Is It Worth It: The Roland D-50 / D-550 - The Best DIGITAL Synth From The 80’s?

Today Zach is taking a look at the Roland D-550 (the rack mount unit of the D-50), which is a very interesting piece of music history. Sandwiched between the two most successful synths of the 1980's, the Yamaha DX7 and the Korg M1, the Roland D-50 existed in a tough spot; however, it's unique and crystalline tones still caught the eyes and ears of artists like Enya and Eric Clapton. So, does it still hold its value in today's market? Take a listen and let us know what you think.

0:00 Intro, History, and Specs
9:19 Demos
33:28 Final Thoughts

__________________________________________________________________

♩ Call toll-free: [phone]

♬ Connect:

[ErwinSchrodinger]

I'm not synthesizer connoisseur. I've recently purchased my first synthesizers (Korg Kronos, Korg Wavestate, & Pioneer AS-1). Till this day, I'm still mesmerized by the Roland D-50. The track that pulled it in, for me, was Eric Clapton's intro to Bad Love.

[LysetteLeePopTilUDrop]

I love your historical and technical presentations, and how you relate a vintage synth’s relevance to today’s environment.

[RayDAider]

A friend had a D-50 when it came out and I was astonished at the sound of it. I finally bought one back in about 2006 and began finding patches online others have made over the years. The Cult of D50 website has the largest collection of them available. There is an old D-50 patch librarian software that must be run on a slow older computer so I have a dedicated 2005 IBM laptop running Win XP to load different custom I tend to shy away from using the presets that were typical of the machine. You know, the Enya sound and other ultra glassy almost cliche'd classics. But there are some great gems to be found that do not exhibit that characteristic sound but you have to look and perhaps audition 1000's of sounds. Valhalla made some really good ones off the top of my head. "Sultry Vox"...Wow...my favorite D-50 preset of all time.

[We.Are.Lockhart]

Yamaha SY77 (not DX7), Roland D-50 and Korg Wavestation (not M1) are my personal trinity for classical digital synthesis.

[iroseland]

interesting, I have a soft spot for the d50 this summer I found a D550 with a stack of memory cards for an amazingly reasonable price. I put a virtualizer 3D behind it for more effects and wow.. it sounds nice. I also, quite recently picked up an M1 as a total vanity purchase. I have very vivid memories of them being the new thing, and being wildly outside of my price range. These days ( thanks to adult strength income ) a really nice used M1 is essentially pocket change. They have been totally worth it.

[SacSynths_Jack_Z]

Agree with all your points on the sound of vintage digital and the limitations of the hardware contributing to the sonic characteristics of the synths from that era. The Kawai K4 immediately comes to mind. I jokingly refer to it as like being able to "hear geometry". However, I'll always have a soft spot for the D-50 too. Great video, keep em' coming!

[cowboyupnc]

I have had my D-50 since 1989. It is like an good old friend when I take a moment to play it. It has such long envelope times that you can create patches that move in and out in a dreamy warm style.

[mastercylinder]

I have all three, bought the DX-7 first, it’s an original brown one, and I probably paid too much, it was the first one I’d ever seen and got very excited. Then a few years later, I bought the D-50, came in the Roland D-50:case, and finally I bought the M1, I wasn’t really looking for one, in my humble, silly opinion, it was less desirable, but one came up for sale in my area, it was posted for a few weeks, I zoomed in on the pictures and it didn’t look beat up like a lot of M1’s you see, so I thought what the hey, as soon as I saw it, I felt some love. It actually has a more stated demeanour, looking like a serious, no frills piece of kit. I got a good price for it, and “Skinny’s” demo on YouTube helped convince, I should have one, you never hear a M1 making those kinds of sounds and it good to know, under its hood, it’s capable of some credible dark synth tones.

[amonstermymother]

Yes. I have one. Linear arithmetic is a perfectly valid form of synthesis.

[garywright]

I have the D50 (keyboard) and find programming not too difficult, even without the programmer. The thing that helps with the D50 over the 550 is the addition of the joystick which doubles as a rotary control when in programming mode. Once you've figured out the architecture of the synth (4 layers, upper and lower, partials and structure) the rest is quite straight forward, Oscillators, envelopes, LFO's and FX etc. Completely different to analogue synth programming of course, which is easy by comparison, but I am a digital synth guy, so am quite familiar with a bit of menu diving. The Roland JV1080 is fairly similar sound structure wise, though not as deep as the D50 and relies more on sampled sounds as sampling memory became cheaper.

