(c) 2010 by AnalogAudio1

I played theD-50 without any additional effects or eq. All you hear is coming straight out of the D-50.

The Roland D-50 from 1987 is a classic digital synthesizer with great sounds. It is the most successful synth from Roland.

It has a very useful joystick, similar to Sequential Prophet VS or Korg Wavestation. It allows realtime balance of the sound ingredients. It also helps to vary the sounds, so that the sound programs must not sound every time the same.
This is very important, because the D-50 is very hard to program without the programmer PG-1000.

Actually, as a SYNTHESIZER I don't like the D-50 very much, the programming is really a pain. Sound programming on a Korg M1 or even on a DX7 is a pleasure, compared with the D-50. But as a (preset) INSTRUMENT it's great. Some (pad) sounds are simply unbelievable and fantastic - and the joystick helps to bring some variations to the sounds - good reasons to keep it. The rack version D-550 is not really an alternative, since the joystick is missing. It's the same as with the Korg Wavestation and the Wavestation SR. The keyboard version a lot more exciting.

I played the D-50 without any additional effects. The FX came all from the D-50's built in FX processor. The reverbs of the D-50 are bit dull in my opinion. Overall, not a very clean sound like a V-Synth - but that is the character of the D-50. Roland D-50 rules!