia
Novation SL49, Behringer 2600, Crave, Edge
Mophox4, Nord Lead 2,Modal electronics Argon 8m, Roland System 1, Novation Nova, Nord Micro modular, Korg Radias, Roland d-05, Yamaha A3000 sampler, Novation SL MK2 and Remote Zero controllers, Arturia Beatstep and SparkLE, Korg ER-1, Unosynth
"We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams"
Do a search on ebay for D50 sound banks, there was a guy that was selling CDs with sound banks on them for around 10 bucks, you never know, there might be some useful sounds on them.
Joined: Feb 21, 2006 Posts: 372 Location: Santa Monica, Ca.
Audio files: 2
Posted: Sun Apr 08, 2007 5:23 am Post subject:
ummmm....looking to program my own banks, thank you. I've so far found plenty of free sound banks and as a rule I don't buy presets. What I need is a good program editor. _________________ Apple Mac Pro 2019 3.2 GHz 16-Core Intel Xeon W
96 GB Ram
15.6 Sequoia
Novation SL49, Behringer 2600, Crave, Edge
Mophox4, Nord Lead 2,Modal electronics Argon 8m, Roland System 1, Novation Nova, Nord Micro modular, Korg Radias, Roland d-05, Yamaha A3000 sampler, Novation SL MK2 and Remote Zero controllers, Arturia Beatstep and SparkLE, Korg ER-1, Unosynth
"We are the music makers and we are the dreamers of dreams"
Yeah, I agree, a nice editor could really breathe some new life into my D50. The SysexD50 is good, but I just found out that if it's not registered, you can't save. I tried getting in contact with the author, but the e-mail is long dead.
If only you could get the SysexD50, save & load enabled, with a graphic interface for programming, and boundaries on the random function. I could sit and play with something like that for hours! _________________ What makes a space ours, is what we put there, and what we do there.
Try this out,
I haven't used it for a while, so I'm not sure about the functionality. I seem to remember that it was easy to set up though. It can do banks of sounds, as well as individual patches. I'm sure you can backup, restore, and use it for all the preset housekeeping you might need. Only a PC version AFAIK. Have you got Virtual PC for Mac? That should do it, as long as the midi implementation is sorted out properly.
I know it's an old thread, and I'm sorry to bump it, but I was wondering if anyone had a copy of this program which they could upload for me? I've been looking for it everywhere! It seems like our D-50's have been forgotten
Hey jarrydn,
Has yours got the expansion on it or not?
I've been trying for a while to find out if it's reversible or not. I tried removing the board on mine and shifting the ROM back to the original socket, but it was dead. _________________ What makes a space ours, is what we put there, and what we do there.
It supposedly added another 2 banks of presets and enabled (an 8? part) multi-timbral mode. Mine has never worked. All the standard features still work though. I just figured if I could reverse it, it might help to keep it less "glitchy" and restore it to the factory condition. I'm wondering now though if it actually meant getting rid of the original ROM. Being such an antique, I'd prefer it to be as near as possible to the original. Who knows? Maybe someone will read this and know what to do. _________________ What makes a space ours, is what we put there, and what we do there.
Apparently, at one point, Numan went out and bought 3 * D50s just to get the kind of sound you're talking about. Too bad he was in a bit of creative quagmire at the time.
I'd stick to the way it was released. It seems the expansion was always dodgy even from the start. _________________ What makes a space ours, is what we put there, and what we do there.
Joined: Nov 24, 2004 Posts: 331 Location: Elmo's Mud Wrestling Club
Audio files: 2
Posted: Wed Sep 09, 2009 5:37 pm Post subject:
tixxican wrote:
Why would you even bother?
Hello thread revival!
The D-50 is actually the second synth I ever bought (after the DX27S). I still have it today. The stock presets scream "1980s!" but the synth section is highly programmable, and has IMHO somewhat of an interestingly rich sound. I think its uniquely suited for space and glassy pads, but obviously you can coax other interesting tones out of it.
I put together this demo of some D-50 sounds a while back -- some card sounds as well as some custom patches.
Joined: Nov 24, 2004 Posts: 331 Location: Elmo's Mud Wrestling Club
Audio files: 2
Posted: Fri Sep 11, 2009 4:05 am Post subject:
tixxican wrote:
Demo sounded pretty good. What are they like to program.
Not terrible -- it's a pretty large LCD screen -- but it does involve a lot of button-pushing and menus. I had a PG-1000 for a while, that did make things quite a bit easier.
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He probably used the PG-1000 and no doubt sequenced that demo. Maybe I can contact him and see if he had a latency problem. 