[granturismo]

For me, the big turn off of D-50 is, unlike Korg M1, it cannot filter the PCM wave, hence it has to rely on filtered synth wave(PWM) to provide timber brightenss/darkness. Underneath almost every patch, even one that's meant to be digital or real instruments, there's that muted PWM partial, which simply 'contaminates' and defeats the purpose of PCM. Also because of that, a preset patch typically consisted of 4 partials, which means it only takes 8 keys to max out your polyphony. Duh....
Only until M1 that a PCM waveform sounds fine in its own right. And because it does not need extra PWM waveform for body, a patch can be made of just 1 or 2 partials instead of 4, which means less programming needed.

[Lainer]

I had one when they first came out. Best keyboard of its time.

[brianglock]

The D50 is a fun useful and in ways still powerful synth.
Have had the D50 since late 1988 along with several ROM cards. Also programed several sounds without the programmer, a lot of menu diving yes, but workable. Also have the original DX7 since 1986, programed many sounds on it. The two work well with each other.

[suadcokljat]

The biggest issue with D50/550 is awful MIDI lag and jitter. That's why I always sampled all snappy sounds before using in tracks. Other than that it's very cool and unique digital synth. Must have. Cheers! S

[NikKershaw]

7:08 The D-50 had been used massively in lots of Eurodance (1990's) songs as well.

[matthewgaines]

The problem with the D-50 is similar to the DX7. Both are very powerful for their price point but programming is dense for those who aren't willing to do the work. With both, the presets were well exploited and were regarded as overused. Both could do great things beyond the presets if you put in work. Great synthesizers that were victims of the sucess of their presets.

[MelissaAtwell]

My father had one of these, so I got a lot of experience on it as a teenager. There’s a good reason that the popular D-50 / D-550 patches tended toward pads, drones, evolving textures, and new age styles: the trigger timing on the D-50 was pretty laggy! Even on this video, you can hear the slight unevenness when it’s being triggered by the Arturia’s arpeggiator. This lag can also be perceived when playing from a controller. The timing was intermittent, so people tended to shy away from hyper-accurate sequenced parts. (Now that I think about it, perhaps this was a by-product of the virtual analog approach they took? 🤔 Maybe the CPU just couldn’t keep up? 🤷‍♀️). Anyway, certainly don’t want to sound like a Debbie Downer, because the D-50 was also one of the most unique instruments for creating your own patches & textures. If you take the time to dig into the programming, you can be rewarded with some incredible sounds!

[allanfc]

Have had D50 since 1990 and is mystical magical and wonderful ! I agree it’s not that good at doing electric or acoustic pianos or real brass but a synth, toy or ballad piano it can do well also analogue brass and bass it can do well but not so good with real bass . In contrast a JX08 can do piano’s, bass and brass very well - they are both gems ! 😀

[lundsweden]

The Roland D-50 was certainly influential- even on Roland's subsequent synths such as the JD800, JD990 (both were more hifi though, 16 bit and 44.1khz) the legendary JV1080 and its many successors.

I have a Kawai K5000W synth released more than a decade after the D50, and while its a bit different (Additive + PCM), the architecture is quite similar. The idea is you can use up to 4 sources to make your sound. Additive isn't very good on (often noisy) attack portions of the waveform, so you can mix the PCM attack with additive synthesized sustain. But the K5000 series is even more flexible, as you can use PCM for the sustain portion too. The K5000W has more PCM waveforms than the K5000S or K5000R, if you're considering one.

[pinkponyofprey]

I bought a Roland Boutique D-05 just when they started to dry up in the shops. No kudos at all to Roland for only manufacturing a few and then shut the door. Why did I buy it. Because of an experience in a music shop in 1988. Compare the D50 to any other synth at that time and in headphones the others sound ... DEAD! I was hammering away on the D50 and I just knew I had to have one. I loved it to death, literally. True story! :( ... Then DAWs and VSTs happened and eventually I felt the urge to get a D50 again. Long story short to day I'm again is surprised of how meaty, rich, large and earthshaking this thing sound. And yeah, D50/D05 is the same sound unless you look at oscilloscopes or whatever. I prefer to listen and play., DX7? M1? Pffff ... not on my watch haha! I just love the D50 because it's a real instrument! New stuff dpesn't make me want to hammer the keys until the cows come home. That's the difference!