Bad Gear - The Legendary D-50

Become a Patron and get access to music clips from the show, additional content, Bad Gear samples and even more AudioPilz madness

These links support the channel regardless of what your Bad Gear G.A.S. commands you to buy (at no additional cost for you):

You liked the finale visuals? Definitely check out "Buzz Box" from 1985 by David Daniels

Bad Gear - The Legendary D-50
The Legendary D-50
Roland
Roland D-50
Roland D50
D-50
High End Vintage CHEESE
High End
Vintage

Welcome to Bad Gear, the show about the world’s most-hated audio tools. Every now and then this show needs some blasphemy, a little slap in the face of iconic music history milestones and one of these “he’s obviously trolling” moments true Bad Gear fans crave at least once a year.

Today we are going to talk about the legendary D-50. This LA synth and Roland’s answer to the Yamaha DX7 not only had a huge impact on the sound aesthetics of the late 80s, it is also still relevant for Enya Orinoco Flow Covers, creating high end General Midi Kontakt Libraries, channeling your Reagan Era soap opera PTSD AND I might have a point here…

Chapters:
00:00 Intro tune
01:02 Overview Roland D-50
01:11 WTF is Linear Arithmetic Synthesis ???
01:57 Virtual Analog before we called it that way
02:32 Splits and other Multitimbral Pleasures
02:48 Effects (Reverb, Chorus, Chase)
03:05 Idiosyncrasies of an 80s Synth
03:24 The Joystick
03:40 Controllers, Flagship Synth Features
04:04 Presets ( Fantasia , Pizzagogo , Soundtrack )
04:23 What Else??? (Pricing, Thanks,...)
04:46 Hate Screen
05:12 Jam 1 ( LoFi Beats )
06:03 Jam 2 ( Elektro )
07:10 Finale ( Epic Techno )
07:40 Verdict

[AudioPilz]

Support the channel (no additional cost for you):

[Doctormix]

Hahaha!!! Was that A.I. me?! Ohhh I became you! Or you became me? Greetings my man!!! Keep up the amazing work!!! 🕺🕺🕺

[Nik.leonard]

The Korg M1 is the only 80's/90's cheese generator missing in bad gear at this point. Go Florian!

[travellogger]

I pulled my d50 a few months ago from the closet. Dust it off, and i was planning to use it for one sound, but I ended up putting together a couple of complete tracks. It still has the juice.

[TonySmith]

You crossed the line Pilz. The D-50 saved a group a orphans from a burning Moog factory back in 89'. Better Gear.

[himalayanvoices]

I have a D-50 next to me, and it's totally satisfying for me. As you point out, morons without a creative bone in their body think that it's only good for it's presets. Thinking that dance music is the ONLY style of music, they're too lazy to think or program using the incredibly deep sound engine for anything but kicks and basses. Melodies, harmony, and complex timbres are where this synth shines brightly. Deep bass, a sweet filter, and glistening high frequencies make this a gem. The D-05 gets close, but sounds too "hi-fi" to really be the same. Love mine, and I'll never get rid of it!

[RaymondCastile]

The D-50 was my first serious synth and the first bought with my own money. I worked a part time job in college and saved up just enough to buy one new in 89/90. I bought a stack of third party patch sheets and programmed them in myself. I still have my D-50 and it’s still in great shape. It still sounds unique and amazing.

[sonicgr]

Impossible not to play "Orinoco flow" when in front of one!

[clappingjazzhands]

I still have my D-50 with a dozen sound cards and the PG-1000. Love this synth.

[Sandelec-gmcl]

I love my D-05..
a D50 with poly sequencer..
and 14 banks of 64 patches each one..😍

[rygelxv]

Aaah, Pizzagogo... i really loved the "pizza" in the Soundtracker Sample Library for the Amiga. It was sampled, like a few iconic samples from that disk, from the D-50. Very cool that you did review it!

[groovedealerfeaturing-ashl]

The D-50 blew everyone away back when it was released. We'd NEVER heard anything like it before!
It was sort of the synth version of 'The Matrix' when it came out in that respect.... yeah it's been done to death now, but those of us old enough to remember have pretty fond memories of it.
I have a D-05 now which is about 99% right. Digital Native Dance lacks the weight of the real thing though.
I LOVE my D-05 though and yeah some of those old 'classic' sounds still sound as great today as they did back then.

[guidoseifert]

Shot a D50 for 200€ some months ago. Everything works (Aftertouch!), great condition, only two keys broken, easy fix by 12 bucks. Now searching for M1 and DX7 (IID) for the 80s classic stack. Uli's Linn is on the way.

[LEKProductions]

If you are familiar with the early '90s Rave scene, you may remember a track by T99 called 'Anasthasia', the huge dark riff sound is from the D-50, and fairly easy to coax out of it (and variants of) if you know what you're doing. Possibly one of the most iconic rave stabs of all time. Thank you D-50!

[mrz]

Yep, the D-50 is the giant upon whose shoulders all subsequent Roland synths stand. That will pretty much do everything you need, whether you need it or not!

[KingTubby-rjbn]

The ' Soundtrack ' preset will always be one of my favourites. . Great channel mate . HNY

[roland]

"The holy trinity of analog" I spilled my beer. 😂

[lo-firobotboy]

The D-50 is popular enough that there are dozens of custom-made preset patch sets awailable. Several years ago I downloaded one package that had something like 80 different banks with some very cool contemporary-sounding patches. It's a beautiful instrument, even today.

[nataliealliepage]

D-50 is comfort food for my brain. I bought the lifetime key for the RC VST. That way, I can have the unit that matters most to me, that has sounds I won't find in my Arturia plugins or Roland Workstation (at least not with all the parameters for the latter).... and get more for life than I would have ever gotten for a year.

That soundtrack patch is so beautiful. It's actually one of the few fully VA patches onboard, and has so many subtle details lost on the sampled versions you'll find on later Roland units.

D-50 is also the only digital Roland synth you can't find soundfonts of. It seems like Roland and/or Spectrasonics/Eric Persing is stricter about enforcing the copyright.

And contrary to popular belief, it's not just a preset

I will go straight for the first guy to buy me a gently used D-50 lol.

[vbarr]

As teenager I spent 2 summers working to buy my D-50 and I still have and love it. Everything you said is, as always, so true ! Roland kept the design (partials, structures etc.) with some improvements but the "VA" bit is gone, which is a bit of a shame : the "S" oscillators produce the full wave, there are no filters per say which is why PCMs can't be filtered. This it really contributed to the sound color or the D-50 That's why the JV/XV/FA don't sound the same. Lots of dynamics but a bit of background noise and aliasing (but less than other D-series) are also typical.The intro tune with the D-50 sounded reall well. Thanks for the video!