MIDICraft's MIDINET CD-ROM/MIDICraft's MIDINET CD-ROM.iso/SYNTHS/INFO/ROLAND/ROLAND.TXT

Internet Message Format | 1997-01-19 | 12KB

From [e-mail] Sat Apr  9 22:45:17 1994
Date: 7 Apr 1994 04:07:39 GMT
From: Nicholas Velharticky <[e-mail]>
Newsgroups: rec.music.makers.synth
Subject: Info for Synth FAQ (Roland Alpha Junos, D's, and U's)

As I recall, someone was looking for information to include in a Synth
FAQ.  Here's my contribution (which is amenable to correction if
anybody finds something in error).  Sorry that the two reviews aren't
in the same format.

The Alpha Juno review was one I originally sent to a Synth FAQ
compiled by Clarence Din; perhaps he still has a copy of that FAQ that
he'd want to post to the group for revision/updating or handing it off
to whoever recently wanted to compile a FAQ.  I might still have a
copy, which I'd be happy to post if Clarence doesn't want to or
doesn't mind.

This information is freely copiable, in case the person who maintains
the Roland Product list wants to incorporate it into that document,
etc.



Here's what I know about the D- and U-series keyboards.  No flames,
please!  I owned a D-20, and currently own a U-20, and I am amenable
to correction about them.

D-50/D-550:
-----------

This was the first Linear Arithmetic synthesizer by Roland.  It allowed
you to combine synthesized waveforms with sampled attack transients and
looped samples of many acoustic instruments, which was an economical way
to simulate many "real" instruments without having a lot of sample memory
onboard.  The D-50 was bi-timbral, I believe, so you could layer or split
two sounds, although there was a company that made a modification to
increase the multi-timbrality of the D-50.  The keyboard was velocity-
sensitive and aftertouch-sensitive (channel aftertouch), and the
built-in reverbs, chorus, and eq sounded nice.  It was 32-note polyphonic,
and the polyphony decreased, depending on how many partials were used in
a sound.  Using the maximum number of partials per sound, the polyphony was
8-note.  Voice allocation was last-note piority.  It had 64 presets in
memory, and 128 waves in ROM.  The samples were 16-bit, and it had
20-bit DAC's.  The D-50 sported a 5-octave keyboard.  The D-550 was the rack
mount version.


D-5/D-10/D-20/D-110 :
---------------------

These were the first multi-timbral D-series synths that could do many
instruments at once.  The D-20 had an onboard sequencer (16,000 note
capacity), a 3.5" double density disk drive, a 9-track sequencer
(including drum track), 128 preset tones, 64 rhythm tones, and 64 user-
programmable tones.  The sequencer was linear (i.e., no cut and paste or
repeat options) with quantizing capability, overdub capability, and
punch-in/punch-out capability.  The drum track was composed of a string
of one-measure drum patterns, and track 8 could be used for overdubs on the
rhythm track.  I think there were 64 drum patterns stored in the
D-20, half of which were preset, and half of which were user-programmable.
User-programmed drum patterns, sounds, and/or sequences could be saved and
loaded from disk.

The D-10 was almost the same as the D-20, except that it didn't have a
sequencer or a disk drive.  It had a drum machine, though, as did the
D-20, and you could play along with it.  The D-10 was, presumably, for
those people who already had a sequencer, and just needed a multi-timbral
synth to be the sound source.

The D-110 was the rack mount version of the D-10.  It had stereo mix
outputs, plus 6 extra outputs, I think, so more of its instruments could
be processed independently.  The D-20, D-10, and D-5 had only stereo
outputs.  Also, the D-110 did not have a drum machine built-in, as the
D-10 did.

