Roland D-50: The Definitive Sound Design Synthesis Demo

Published on Sep 18, 2017 Cro w

"Had to be done... couldn't stand having this sonic wonder be represented by the plethora of mostly atrocious demos on YouTube.

So... here's an hour of cosmic euphoria from the stellar D-50.

To be ABSOLUTELY CLEAR - this is ONE patch at a time. NO OVERDUBS/MULTI-TRACKS WHATSOEVER. This is all from the STOCK PCM ROM. I did not "burn" a special ROM or whatever, nor am I aware that's a possibility - if it is, I'd sure like to know about it!!! This is the potential lurking within the D50. The factory presets and "signature" sounds that shame the real truth of the D50 are completely repulsive in my opinion.... seriously, fuck Fantasia.... and Native Dance?!?!? Yikes.
99.9999% of the transient waves in the D50's ROM are absolutely useless, and not one is used in my patches. The otherworldly sound of the D50 come from the aspects I have never been able to come remotely close in replicating; they are 1) the manner in which the pitch envelopes warp and sonically tear the PCM waves.... the artifacts and Nyquist frequencies that appear like audio phantasms from a terrifying heaven. 2) The experimental synthesis concept that wouldn't appear again for years after the D-50, and it revolutionized everything to this day - the first time Virtual Analog was implemented in a poly synth. The D-50 generates square and saw waves. These get combined, layered, etc. with the PCM waves in the partials of the patch. Thats's it... just 2 waveforms compose the oscillator section of the VA part. And very primitively. But the metaphysical witchcraft of the D50's "pulse width modulation" is magic; I don't mean that allegorically - I'm convinced there's like eye-of-newt or some shit in this thing. 3) The filters... come on... alien technology for sure. Nothing is as weird and awesome as those. I personally feel that there is NOTHING about the D-50 that sounds remotely "analog." And that's another excellent attribute of it, because it sounds all its own and still is huge, spacious and completely warm. The distortion in the signal path is the perfect level of saturation. Things just blend and smear absolutely right. 4)The EFFECTS. Not at all because they sound anywhere near what they claim to be, or are excellent in accuracy, because they are not. It's because they are essentially spatial, wave and frequency modifiers that wouldn't be seen in synth context until many years down the road as "imaging, spatial exciters, air, metalizer, etc." The reverbs are not typical of what you would expect from something called 'reverb.' They are the space in which dark matter lays.... so get a Roland Boutique D-50 the minute that are available, and Roland - you can forward royalties to my PayPal account. Thanks."