All of the synths were 32-note polyphonic, theoretically, but practically,
any decent sound (except a drum sound) would use at least two partials,
probably three, and possibly four.  This cuts one's effective polyphony to
somewhere between 8 and 16 notes.  The built-in reverb was adequate, but
not so good as the D-50's, and none of them had built-in chorus.  Although
these synths did have a "performance" mode (layered and split sounds for
performance, as distinct from 8 part multi-timbral setups for sequencing).
they were not so much performance-oriented as the D-50, which had more
real-time controls, such as a joystick for modifying volumes and balances
between tones, portamento, and chase-play buttons.  The D-10 and D-20 had
velocity-sensitive keyboards, but were not aftertouch sensitive.  They could
respond to aftertouch via MIDI.  The D-20, D-10, and D-5 were 5-octave
synths with 196 tones onboard (64 of them programmable), 128 RAM
combis, 128 ROM timbres, and 256 waves in ROM.

The sounds on the D-10/D-20/D-110 were not as "clean, crisp, and sparkly"
as those on the D-50:  not so many bits as the D-50's sounds, and
some sample aliasing in the higher registers.  12-bit samples and
12-bit DAC's, actually.  But they sounded pretty good, and I can attest
first-hand that limitations and drawbacks are not so apparent in a good mix
as when the sounds are played on their own.  My mixes sounded fine, the D-50
comparisons notwithstanding.  The main worry I had was designing my sounds
and playing sparingly, so that I could get the fullest mixes possible without
running out of notes.  It can be done, though.  One just has to resist using
many sounds with 4 partials, or playing monstrous two-handed piano parts
legato, with lots of sustain pedal.  The drum machine was the best feature of
the D-20, I thought.  Some great sounds, especially with some third party drum
sounds that I got.  But the internal piano samples leave a lot to be desired.

The D-5 came out later, and seemed to be a stripped down version of the D-10:
no drum machine, or effects; just multi-timbrality and a bunch of sounds.
Velocity-sensitive keys.  The sounds from the D-5 work with the D-20 (in
fact, I greatly enjoyed getting the E-X-piano from the D-5's presets, as
well as the Tapped EP.


U-110:
------

This rack mount came out around the time of the D-110, or shortly thereafter,
and it was pretty impressive at the time.  128 onboard sampled instruments,
not just sampled attack transients combined with loops, but whole samples.
Roland was able to fit that many samples onboard by using their proprietary
RS-PCM technology (Resynthesized PCM).  They would sample a sound via pulse-
code modulation and then resynthesize it (using differential interpolation)
and store that resynthesized sound (which was virtually identical to the
original PCM sample, except that it took up a lot less memory) in the ROM on
the U-110.  RS-PCM allowed them to put many highly realistic sounds onboard
while keeping the unit a reasonable price.  There are 3 megabytes of samples
onboard.

The U-110 was 31-note polyphonic, had 4 PCM card slots, and had 4 or 6 outputs,
I think.  The big complaint about the unit was that it was noisy --
a bit too noisy to make it the sample-playback wonder of the year.


U-20/U-220/Rhodes M-660/Rhodes M-760:
---------------------------------------

The U-20/U-220 was the next generation of U-instruments, and it was
QUIET.  There was nothing wrong with the original sample data, since
the same PCM cards (SN-U110-01 through SN-U110-15, now) played back on
the U-20 with no unseemly background noise.  The U-20/U-220 were the
refinement that the U-110 needed to be a strong contender for studio work,
where background noise is exposed in the septic, squeaky-clean studio
surroundings.  The U-220, a rack mount, only had two PCM card slots though
(as did the U-20), and the polyphony was 30-note instead of 31-note.
The Rhodes keyboards were clones of the U-20, with a slightly more
understandable user interface.  The Rhodes MK-660 was 61-key, like the
U-20, and the MK-760 was 76-key.  The keyboards were velocity- and
channel-aftertouch-sensitive.

There were 128 preset tones onboard, some of which used two tones in a
velocity-mix combination, which cut the polyphony in half when using those
sounds exclusively, such as the very nice acoustic piano tone in preset
sound patch A-11 (which is the Acoustic Piano 2 tone).

The sounds were good (the original samples were, variously, 8-bit,
12-bit, and 16-bit, with 16-bit DAC's -- and they can get much better
dynamic range than the bit resolution would indicate, thanks to resynthesis
and Differential Interpolation), but here are a few of my gripes:

1.  It's too slow in dense MIDI passages.  True, it does tend to chug
    in dense MIDI passages, especially when you are layering multiple
    timbres on the same MIDI channel, but that problem is somewhat
    alleviated in later ROM versions, at least in the U-20.  Keyboard
    magazine recommends that you get at least the 3.1 ROM upgrade, which
    is a significant improvement in MIDI timing response over the earlier
    ROM versions.  I have 3.03, which is the latest ROM version, I think.
    Someone at Roland Canada told me that the U-220's latest ROM is still
    1.16 or something, but I could be misremembering.

2.  The programming interface SUCKS.  Yes, it true, the user interface is
    perhaps the worst that Roland has ever come up with (I look at the JV-80
    and wonder why Roland couldn't have come up with those front panel ideas
    sooner).  Wading through the many menus and submenus is a chore, as is
    trying to remember or figure out which menu the function you're looking
    for is in.  Buy an editor/librarian (any editor/librarian!).

3.  There are no filters (much less, resonant filters) on the sounds.
    Filters would really make the PCM sounds respond to velocity well,
    and allow for more flexible programming of the keyboards.

4.  No third party PCM cards.  Roland has a monopoly on the samples
    for the U-series.  The third party sound cards that are available
    (from Sound Source, et al.), contain only sound patch parameters;
    if you want new PCM samples, you have to buy a card from Roland ($60-
    $70).  There are 15 of them, but two of them are built-in to the
    U-20 (cards 8 and 9, I think), so you would only get them if you
    had a D-70, MV-30, or a U-110, I think. (BTW, Americal Music
    Supply was recently selling the SN-U110 PCM cards for the U-20 for
    only $25.00, but there was a limited supply of them, no April
    Fool's Joke!  Seriously! -- Nick 4/1/94.)


The way to check the ROM version on a U-20 is to put the keyboard into ROM
Play mode, then hold down the JUMP and MARK buttons, and press ENTER.  This
enters the test mode, which should display the current ROM version.  To get
out of this mode, hold down JUMP and MARK, and press EXIT.  You probably
won't want to do anything else in test mode, unless you know what
you're doing.

The U-20 and its kind have chord memory and an arpeggiator for the curious;
the chords can be transmitted over MIDI, but not the arpeggiator's notes.
:'(


D-70 (U-50)/Studio M (MV-30):
-----------------------------

We hear that the D-70 was originally going to be called a U-50 by Roland,
thanks to a bit of ingenuity, curiosity, and sticker-peeling by some D-70
owners out there (most notably, Nick Rothwell), but they decided to call
it a D-something because it would probably sell more that way.  The D-70
looks like a U-20 with an extra 15 keys, and some resonant filters slapped
on.  But before some D-70 owners protest:  the D-70 does have a much more
extensive synthesis engine than the U-20.  More parameters of the sound are
more finely editable than on the U-20.  The D-70 reads U-20 sound cards, as
well as its own special cards, and it does not read any D-50, D-20, or
D-lower cards.  So it's really a U-series keyboard in disguise, with a
few more editable parameters.  It is 30-note polyphonic, 6-part multi-
timbral, including the drum part (as distinct from the U-20 and ilk,
which is 7-part multi-timbral, including the drum part), and velocity- and
channel-aftertouch-sensitive.

The Studio M (MV-30) is a keyboardless work station with the same synthesis
engine as the D-70.  It reads U-20 cards and D-70 cards, and has a built-in
sequencer with recordable fader movements for mixing down.  It also does
some form of tape sync, which was pretty impressive in the demo I saw a few
years ago.  3.5" disk drive.


--
Nick Velharticky        |    "Not only do I deny the allegation,
[e-mail]    |     but I also deny the allegator."
                |        -- The Rev. Jesse Jackson